AIBU - collections at work

[user9153012]

At my workplace we never use to do collections/presents for people unless they were leaving, but in the last 6 months we have had a new manager who has introduced collections for birthdays, new baby, bereavement etc which I have contributed too.
I'm off work at the moment had an operation a month ago, thought I would receive a get well soon card from my colleagues, maybe a bunch of flowers

To be clear when me and my manager did meet up about 4 or 5 times a year before covid we always went to the same place to buy and eat/ drink the treat I sent to her

Hate it. Such a racket. Gets constant too with birthdays. You cant put in too little either..

@Mary46

Hate it. Such a racket. Gets constant too with birthdays. You cant put in too little either..

The colleague I mentioned who worked in a different team told me there was a print out of everyones name on the front of the envelope that was handed around and people were to tick off that they had donated and write the amount!!! Completely outrageous. The only time my team would ever write on the envelope was if we wanted to contribute and didn't have cash. e.g Summa IOU, then the person organising would know to come back to me the next day.

I needed a second salary to keep up with the collections at my old job. It wasn't just a quid here and there it was £5 or £10 for every occasion.

I stopped contributing when others were getting Tiffany earrings and expensive perfume and they forgot my birthday.

I don't contribute unless I am really friendly with the person.

This was my pet hate when I was working. As @memberofthewedding says it's usually 1 or 2 people who are behind it. Someone in our office retired once and the collector-in-chief demanded money from each person individually as "they won't put enough in if I just send an envelope round". One thing I never minded contributing to though was flowers if someone was on long(ish) term sick leave. I think it's mean of them not to send you something.

One thing I find more tricky than collections is sponsorships. I say this as a marathon runner. I have never asked anyone to pay for an event I want to complete. Ever.

One of my colleagues (pre COVID) came begging for his wife doing a 5k walk.

If she was disabled or I knew her then I could understand but I was staggered at the brass bloody neck tbh.

My grand niece began at a big company. It was her first month and she hadn't had her first paycheck yet. Someone came around with the begging bowl and she confessed she did not have £10 or whatever it was. Only her bus fares. They told her to go to the cash machine!

I advised her to complain to HR as this is a form of bullying and harassment. There are now strict rules in place for collections at that workplace.

Good! Any idea if she did complain to HR? Go to the cash point indeed

Hope you're recovering well

My work do collections for birthday, bereavement, wedding, new baby. We wouldn't do one for a operation unless it was a case of someone having cancer.

We put a stop to them at our work. It was getting out of hand- there's a birthday every other week really and its a bit much to keep pestering people to chip in. And then someone's birthday would get missed. It was a nightmare. We're much happier with things as they are now.

I no longer contribute to work collections. When people I like have left I prefer to buy my own present. Otherwise they'll just send a generic m&s bouquet which is a waste. And I don't contribute if I don't know/like the person.

I work for a small company (less than 20 people) and we only do collections for special birthdays, babies and weddings. A card goes round for normal birthdays and anything else like new home but that’s it and it works really well as there is usually only 1 or 2 collections a year. I can’t Imagine doing it for every birthday!

The reason I say its a "racket" is that there is seldom any way of individual givers knowing how much was collected. Nor for them to be sure that ALL the money collected was spent on gifts for the intended recipient. It seems a ripe opportunity for a less than honest person to put the odd few pound into their own pocket while they were trecking from one department to another. In a situation where there was a set sum being demanded then this would come as a red flag to me.

The only way to prevent this would be to keep a note of what each individual giver had donated. Again, this would be unacceptable for reasons of privacy and because it disadvantages the less well off.

I think OP you should talk to your manager to explain why you think the new policy is not a good one. Even for those in secure employment there are rising costs of living (council tax increases for example) and for those who have worked from home, a larger energy bill may be around the corner.

As a manager I dont believe you can forbid a co-worker from giving an indvidual gift to a colleague, because you cannot tell people how to spend their own money. Such individual gifts should be given in private. However you can introduce a rule against someone hawking around the entire staff asking for donations from all and sundry unless such collections are authorized.

I once authorized one for a young staff member who was mugged and lost her entire weeks wages. Even the big boss contributed.

I had a similar thing once. One member of staff in hospital with pneumonia. Sent cards and flowers from a collection. A year later I was in hospital with pneumonia, got nothing other than pulled up for attendance!

Where I used to work a popular member of the team became a grandparent, there was a collection to buy their grandchild presents, others had birthdays ignored. One of the reasons I left.

@memberofthewedding it can sometimes be the opposite. In an old job, as I was admin/office manager, it was my role to do the collections. Everyone would sign thr card and then say "oh I'll give you the money later" and then they never would and it would be so embarrassing when the total was so low and then I'd put in a lot of my own money so it wasn't embarrassing. Then one day I decided to stand up and stopped doing the collections.

This gives me an opportunity to tell one of my favourite MIL stories.
She worked in an office. Same thing, too many collections. An old misery guts was leaving. Manager insisted on a collection. Envelope went all round the office and into the managers office empty. Manager put a £10 note in it, bollocked them all and insisted envelope is passed around again, so it was. Envelope was duly returned to the managers office ... it contained £9.50 in change!!!

I'm starting to loathe them with a passion! Our team seems to want to collect for just about anything ... though my milestone birthday somehow missed the collection-to-be-arranged radar.

Does anyone have a form of words to say no thanks, I don't want to participate and please don't worry about doing any collections for me either?

I do think there is some sort of popularity / visibility contest at play, ie the more someone is of one or the other or both, the more likely some well meaning brown noser will launch a collection with suitable fanfare.

In the days of being in the office, it would be an envelope passed around so you could get out of it, but now we're all WFH, the team have latched onto virtual collections with demands for funds to be made by BACs directly into the fundraiser's account. So there's no way out unless I'm prepared to be outed as a mean old scrote

Oh this also reminds of a time a colleague who'd been at the organisation and was well liked was leaving. She said she needed a new camera. We raised £500 for her collection!!! She left, realised new job wasn't what she was expecting, so came back as we hadn't get replaced her. She now since left again but I hope they didn't do another collection for her!

I've stopped contributing to these after I put in for two 30th birthdays, three new babies and two leaving collections and then received nothing for my own 40th birthday.

I have never heard of anyone doing a collection for a bereavement.

It’s getting constant To be asked in my job. It used to be Major birthdays and leaving gifts, but we’ve had a collection for a bereavement that got £75 and when one lady became a grandparent for the first time, her collection to buy a bunch of flowers got over £60. It seems a bit ridiculous. A general birthday Or leaving Gift will get over a £100. Which is a lot of money if the organiser isn’t sure what to buy.

I also worry that if you aren’t on the radar of the person who organises, your own milestone birthday could be missed as there isn’t a centrally held list. It seems to be done by us chatting And people dropping in they will be 30/40/50 soon and checking Facebook lists.

I think the best way would be to contact the HR department, emphasize how you feel, and ask them to formulate a policy or send out a memo with some strict guidelines. This is what happened in my grand niece's workplace after she complained about feeling harassed by these collections.