AIBU to think workplace collections are getting excessive?

I never donate anymore.

We have 30 people in our team - It falls to the line manager to organise a collection so some people have line managers who have calendar remonders for birthdays amd anniversaries and do a collection for everything and a few colleagues managed by the 2 male managers get fuck all as they don't bother unless someone tells them/ does it for them!

We would do baby, leaver, retirement, wedding and big birthdays for everyone - no special treatment for managers. We did all birthdays until this year but it was getting a bit silly.

We're a small team of 13 but have had 5 big birthdays, a wedding and 2 babies in the last 12 months which is quite unusual.

I have decided to be selective about who I contribute to and for those people (who are the colleagues that I genuinely like) I’m happy to put in more rather than put in a smaller amount of money to everyone’s collections.

We had a couple of collections recently for colleagues that left, both of which were difficult to work with so nothing from me!

Haha I’ve been responsible for organising 3 collections since April! 21st birthday, wedding and 60th birthday and I’ve felt so guilty asking! There’s at least another 2 upcoming before the end of term! I generally just suck it up and stick a fiver in.

Workplace collections are awful. Over the years, I have given to birthdays, leaving, illnesses, and death.
But it got silly when there was a huge collection organised for a supervisor who tripped and fell when running for a bus... and no collection at all for another colleague who was mugged and put in hospital.

I don’t do it. I worked somewhere where the manager has a birthday, engagement, wedding, house move, another birthday, whereas some of the staff (who also had birthdays) got nothing. Fuck that shit. Just tell them you’re trying not to topple over into bankruptcy or something. This comes under the ‘five year rule’ - in five years you won’t be in touch with any of them.

I haven't done it for years, I was harrassed by colleagues in a team once when they knew I didn't participate in the birthday club and decided to make a song and dance about it rather than just keeping quiet and respectful.

As one of the managers I always put in £10. Yes i’m on more money than all of them, but i’m a single income household and have a big mortgage. There’s always someone who is sick / recovering from surgery, new baby, deaths, big bdays. It is a bit much, and I feel for colleagues who genuinely can’t afford it. For me, I don’t go without but when there’s a few in one month it does add up.