To never contribute £ to a person leaving work collection ever again?

[pawpawgingins]

Manager announced that the colleague is leaving and as usual, a card and collection.
I contribute £10 and wrote a lovely message.

I always contribute and always the same $ regardless of who it is UNLESS I had no interactions with the leaver at all which is rare.

< In my last job I used to do the ssme but used to do £5 since I earned a lot less (once the secretary told me that I was too generous because someone on 3x my wage gives only £3) but anyway…>

So I contributed £10 plus drinks at the pub. All good.

After 4 weeks of working somewhere else, colleague decides they don’t like their new job and asks the boss to come back. Since the position was still vacant with everybody else (includinv me) picking up the slack, colleague walks back as if they never left.

I mean, I know colleague shouldnt give anyone’s money back of course and it is not the future leavers fault and they shouldn’t be penalised but I’m massively put off now.

But having said that, when I left my last job, I did have some lovely gifts and a gift card which is no nice but I’m now thinking this culture should end.

Will feel super bad if I don’t contribute moving forward though, it is such a habit.

I’m not her boss so no favours done to me whatsoever

I would find it irritating OP. And I say it’s fine to stop contributing globally to all requests. I have a very sweet conworker who alone has organized …Xmas for our boss….baby gift for 2nd baby…birthday for our boss..retirement for coworker…adopt a family for Xmas…and just yesterday texted me to ask…would you like to donate to purchase a peach tree for xxx’s FIL who died? We all including her dislike our boss and for good reason. The deceased FIL lives in another country. I texted back no thanks and as I did it I thought thank thank you MN for pointing out how this is perfectly fine to decline. The sweet coworkers love language is apparently gift giving and she picks overly sentimental tat. I never like the gift it’s always sit around knickknacks. And I’m not donating again in the future. Our boss has been demoted to staff and I’m going to say…no more boss Xmas gifts from me. And I actually like and enjoy my coworkers but gift giving is not my love language.

I've never worked a normal office job and didn't know this was a thing. Maybe for retirement, but not for leaving one job to go to another.

I'd reduce the amount you put in, just because it sounds like you've been overly generous until now.

Well you said you had to work extra hard because she left... 🤔
Totally unfair anyway, it shouldn't be on you to pick up the slack, but it's sorted now!

We’ve had people leave - mostly to go to uni - then come back. We’ve done a collection for their leaving gift but if they leave again we don’t do another one!

Were they given cash or given a gift bought with the collection money?

Throw in a couple of quid. £10 is way too generous.

My son recently restarted a job. When he left the staff bought him a cake to share and some chocolates plus a card so when he returned a few weeks later he bought a bigger cake and a bigger box of chocolates to share out. He is on a higher salary than most of the rest of the staff so felt a bit guilty

Yes. Definitely stop giving so much money. I'd sign a card and let that be that in the future.

I would be jokingly asking them for my tenner back, honestly.

That just makes you look a bit of dick though and it will just make them uncomfortable around you in the office going forwards . They really didn’t leave the company just for a leaving gift I’m sure. Sometimes things don’t work out and that’s life. As someone said do you ask for wedding presents back if someone divorces?

Oh, it sounds like this colleague 'needs to be needed'.

I have a colleague like this who organises the workplace..... everything. Gifts, charity fundraising, gardening at a hospice, raffle tickets.....the lost is endless. It's continually something every month and we've all got 'giving fatigue'.
Her personality is fake bubble and cheery, so no one likes to say no. But some people do. I'm one.

I turned down her offer of holding an International Women's Day sign and having my photo taken with it. There's no point in doing it , especially since manager's attitudes to women don't seem to change at my place of work. So I said No, and she axcept d I, but looked confused. 😂

And this is why when I leave somewhere I ask for a no fuss exit and avoid all this. If people want to have a farewell lunch with me somewhere I usually up for that.

Somebody had to the work

I think it's a one off and I wouldn't be bothered about this.

Wonder if it's office culture but £10 would be average where I work.

I couldn't get worked up about a colleague coming back...unless they were terrible at their job!

Unless I'm really close to someone I never contribute anymore. I sometimes just get my own gift for them.

Years ago it was constant. One couple got an engagement collection, a moving in collection, a wedding collection and a first baby collection. Then there would be flowers for sickness or bereavement. When I was off sick I got nothing. For my bereavement my friend had to bully HR to get me flowers. And as I didn't get engaged etc I didn't get anything.

Just stop contributing.

I had a job that was a contract, just till I was due to get married. I knew they wouldn’t allow a month off so just stayed for my contract. When I left they did a collection. I was only there 9ish months so it wasn’t massive due to not being well known 🙈 I didn’t mind I didn’t expect anything tbh. I went off and got married then met my friends from old team for dinner a few weeks after, then was asked by manager if another team in same dept to come work for her. I wasn’t planning on going back to work at all really. Plan was to have a baby soon after getting married. I took the job and said ok till I have baby (took 2 years!). Anyway when I started back, a guy asked for his pound back, in a jokey sarcastic was and in front of other people who laughed. I said yeah ok and gave it to him. 😂

The worst are the ‘will you sponsor me’ brigade. Sure we’ll all sponsor you (pay for you) to jump out of an airplane and give the remaining fiver of the sponsorship (after the airplane has been paid for) to a charity.
No problem with people who pay for the excursion themselves but using the sponsorship money to pay for it is CF’ery.

This happened at my work, it was fine she just didn't get another leaving present when she left again. No biggie.

Seventeen leaving collections at the end of one school year at a large comprehensive school I worked at. That was fun!

Years ago, I worked for a firm where a director was leaving and his PA was being made redundant. Cue a scurry around to get together a decent collection to get her a lovely gift, lots of sympathy for her finding herself out of work through no fault of her own, dark mutterings of how unfair it all was and who might be next etc.

Turned out she was actually going with that director to a new company and she had basically milked the situation for everything she could. It certainly left a nasty taste about leaving presents and farewell drinks.

Slightly off topic but reminded by people talking about being asked to put in for people they barely knew.

I once worked somewhere where cards/collections seemed to be going round all the time. One woman had a collection/card going round for her 40th.

When she came to open the card, she discovered she had signed her own birthday card and presumably put into the associated collection! 😃

I don't know why leaving things have to be so big. A card and a box of chocolates is fine.

I assume you said “sure I’ll sponsor you, but I’ll donate directly to the charity to make sure they get it all” instead then?