AIBU to think workplace collections are getting excessive?

That doesn't work in the public sector or in the Voluntary Sector though.

No collection should tell you how much to put in. Birthday's seem unnecessary to me. If the person is my friend I'd buy them a card or a coffee etc but that's up to me. Retirement and leaving I would contribute but what I could afford and depending how well I knew the person leaving.

Manager's birthday? Or indeed any team member's birthday? Unreasonable.

Does anyone even get a present they like? Isn’t it like random Christmas presents from someone you don’t know very well and who doesn’t know you? Something either so generic it’s blah, or something so niche it’s actually wrong - is it really a good use of money?

What about a large card with enough room for people to sign it and put ‘good luck’ or whatever, plus a few people saying (on the day) happy birthday/sorry you’re leaving/good luck with the new baby and here’s a cup of tea I made you and two biscuits - isn’t that more personal and meaningful?

Edited to say - my last day anywhere would feel much more personal with a few people popping to say ‘it’s been lovely working with you, where is your next job? What are your retirement plans? What are you going to study at college?’

A generic posh bubbly set or pen and posh notebook set or plant that you have already - just a bit meh. And someone has to spend quite a bit of time sorting it, doing the collection, buying something, people (very justifiably) saying ‘well I’m not giving because you forgot my 50th’ and then the inevitable discussion about how the whole thing can go smoother next time.

I’ve had fantastic presents from a temporary contract (3 months) and seen people (in other jobs) receive nothing after five years while others at the same job got presents for sneezing. The unfairness of it all is what riles me I think.

To be honest I manage a large team and I agree it’s gotten out of hand.
In the past 2 months we’ve had 3 collections and I feel awful asking.
But we’ve started something and I’m not sure how to stop.
Also as I manage the team I end up topping up do putting in extra this past 2 months it’s cost me £60.
Im thoroughly fed up of it.
Birthdays, babies, leavers, weddings it’s never ending !

I recently returned to work where I had been a manager. I used to pay for a Christmas lunch for all my staff. (Single, high mortgage and average wage). Never received and never expected a gift myself. Couldn't believe when in my new post one of the staff asked for £10 towards a Christmas present for the manager!! Apparently they do it every year. What the absolute ... ? I paid as felt I had to but when did lower paid staff give money towards a managers present. I wouldn't have minded but she's a really awful manager as well 🤣

We do baby, leaver, retirement but it’s all online and the collections get to £50ish so most people aren’t putting in. I assume people do for the people they know better and don’t for the others. Yours sounds excessive and being basically compulsory is wrong.

I agree. It’s become insane. Leavers pregnancies and weddings. We also have the option of signing a virtual card which is nice. The only two times I gave money was when my boss left (£100) and a favourite colleague left (£50).

I agree it’s best not to do it. The worst is when no one organises it so it ends up being random who gets a present. A person might get a nice present after being there for 6 months but someone leaving after 6 years gets nothing - it wouldn’t be an issue but you can make people feel bad if they’re aware of these differences and they take it personal even though it’s not intentional.

Our team just do significant events like births or serious illness or special birthdays. I avoided telling people it was my 40th though as didn’t want a fuss. It’s not been that frequent.
Originally it was everyone’s birthday but then the team grew and it became ridiculous
so we thankfully stopped it.

I'm amazed anyone's putting any cash into all your collections. In my workplace everyone says they don't carry cash anymore and the envelope comes back empty.

*no clarity

I've opted out of all this as there was something every week, or even twice a week! And while everyone has a birthday, only some people's birthdays were celebrated/ collected for.
And it was always to transfer money into the collector's personal account with now clarity on how much was collected and how much the gift was. No transparency.

Also just an irritating extra task and costly when it all adds up.

I expect I am slagged off about my lack of participation but I am too busy and tired to care!

I’m 50 in a few weeks and not telling anyone I work with as I don’t want anyone organising a collection for me. I contribute to pretty much every collection though.

The thing that stresses me the most is when somebody hands you the card and collection and you've then got to find some other person to pass it on to.

