AIBU end of term present

[Bunny93]

Hello everyone,

I am a reception teacher and my class very kindly gifted me a hamper at the end of the year. It is an M&S hamper worth £75, so very expensive.

It has 6 items inside. 1 of the items is a half bottle of wine, which I don't drink for religious reasons. 4 of the other 5 are things with nuts, which I am allergic to and the remaining item I can make use of is a jar of jam. I am struggling a lot for money at the moment and would really like to swap the hamper in exchange for vouchers where I can buy food.

I don't want to seem ungrateful though, and it would mean asking a parent who organised this gift for the receipt in order to return it. I tried to see if I could take it in without one and was refused. But the thought of having a £75 jar of jam actually breaks my heart ☹️ what would you do? AIBU to consider asking for a receipt?

If it is the hamper I think it is you shouldn't eat the jam either as it contains alcohol too.

Yeah I dunno if it’s been mentioned or not, but this is on fb…the mirror picked it up

I think ot means half size bottle of wine not half drunk haha

Try a claim again. No they won't pay towards your mortgage but even if you got £100 a month towards it wouis help col

I really dont get why it would be ungrateful at all. I was just talking to some people at Slimming World this morning who were given loads of chocolates which they cant eat. I would be heart broken to know I had contributed to a gift which could not be used and would have no problem with you changing it.

YES WE KNOW BUT PEOPLE HAVE INDIVIDUAL DISCRETION.

The problem is that the people who will have the discretion to give away £75 of the company's money to buy back a hamper that has to be thrown away are way higher up than the people who will be on the customer service desk. Would you really seek out a financial controller or regional manager for what, to them, is one of the lowliest, most mundane basic tasks?

The other problem is that, although it's really annoying for OP, in the scheme of things, it's hardly an exceptional case. We know that OP is telling the truth, but anybody could lie about allergies or similar in order to try to get a refund for a hamper that they didn't particularly want - especially bearing in mind that they weren't even the actual customer.

@Plumbear2 I can assure you there is no glory! I’ve organised end of year gifts 4 times since daughter started school - it’s a thankless task and a real pain in the arse! Asking and Collecting money is hard work… some people (probably like you) like to make a huge announcement that they won’t be putting in and love to state the reasons why!..
One year I asked if anyone else would take the task on and no one wanted to!
We have as a class always given vouchers though unless we could find out from other teachers what the person wanted/was into.

Definitely do not say anything. Just regift.

If you are likely to see the organisers soon, yes, mention your nut allergy and that you don't drink, otherwise you could end up with a similar gift every year! Hopefully they will offer the receipt.

If not, try again to exchange directly with M&S. You might not get the money back, but you should be able to exchange it for something of equivalent value without the receipt (I have exchanged gifted items without the receipt without issue).

www-birminghammail-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/teacher-wants-exchange-75-ms-27374780.amp?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16900988511708&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.birminghammail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-news%2Fteacher-wants-exchange-75-ms-27374780

Sorry the above link didn't work. Will try again.. this one did point out nut allergies.

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/teacher-wants-exchange-75-ms-27374780

The most frequent giver of hampers are large corporations who give to clients…especially at Christmas, and firms gifting to employees. The hampers we are talking bout contain luxury items, not products that someone might typically put in a hamper for the housebound. The items in hampers are typically booze, luxury biscuits, cakes, snacks, sweets and chocolates, conserves, chutneys, and can also include meats or dairy products or fish. Each if these kind of items in the first list are the kind of things one might gift as an individual item. So it wouldn’t be unusual to gift wine or biscuits or chutneys to a teacher.

My DH guests a small hamper from his work every Christmas. It is from some corporate hamper provider, not a household known brand. We rarely eat any of it, even the cheesy snacks are yucky, anyway he's dairy free. Reminds me - there is a mini Christmas cake which has gone out of date now. I was thinking of taking it into work and leaving it in the coffee room for anyone to eat. Perhaps I'd better put it on a plate so people don't see the date.

So why do it? You’re under no obligation to do so?

I think it would be very bad manners to ask for a receipt and quite offensive. It was a kind gesture and good to accept it graciously instead of basically saying "I want a refund". How rude.

DD is a teacher. In the past week she has been given five bottles of champagne, a bottle of Bailey's and several bottles of wine (among other lovely gifts). She doesn't drink, which means me and DH will be drinking champagne on Friday evenings all summer!

OP just regift. And maybe next year mention your allergies etc in classes (maybe mention it into lessons about allergies/religion). Put it in homework so parents see it too!

Enjoy the jam. Donate the rest to a food bank and next year, make sure to drop into conversation with the 'queen bee' parents that you are allergic to nuts/don't drink so it doesn't happen again.

As I said before it's short sighted of people to gift alcohol without checking to see if recipient actually drinks alcohol. It's this arrogant belief that all people must drink alcohol & you're wierd if you don't.

I read on here a few years ago, a mnetter declaring that she didn't trust anyone who didn't enjoy a drink. It hadn't occurred to her that some choose not to for health, religious and lifestyle choices. That little thing totally passed her by and all those in her little clique.

I mean god forbid this absolute travesty, miscarriage of justice does not happen again.

OP if it’s been a while since you last looked into the UC please look again, they have increased how much you can earn and still receive UC, they have also increased the amount you receive by a little.
Did I understand your post correctly, Your basically paying your abusive ex mortgage and at some stage you and your children will be forced out of the house? That’s awful.

I also meant to suggest you donate the hamper to a charity who do raffles it would make a great raffle price.

For future reference, there is a website called Collection Pot where parents can put money in, it doesn't show how much money each person has donated, you can each leave a nice message, the teacher can redeem the money at multiple stores. The platform takes a small fee, but it is so easy to organise!!! Love it.

@Bunny93 are you a member of a union? A lot of them have hardship funds/grants you can apply for. It might be worth looking into if you haven’t already?

In the UK, for most people, alcohol and nuts are perfectly acceptable. Realise there are now more religions and issues around that, but I think you have to assume that most people would be happy with a bottle unless you're at a religious school where drinking it not allowed? We can't all now stop giving nuts either, unless you've told them you're allergic to the, I'd assume nuts to be fine to gift.
Just re-gift, rude to return for sure!

Simply put if you don’t say something this may happen again. It’s a lovely gift but completely unsuitable for you. At least moving forward parents will know not to buy alcohol or nuts. Personally I would explain that whilst you’re very grateful for the gift you cannot consume the products (explain why if you like) and therefore would they mind if you exchanged it for something else, and if so please could you have the receipt?

Or contact M&S directly. They usually have pretty good customer service. Just to say that if you don’t mention the inability to drink alcohol/eat nuts to someone then it’s likely to happen again.

I hope you manage to get something suitable. Enjoy your summer holidays 😊

The woman can barely afford to feed herself and her kids and you’re calling her ‘awful’ because she might ask for a receipt.

We all know many teachers aren’t paid enough for what they do.

So instead of your nasty comments maybe try standing in this woman’s shoes. And maybe hive your head a wobble whilst you’re at it!