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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel a bit sad about leaving gift?

315 replies

sgtz · 17/11/2023 07:05

Aware I sound totally entitled, but I left my job last week and I’m a bit sad/disappointed with my leaving gift. Team of 10 and we usually put £10 in for collections. I got some chocolates and a card with a generic ‘best of luck from everyone at xyz’. The last person who left (wasn’t even really leaving, just rotating to a different team) got a card signed by everyone, a meal voucher, flowers, and everyone met up on their last day for lunch. No one even bothered to come to see me on my last day because they were ‘too busy’ so we had a virtual teams goodbye. I just feel quite sad at the lack of effort and started to feel like maybe I wasn’t liked very much. I’m going to their Christmas meal in a few weeks and wishing I wasn’t now as it just feels awkward but it’s all paid for…

AIBU? To clarify, I am grateful for what I got. I’m more sad about the fact that they didn’t even sign my card, it looks like a last minute ‘shit, sgtz is leaving - someone get them something’ even though they had 3 months notice…

OP posts:
Jem57 · 18/11/2023 20:01

My husband was medically retired after 22 years,he had put hundreds in collections over the years,He never even got a card,kiss my arse off any bosses,he said he wasn’t bothered but he was.

Sighhhhh · 18/11/2023 20:09

Is it really that serious? It’s probably not personal and more about laziness and thinking someone else will sort it.

It might sting a little but I think it’s better to remain on good terms with some ex-colleagues as opposed to cutting people off. Remember that it’s work, not your family or chosen friendship circle.

Anneta · 18/11/2023 20:19

Unfortunately, workplaces can be very toxic! In my last job, my senior manager did not speak one word to me for three months after I had applied for early retirement. I had worked there for 15 years. I got my revenge by going out for a meal with my colleagues, which I paid for and I didn’t invite her. I had some lovely farewell gifts & I requested that she had no part in my farewell speech.
Another of her team left after 20 plus years service with no collection or farewell card. I’m sorry this has happened to you. I wouldn’t go for the meal. Can you contact the venue and get a credit note for another day?

Milliemoo6 · 18/11/2023 21:49

It's not unreasonable to be upset by this. Maybe use the Christmas meal to chat to some colleagues you feel like you trust and ask if there's anything you should know about. Usually I'd say leave it and move on but if your colleagues have an issue with you that you're unaware of then it might be better for you to know before you start a new role, so you can work on it in your next job.

Segway16 · 18/11/2023 21:49

In one of my previous jobs I always chose thoughtful gifts for others, went out of my way for colleagues, took the rap for some when they had problems - and when I left I got a box of haribo sweets. A £2 box of sweets designed for a child from Asda. I left with a spring in my step and never looked back, realising how toxic the place was and that the choice I made to leave was the right one.

Don’t go to the meal.

Babyroobs · 18/11/2023 21:54

After 15 years working in a very difficult environment where we went through lots of trauma with colleagues I received a plastic flower. Others received massively thoughtful gifts. I did feel gutted but you have to move on.

xogossipgirlxo · 18/11/2023 22:12

Sorry OP, I would be upset too 😢 Wishing you all the best in your new job.

YerArseInParsley · 18/11/2023 23:22

DivergentTris · 18/11/2023 08:47

It's a strange one, I don't expect fuss and gifts, it is entitled to expect them. However when I moved departments at the same time as two others did, one of the others got a whip round/gift and card, the other, they put on a buffet, me.... they asked if I was bringing in the cakes. I did, but I didn't even get to eat one as I was allocated a long-winded job, by the time I returned they had all eaten them and no one wished me luck or said goodbye.
Now I know I don't like fuss but even someone wishing me luck or wishing me well would have been more than enough but there was such a stark difference due to them not even saying anything.
However, people can only be nice when they are getting something out of you, my Husband for 20 yrs had all the fuss in the world when he fixed people's cars for a living. Once he retired, none of those people spoke to him at all anymore they walked past like he didn't exist. Old staff members who we bent over backwards for ignore us when they see us, they have short memories of how much we did for them at our expense and sacrifice over many years.
Now, on the rare occasion someone asks how he is enjoying retirement he tells it straight and it shocks people what has happened.

It was a real eye-opener into human nature, disgraceful really but that is the bad side of human nature and many people are guilty of it without realising the effect it has on others.

So its not really about the presence its how easily people can treat you decently then just cut you off like you dont matter. Im quite cynical of people now, and for someone who is naturally quite cautious of people and wants to be proved wrong it just seems to prove me right!

@DivergentTris

Oh I agree. People only want you when they are getting something from you.

One of my cousins and I had always been very close. I had more money than her and would treat her to nights out, lunches etc. She bought me a sandwich once from asda when we were out shopping and she never let me forget it. People forget how much you do fir them but they never forget the ONE time they done something for you.

