I work in a very pleasant office where the tradition is to have a birthday collection but also to buy individual gifts and cards for the birthday person.
The ‘individual’ gift/card buying has always felt a little ‘contrived’ but hey ho, it doesn’t hurt anyone.
For one reason and another the office voted at the turn of the year to stop the office collection but thus far the individual gift/card giving is still going on.
I sit in a bank of desks with people I do not want to buy birthday gifts for but my birthday is coming up and if they buy me something I will feel obliged to reciprocate.
So my question, would it BU to [be presumptuous] ask them in advance not to buy me a gift…obviously I’ll then have to figure out how to respond to the question Why?, you can help with that too if you don’t mind.