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?

Nah, madness charity or not! I’m public sector so we also get zilch for Christmas parties so we organise and pay for our own. Plenty of the directors are on hefty salaries but we wouldn’t expect them to fund it.

100-200 staff at the parties and three SMT. It racks up quite quickly.

This 👌

What is SMT?

Mingebag 😂

Yanbu. Your salary isn't sufficient to be playing these kind of stupid games. It's on the company account or staff pay for their own drinks.

Makes a massive difference how much you're talking here. If you're paying for the team on minimum wage to have two drinks each and it's costing you £50 I'd do it. If you're paying for mid level staff for get trashed and it's £250 per SMT I wouldn't!

Senior management team.

Could you split one round of drinks? I think that is a nice gesture.

As an employee I'd never expect management to personally pay for Christmas do. However whenever my manager has brought a bottle of bubbly to a potluck Christmas party it has been a nice gesture. Or bought a round.

This is a joke right? You work for a charity and you, on £50k, are the lowest paid on a team of 15.
I really do hope your charity runs to many, many, many millions to justify over £1m a year on your salaries.
Why don't you ask everyone to donate their expected drinks bill to the charity instead of actually spending it so they can all feel a little warm glow for doing something for the needy?

I took it as the whole organisation being 15 people who will he attending the Christmas lunch. Out of the people in senior management (not mentioned how many there are) op gets paid the least.

100k in charity sector?

That aside, I'd not go if you can't afford but put money behind the bar for a contribution.

Yes I was thinking similarly.

How many on the SMT? If there's 15 total, presumably you're paying on the order of 3-5 times your own costs?

How much is the drinks bill normally?

Can you not just pay for the wine with lunch and let them pay for themselves at the after party. I think it looks a bit stingy to not buy the staff a glass or two of wine.

This is really difficult and I don't think paying proportionate to salary will make it any "fairer" everyone has different levels of debt, outgoings etc.
I think current cost of living climate is perfect time to suggest a change and people pay for themselves, or a kitty? Maybe smt could club together for 1st round if that was affordable thats still a gesture of appreciation while limiting the bill

It’s this

They already work for the charity, most likely on reduced terms and conditions compared to similar jobs in the private sector.

They're allowed have a Christmas party that they're paying for themselves.

How big a pay cut would you take to work in a charity?

People who work for charities are employees too and are allowed a Christmas lunch.
Your post is ridiculous.

I don't think it should be proportional to people's salaries if everyone is going to drink the same amount. I know some of my younger colleagues will happily spend £10+ on cocktails and it would be bad enough sharing a round with them let alone paying more proportionately because I earn more. I stopped joining rounds when I spent around £100 when my drinks couldn't have cost more than £20.

I think if costs were split proportionately, you would get people on the lowest incomes taking liberties to be honest and although £100k is a nice salary it's probably not enough to cover a proportion of someone else's bar tab.

How can it possibly be difficult for someone to know what everyone earns and work out from that what they pay? The CEO will know about earnings, you presumably know roughly what you pay out for drinks every year, so you can say that is the ceiling figure and divide contributions accordingly. Once that amount has been drunk, employees can start paying for their own drinks.