Omg, why didn't you say something at the works think, you all know I'm leaving too!! I'd be so hurt but seething too.

wizzywig · 18/11/2023 23:58

Is your £25 propping up other people's drinking?

ClareBlue · 19/11/2023 00:25

TheThingIsYeah · 17/11/2023 10:34

Similar experience here. I served a long notice period before redundancy in the New Year. It got to 5pm on the last day. I turned my PC off and that was that. I was there nearly 25 years.

I got a virtual card, and donations - not organised by management I add but a colleague. Which was nice. But it was odd as most of the people who gave a donation and signed the card were people I'd only had minor contact with over the years. The colleagues I had known 15, 20 years? Nowt.

I can only assume the attitude is, well, they got a redundancy payout what more do they want? You quickly become dead to people and forgotten about.

Show quote history

I work in a huge organisation and have seen this over and over again as people leave. Longest service 40 years that got a bottle of whiskey and a thanks from a manager who got their name wrong because they hadn't a clue who they actually were, as they were newly.promoted. Workplaces can be weird when people leave. I would take anything to heart what so ever and just move on.

ClareBlue · 19/11/2023 00:26

Wouldn't that should be

Toomuchtrouble4me · 19/11/2023 07:50

You’ve paid in refundable £50. Forget the £50, it’s gone. Now just decide if you would be happier going to the meal, or not going.

MyCircumference · 19/11/2023 07:54

i cant believe you usually put £10 in for collections?
that is ridiculous imo.

to me it depends who is leaving, and whether i like them.

ThomasinaLivesHere · 19/11/2023 08:06

I think you’re putting too much meaning into the leaving gift. I think people could have just been skint and busy that week in ways they weren’t with the other employee who left and so there is no hidden message meant to be read into your gift.

If you got on with people I’d go to the meal.

katevw · 19/11/2023 08:06

That’s utterly rubbish and honestly, I’d write off the £50 and not go to the meal!!

I had a similar experience when I left a company having been there for 17 years. Over the years I’d organised some lovely leaving gifts for other people. I put loads of thought into what they’d like and bought accordingly … vouchers for a spa, afternoon tea etc etc. I know it was because all my lovely colleagues had already left and I was stuck with the horrid ones but I got a card and a big bunch of florist type flowers. No leaving lunch either. If anyone had put any thought into it they’d have known I would hate anyone to spend so much money on flowers (still nowhere near the amount of money I’d collected for others over the years … not that the cost is the point!) like that … just not my thing. I’d have loved a bunch of supermarket tulips much more. I know it makes me sound like an entitled tw@t but I was gutted no thought had gone into it and the flowers died within 5 days.

Anyway, stuff them, you’re worth more, onwards and upwards!!

43ontherocksporfavor · 19/11/2023 08:08

Oh no how awful, a big bunch of florist flowers! 🙄

katevw · 19/11/2023 08:14

They were!! Totally hideous!! 😂

suzysnowball · 19/11/2023 08:29

I wouldn't be going to the Christmas meal but I wouldn't be telling them I'm not going, so no-one else can have a meal on my expense. I'd remain professional and be polite until I leave.

Fluffmum · 19/11/2023 12:19

Write off the fifty quid don’t go to the meal

Peacheroo · 19/11/2023 13:59

Sounds like a place I've not long left which is having a mass exodus. Everyone is pissed off about it.

Don't think about it. There's a reason you're leaving and if this wasn't part of it initially, it is now.

Ronb · 19/11/2023 15:27

bugger christmas you have left

rmcc1983 · 19/11/2023 15:32

Unless maybe they plan to do something special at the Christmas ‘do’ because they know they will see you then??

OkCupcake · 19/11/2023 15:57

I had similar at my last job. Put in to every collection for pregnancies and they would get so many nice things as we had 200ish staff.
My pregnancy was awful, I was so ill, hospitalised and being kept alive in the high dependency unit while having my baby prematurely.. I was accused of feigning illness by my work and was given a £10 Mothercare voucher and a card signed by around 10 people.

It did bother me but only because of how much I had paid into collections for everyone else. We had a Christmas party a month afterwards and I was barely acknowledged, they had a shout out to all the staff that had given birth that year (a staggering 19 of us) but my name waa left out of the mix and I also discovered that my job had already been given to someone else. I took my maternity pay then left.

If you're going to be uncomfortable i their company, lcut your losses and don't go to the get together. You can spend quality time with people that bring you up instead

Arjay71 · 19/11/2023 16:16

If I’d been feeling really petty I’d have left the chocolates and card behind on the desk when I left … which is quite passive-aggressive but may have got the message over.

1mabon · 19/11/2023 16:25

Get over it and don't go to the dinner. Move on.

Maybe they didn't like you, worse care scenario.