A gift for a colleague

[tiggerkid]

A big birthday is coming up for one of my colleagues. This lady is one of the nicest and most generous people in our team. The team is always busy doing own thing: we sort of all work independently and have little personal interaction in the office. So I know that nobody is going to organise anything from the team. Plenty of past experiences with that.

Last time I tried to organise something for a colleague who was leaving the company, I was quite frustrated and embarrassed by the amount of chasing I had to do to get even small contributions for her gift. I know nobody has to contribute anything and didn't particularly want to chase but, at the same time, it seemed a bit sad if someone left after years in the company without even a small gift from the team. I also felt it was kind of funny to buy a gift from the team when some people contributed and some didn't, so don't want to get involved in that sort of thing again.

Anyway, long story short, I decided to buy my own gift for the colleague's big birthday this time. Two questions:

1. would this, your opinions, be a very "unteamy" thing to do?

2. any ideas on a not very expensive but memorable gift would be welcome :)

Thank you in advance.

Something like this with a bottle of prosecco? They do lots of nice ones on Amazon.

And no, it isn't 'unteamy' if your team are rubbish at collections. Just get something from you, then no need to get stressed out chasing your colleagues - I've been there and done that!

That’s a lovely idea. What kind of budget are you looking at?

That’s a lovely idea. What kind of budget are you looking at? - am prepared to spend up to £30.

Just buy her a gift from you. Collections put too much pressure on people and can be awkward.

As a side note, I've never really understood leaving gifts. Usually the person has decided they don't want to work there anymore so why gift them!

Someone once got a leaving gift for just moving departments! It gets a bit excessive.

Yankee candles go down well here. No idea why but everyone seems to love them.

If it's a small-ish team, I'd email them and say "I'm going to buy a gift, if you'd like to join in with me, give me a contribution by xxx date and make it a joint"
Because the worst that will happen is you only get your £30 budget, but you might get more and could get her something better?

This lady is probably well aware what the rest of the team are like so there is probably no need to pretend it is from all of them.

Just get something from you but give it to her in the office. If any of the others feel embarrassed or motivated in to getting something for her themselves then that's good.

If anyone mentions "Why didn't you let us know and organize a collection?" - presumably because they see you as the default person who bothers with that - just say quite candidly what you said here that you have tried that before and it's like trying to get blood ou of a stone.

This lady is probably well aware what the rest of the team are like

You are absolutely spot on here: she is fully aware what they are like because she once organised a gift for another colleague, asked for collections and got such a small amount that in the end, she added £50 of her own money to buy a decent gift to avoid the embarrassment!

I've never forgotten her kindness and generosity even though it doesn't concern me and I did contribute well to the other person's gift myself. I just would like to be sure that someone in our team does something nice for her. Sounds like most of you think it'd be fine for me to do my own thing, so I think I'll probably go ahead with that as I don't feel it's fair to do a collection to present a gift from the team when some people don't bother contributing at all. I somehow feel like this situation diminishes the contribution of those, who do contribute. So, hypothetically, imagine you are in a team of 10. Say, 2 of your colleagues contributed £5 each. The rest didn't bother. You buy something for £10 from the team and it ends up looking like everyone contributed £1. I don't think it's fair to those, who contributed £5 each to present such a gift from the team.

Maybe it's just me but I think I'll listen to you, ladies, and will go ahead and do my own thing. Thank you for all your advice and responses.