to refuse to sponsor any more charity events/put in for collections etc at work?

[ThisIsNotMyLife]

Every other day I swear, there is an email sent round about some sponsered charity wankathon or lets beat wankery or lets stamp out wankery and all require about £2 from me.

There also seems to be dozens of bloody collections of birthdays/weddings/enagements/retirements/leaving parties (going on a month long holiday collection last week!)

Am I a terrible person for refusing to get involved with any of it anymore? I don't even tell people at work when it's my birthday as I can't stand all the wank that goes with it.

YANBU. I work in a massive office and there is always something like this going on but collections are just passed round the desks in a big brown envelope and if you don't want to put something in/write in the card you just pass it on. I like that.

"Going on a month long holiday collection" - what?! I would be expecting a postcard and a bit of rock from them :o

I was dumstruck at that one. It's always the same people piling on the emotional blackmail organising them. I'm on strike now.

I thought my place was bad. A going on holiday collection? WTF?. YANBU.

i always say i have left my purse at home/in the car/on the bus, i will catch you later

works for me :)

I always make sure I am on leave on my birthday.

I hate the thought of receiving a present from colleagues who feel obliged to put in an envelope.

I will probably go out for a drink with those colleagues who I am closer to.

YANBU i have recently started working for a very 'corporate' company. The office is large and open plan so every day is someones birthday, wedding etc. The company have also a proud policy of 'corporate responsibility' which roughly translates as they designate an amount for each dept and WE have to raise it and they match it! They then get kudos for giving something back! BUT IT"S THE EMPLOYEES WHO PAY.

So they have nominated my team (with no consultation) to raise 6k (in our own time and obv most of the sponsorship comes from family and colleagues) this financial year.

At xmas they do a big thing about donating food to the homeless. But what this consists of is us being told to bring in food and then a local camera crew/paper does a story on how generous the COMPANY is.

They are just basically asking for part of our salary back and i really resent it.

Every friday is £1 for dress down day (or £2 if you don't!!). Last week we HAD to buy a marie curie daffodil for £2. We were told by the VP's PA that purchase was compulsory.

Rant rant foam froth...deep breath...sigh

Spuddy that really sucks

The self promoting wankers. That would really get my goat too.

Froth away!

Your place sounds like ours Spuddybean.

Dress down week every day this week ( started a thread about it) as stunned that was expected to pay £2 if I chose to wear my normal work clothes.
Work gives itself huge pat on back for raising money for charity and to be fair it is a very worthwhile cause.

Meanwhile pay frozen this year as am at top of payband (although strangely appear to be doing work of next payband with no recognition).

I only put in now if I genuinely like the person, there are quite a few people I like and respect so I am glad I have the opportunity to contribute for them. For those I don't want to contribute to I will pass on the envelope and score through my name to show it has been my way.

The thing is rookie i don't care how worthwhile the cause is. We allocate a certain amount of our wages to charities close to our hearts and that is what we have budgeted for. I cannot afford more and am loath to justify myself to people thinking i am mean.

Birthdays fair enough, i just put in if i want, but if you say no to charity then you look like a bastard and it is all noted down that 'you aren't a team player' etc.

One of our parents left an envelope on the table in the staff room because her dd was doing some charitable thing and she needed sponsors. I was in there when she came in to check it later on that day and her comment was 'Typical! No-one's put anything in'.

Maybe it was a) because our own children are doing the exact same event and b) because it would open the floodgates for the other 249 pupils to do the same once word got around!

There's enough envelopes from the members of staff to politely ignore, let alone from outsiders!

Oh I have just remembered another annoying charity related thing they did this week.

Prize draw to win an i-pad fair enough went to buy a ticket, they were £5.00 each !!!! Fair enough for the contractors who earn a great daily rate, but I just don't want to spend that much on a prize draw.

I felt really mean because I baulked and went "How much?" when they told me how much the tickets were, but still didn't buy one.

YANBU

I find collection are very much 'if your face fits' anyway. I was on a mum's club board on another parenting site for several years and lots of collections were done but always for the same few people; a collection for someone who had lost lots of weight to enable her to buy new clothes. A collection for same person when she had some surgery to remove excess skin. A huge bunch of flowers for a woman who claimed to have been admitted to a private psychiatric hospital but was later found to be lying. Driving lessons for someone else. Ridiculous. I stopped donating after a couple of collections as I think they're silly.

And as for being asked to sponsor people whilst they do a trek round China/Abseiling in Australia/sponsored bike ride in the USA, don't even get me started!

We had one collection done for a man who'd been here a week and was leaving- only one person put any in and then the envelope was lost. Was quite sad really.

We had another leaving pressie collection for a girl I could not stand. For some reason everybody loved her. I avoided it (discreetly) and one woman has since then decided that she 'doesn't get on with me'. Silly moo.

We also have a man who insists on asking every one on our team if they want a cuppa everytime he makes himself one. Sounds fine but there are twenty-five of us and he gives you evil looks if you don't do the same. Imagine if we all did that, all day? I drink on average three cups a day. Most people have around two...... That could spiral out of control into some kind of monty-python sketch. I have no wish to be offered tea fifty times a day. Nor do I want to say 'Would you like a cup of tea? seventy-five times a day.

I hate office politics, why can't people just grown the fuck up?

oh this don't start me on the tea etiquette!!

Ooh the tea run - that's another annoyance.

A "round" of tea in our office includes

• black coffee, no sugar
• white coffee, one sugar
• regular tea with skimmed milk
• regular tea with semi skimmed milk
• black tea with a dash of cold water
• ginger tea - leave the tea bag in
• jasmine & something else tea - take the tea bag out

and so on....

It's like working in a cocktail bar

One of the pleasures of working from home...

I can sponsor myself to do all sorts of wankery

I can host my own tossport candle party and no one will come..hurrah

I can drop a Betterwank catalogue on my own desk and NOT BUY any handy storage solutions or wanky cleaning stuff

On my birthday I can just sit back and revel in the silence and not have a mug saying "keep calm and carry on" and some Morrisons chocolates given to me, grudgingly, by the rest of my work mates.

I can put a brown envelope full of coppers on my own desk and write "just f*ck off" on it in big red letters

I can do my own tea and also have a lovely stroke of elvis the cat without having to make piss like herbal nonsense for pale stick insects

I can buy a cake and sing..vanilla slice slice baby..at the top of my voice on my birthday

Sounds great taxi

LOL Taxi I love it!