To think work leaving presents should not be for ‘managers and executives’ only

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Just something that has always tickled me. At my old work, staff turnover has been quite low over the years, and most people have been there a while. However, obviously people do leave.

When this happens, a curious thing occurs.

If the person leaving is a manager or executive, an office wide whip round is organised by one of the most senior managers. Everyone is usually asked to contribute.

However in the 10 years I worked there, not once was a whip round organised whenever a non manager left, regardless of time served, popularity (which shouldn’t matter) etc. Bear in mind that the managers are very high earners in this place - the ground floor is not badly off, by comparison but certainly nowhere near the 6 figures per annum the management get.

In one extraordinary case, a manager at a sister office - not local and only has visited twice in 2 years was leaving the same time as a long serving local colleague. We were asked to contribute to the managers leaving present, whilst nothing was organised for our colleague!

Is this normal? I guess one of the ‘ground level’ staff could have taken it upon themselves to organise something, but it seems myopic of the senior manager not to see what a ridiculous request it was to contribute to someone who we didn’t see everyday whilst doing nothing for the local team member.

Thoughts? I don’t think that having leaving presents should be a mandatory thing at all - but if some get it and not others - especially when those some are the much higher paid - it seems v strange.

I should say all these peop

That is incredibly unfair. Are most of the managers men?

They are all men, yep. It should be said, most of the ground floor staff are too. It’s an IT firm.

That’s odd!

Leaving presents are either organised by (a) the office busy body (b) your best mate (c) your line manager. Usually (b), unless you are as popular as athletes foot then its (c)

That is odd. But I agree with others that leaving pressies are usually organised by colleagues, usually the one that was closest to the leaver. If someone tries to organise a collection, to they get told not to/ do the managers refuse to contribute? That would be very weird and completely out of order.

That’s odd! I wouldn’t be contributing to that! Why can’t you organise a card for a “junior” colleague?

Newyearnewme18- yep they are always organised by the same person, but that person only seems to do it for management.

I guess yes, they might well consider the other managers their mates and be organising for that reason.

But equally they definitely know no one else takes responsibility for anyone else, and thus it just looks like managers are worth a pressie and no one else is. To ask lower paid workers to contribute for presents when they will never get the same treatment is just weird right?

Haha - I left (without a pressie). I could have organised it for others but honestly over the years I had built up a kind of perverse pleasure in seeing this occur - it became somewhat funny. No, no one has ever organised anything for anyone else and been refused. That would have been hilarious though.

It’s always organised by anyone who volunteers. You need to start doing it. It’s nothing unfair about it.

Op in my team, my manager would never take responsibility for organising a leaving present. But he probably would if it was another manager. Sounds very normal to me, and that no one at your place can be arsed to do anything. You can't put the blame on your managers for that...