To want to pay less at work Christmas drinks?

[Rainallnight]

Agh, I just wrote a long post and it got lost!

the short version is - it’s my work’s tradition that SMT members split the bill for drinks at our Christmas lunch. I am the least well paid member of SMT by some distance and have begun to feel this is unfair.

I’d rather we make a contribution that’s proportionate to our salaries.

AIBU?

It's annoying but you will look a miserable meanie if you say anything. You've got a reasonable salary. But it isn't really on. Work should be paying not the management team.

No bloody way, £50k is not big bucks, why the hell should you be paying? If that's how it's always been done I would just think of a reasonable contribution and say that's what I'm giving. You big bucks guys can split the rest. What's the amount you paid last year?

To be honest, if SMT are on around £50k except for one person who's on a lot more, I'm not sure why you have this tradition anyway. It's not like you're a big private sector organisation where the bosses are earning big bucks and the admin and post room staff are on minimum wage.

Now that you have clarified the amount I can say that I wouldn't have a problem with this.

For less than £150, I'd suck it up.

We have this. Some of my team are paid more than me, enen pro rata and im part time. Luckily my team aren't big drinkers or it'd rankle more that does.

Where I used to work the directors had to pay for a bottle of booze ( or non alcoholic alternative) for everyone in their team for Xmas. It was capped at around £20 . Seemed fair enough to me at the time.

Even if you do as you suggest and pro rata the amount by salary in the SMT, you’ll prob still end up paying around £80. So you won’t save much by raising it, and it could negatively affect your good standing within the SMT (and wider team, should your complaint ‘get out’). Even if you were to act in a purely selfish manner here, it’s not worth it.

(My thinking above is that if the average payment is £115 and there are 3x SMT, the total bill is £345. If one SMT is on £100k, you’re on £50 and the third is on £60k, then the ratio is 100:60:50 and, even as the lowest paid SMT, you’d still pay £82)

I actually don’t agree with management paying for everyone’s drinks at all! Great if a company wants to pay for or contribute to staff night out, but it shouldn’t come out managements own pockets! Fair enough if it’s how it’s done in your company but yanbu to just offer to contribute an amount you can afford and is more in line with your earnings

Id be more concerned that I was on diet coke and paying the bill for everyone elses cocktails.

Just say u are in anti biotics and drinking soft drinks and will pay your own bill this time ? That way u still go but save yourself a small fortune ?

Is actually suggest that everyone puts £50 into the kitty and when that's spent people buy their own drinks

Hang on! You work for a charity and your salary is £50k and there's other management on £100k? What charity so I know not to donate to someone else's luxury lifestyle!
I bet any money the staff who's drinks they pay for are volunteers!

OP has mentioned that the person on 100k is paid that because the role requires a certain qualification and skillset, and that's what it costs to get someone who has it. Since apparently this is outrageous, how would you staff the role without paying the going rate?

That isn't going to work. It's not a rounds thing, it's a 'management is expected to treat everyone " thing.

You may find it easier to live with when you bear in mind those on higher salaries do not take home as much proportionate to their salary so are not as better off as you may be assuming.
Assuming SMT are still paying off student loans (largely depends on age etc)
£50k -> take home c. £35k (70%)
£100k -> take home c. £60k (60%)

Obviously, more is still more, but they are not twice as rich for twice the salary.

It's a slippery slope saying what is fair or not - one person's big salary could be supporting a big family, and not going very far at all, another's smaller one could be pittance compared with their rich banker spouse etc so they are net far better off - I do think the even split is the best case as one you open that can of worms absolutely nobody is happy.

This is just what happens in the public sector as we can't use taxpayer money but rely on goodwill from our teams as much as anyone. It does hit the wallet a bit hard though. I got less than 10% payrise when I was promoted, and lost various perks like overtime and 2 days' leave

A bit off topic again but yeah as pp have said if you underpay charity staff even more than they are already paid for professional roles it severely limits who is able to take up the role eg. Only people who come from great wealth /have wealthy partners AND who are willing to be extremely underpaid.

And I wouldn’t necessarily say everyone on 50-100K is living the life of luxury. Especially as you don’t know peoples outgoings and circumstances eg. A single parent of 3 on 60K who gets no financial contribution from the father and gets taxed more proportionately than a couple who have a combined income of 60K.

So I am a member of our SMT and years ago (when our unit was a lot smaller) I started a tradition of SMT paying for wine for the table at the Christmas lunch and if anyone wanted more after that they paid for their own. I did that because there staff who were young and on minimum wage so I wanted them to enjoy Christmas lunch without worrying about huge bills. We've kept that up and the SMT is now larger as the unit has got much bigger. So it works out about £50 for each of us but it is more than worth that to say thank you to people who work very hard. Of course the individual SMT members are under no obligation to contribute and I manage it all so no one else knows who has paid or not

Being honest though I'd not want to pay my share of the full bar bill. I think that would put strain on my family budget at a time when I don't need that!

It’s pretty clear from the OPs posts they are all paid staff.

“I’d rather we make a contribution that’s proportionate to our salaries.”

Additionally they said :

…one of the other salaries is particularly high because the nature of our service means that we need a particular qualification and skill set from that person, and this is the going rate for that.
I have considerable other experience and while my org pays a bit lower than others in my sector, it’s not by too much..

How much is the total and who is paying for the food ?

100-130 once a year at Christmas, to treat the people who work for you and are paid even less than you doesn’t seem unreasonable??

@mindutopia I think your arrangement could be hugely problematic. I would be a bit if DH was spending his Xmas do overnight at a hotel, especially when dc were young and we needed all hands to the pump.

I also think you could have problems with alcohol, hotel and sexual relationships, or even worse, non consensual encounters. I'm aware of at least 3 women in my organisation who have reported being raped when attending overnight work conferences.

Easy to say when it's not your money.