Normally 99% of the other people on the list have already signed it and the person you need to return it to doesn't work Thursday afternoons. So then I am stuck with a card and envelope full of cash I don't know what to do with.

It can easily waste 20 minutes of my day!

Org rule: only zero birthdays and major life events like wedding, baby, retirement.

When I ran a department I eventually asked my manager to arrange for funding for leaving presents. It was particularly hard to raise money for that as people realised that they'd never see them again and didn't want to bother. I previously deliberately didn't collect for one woman who'd gone on maternity leave before actually doing any work, and then gone off again within three months of coming back. We didn't have many weddings or babies, so not much else to collect for, though we did the odd big birthday or event. It was pretty unusual for somebody to give as much as £5, and there is very little you can get for a collection when you have less than £100, but the bosses agreed to give us £100 whenever somebody left.

Having put £££ into collections since I started work, no one bothered to do one for me for my 50th birthday so I’m never contributing again. To anything.

You can't extrapolate from the fact your workplace collections feel unreasonable to you that all workplace collections are excessive.

I have to say, looking at your list that it seems just very unfortunate that you've had 3 people leave, a new baby and a wedding all at the same time. That has to be highly unusual in a team of just 15.

The only one that could be unreasonable is the birthday.
Where I worked, people got some flowers for a 'zero' birthday, but that came out of the 'collections fund' we all put into once a year, so there wasn't the faff of collecting, or people only needing to put a couple of pounds in for those occasions.
Nonsense to mark everyone's birthdays each year though.

Urgh. YANBU

At my workplace, myself and another colleague opted out of this stuff. Got fed up of it. And now we don’t do any whip rounds for things like birthdays. Only for people when they’re leaving or very specific special occasions/circumstances.

Not to mention, that the amount you could put in was optional. So some colleagues would get more given to them than others for their birthday gifts. I got a bit fed up of seeing a couple of the same colleagues always getting great gifts worth £70+, compared to the £20 voucher I would get.

It really is your choice. It’s not much of a team spirit, but it depends how you view your work colleagues. Perhaps if any are more important to you, it would be nice to put money in for them. But it really is your choice, your values and I would respect you for that.

I dont mind too much the ones for new babies, weddings and leavers. Our department PA takes charge these days and is really quite astute at circulating the request only to people who have worked directly with the person. Our department covers teams at different sites so for example I'm in London but have two direct reports in Liverpool but some others in my London team won't know those people from Adam!

In the past it has not been so carefully organised. I found it quite irritating to be asked to contribute to collections for Equity Partners who earn 4-5 times as much as us minions. The other niggle was the "big birthday" collections. I really don't think people need a present from their colleagues for turning 30, 40, 50 etc. But worst of all these seemed very inconsistent. I had my 30th a month after someone else's. They were thrown a lunchtime surprise party in the boardroom with champagne and a card and gift. Mine came round - fuck all. The birthday ones and EP ones seem to have died a death now thank god. One of our department EPs retired recently and he took us all out to dinner and was insistent that no contribution or collection was required. We all signed a card and had a jolly good evening. That's how it should be.

The latest thing that has crept in is clients asking us to sponsor them for raising charity money for doing a marathon, mountain climb etc. I've done 2 this year but I don't really feel it is my place to spend personal money on a work client. Our manager kept sending us the Linked In page and saying have you done it yet. I suggested that perhaps one larger donation from the firm itself would be more appropriate but was ticked off for my "attitude".

My current workplace doesn't do collections although we do run a few events during the year for charity and I'm happy to contribute to those. However, I'm 5 years off a big birthday, no children and no plans for them, been married for over 20 years, nowhere near retirement and no plans to move house for 15 years. No way would I put into collections when I know damn well that there won't be any collections for me for a very long time. Collections should be banned at workplaces.

"Sorry, no" is a very useful two-word phrase that so many people are terrified of using.

Birthday collections aswell

Endless isnt it. Daughters sports team. One travelling, a wedding, flowers for funeral, one had sports injury and goes on and on. She got nothing for her 18th so she mutes chat now. I have it in work we do school bus 5 us. They wanted include drivers i said no. Im not get into it. Its got out control now