To not put money in work collection?

[Plantpot45]

Honestly there are about 2 or 3 per month with people leaving going on maternity leave retiring etc. The going rate is a tenner. If it is someone I know well and work closely with I always put money in but this current person I’ve never even met face to face. Only via messaging and on virtual meetings. I wouldn’t know her if I saw her in the street! So why everyone is putting the pressure on to contribute? Problem is most of my other colleagues do know her, and so it’s more what they will think if I don’t contribute? I’ll be honest, I also really can’t afford it at the moment so find it hard to justify to my husband who puts in the lions share of the money in our house. So Aibu?

YANBU to not contribute. It should always be voluntary.

However YABU to find it hard to justify to my husband who puts in the lions share of the money in our house why the hell are you having to justify your spending to your DH. He is your partner not your parent.

It's such a relief working somewhere that doesn't do collections very much, usually in the smaller teams. We do have charity days and bake sales but they don't pressure for contributions.

A previous work place was rife with collections plus charity days. Every birthday, leaver, wedding, baby or death. What's worse is on more than one occasion they would collect for a leaver, they left, came back months later, leave again and attempt a 2nd collection.

When I retired there were messages on my card from people I had never met, so their heartfelt messages meant nothing.

While I've never had a gift from a company or colleagues I was given a leaving card from one of the worse places I've ever worked.
My boss hated me, absolutely hated me, and he had the fucking cheeky to put a message on the card. If it wasn't for other colleagues the card would have gone in the office bin. I binned it when I got home!

When I retired there were messages on my card from people I had never met

A colleague of mine who was going on maternity leave once discovered she had signed her own 'good luck' card! It was a big office and there were cards going round all the time, clearly it had been passed to her without a second thought and she'd signed her name on auto-pilot.

I no longer work in the UK, however when I did, people that I barely knew would walk up to my desk and ask for a contribution to their sponsored whatever on a regular basis.

Really annoying, though to be honest I usually contributed just for a quiet life.

Surely there should be some HR rules on this?

Obviously charity and work collections are great, but I am not sure you should be asking your work colleagues for money directly?

I think that's part of the issue there are no HR rules, it's a unwritten etiquette, much off it can be driven by individuals in a department.
Sometimes one department will be doing stuff while another isn't.

I would never contribute to colleagues I didn't know, nor write a platitude in a card for a colleague I didn't get on with.

It’s more out of respect and if I wanted to put it in he would be fine with me donating. It’s just because it’s hard to justify chucking money at people I don’t know and don’t want to give it to. I’ve bought presents for many of my own friends who I love and he’s happy for me to do that with our joint funds and literally never questions anything I spend.