To no longer buy cards and gifts for office colleagues birthdays and special occasions?

[ByFirmPoster]

I took on the role of collecting donations and buying cards and gifts for everyone at work after the previous person left. I have enjoyed buying the gifts and giving them to colleagues at times of celebration and illness. They have always been appreciated. I would either buy them at lunchtime if it was nearby extending my lunchtime by 15 minutes or so or go in the evening occasionally to John Lewis etc.

A member of the team has been regularly coming in late and leaving early. She has missed deadlines and not done the work required. Management have now introduced timesheets for everyone to tackle this team member. Everyone else is good at timekeeping and getting the work done.

This has now left me with not enough time at lunch to go and buy the cards and gifts. I mentioned it to my manager and she suggested buying cards and gifts in my own time in the evening. I only have a short lunch time as I need to leave early for school pick up.

I no longer want to spend my own time buying gifts etc for everyone. It was a colleagues birthday and no one bought her anything, not even a card. I did mention to people that her birthday was coming up and would someone like to organise a card/gift. Nobody came forward. She was upset as she has been very generous with others special occasions often giving £20 or more. I feel bad but I can’t keep doing this for everyone in my own time now the strict timesheets have been introduced.

AIBU to stop even though no one else wants to take over?

In your response upthread you say management were happy for you to do this in past as it made for happy workforce etc then all they need to do is have a code that you can allocate your 15 mins to each time you do this

Whoevers birthday ot is brings on the cake.
No one needs cards and gifts! Wtf
These are colleagues. I can't believe it's been going on so long!

It sounds like management have let it fly but probably rolled their eyes behind closed doors

Of course you're not unreasonable to stop, but if you are the official gift organiser, you perhaps should have said you were stopping before your generous colleague's birthday.

I loathe office gifting, it really gets on my nerves. These people are not your friends! IME, theres always one performative person all like 'let's get a gift for x for whatever reason', who just likes shopping and gets to spend other people's money

I think the same. It's a bit like the Office Hugger thread recently.

YABU although OP for not sending around an email saying that you would no longer be organising the collections or gift giving.

Whoever’s birthday it was brought in a cake, that’s it. Of course there was the great scandal where some git took the cake in the kitchen and cut a big slice before the get together for the cake and tea, it was Agatha Christie levels of whodunnit, never did find out.

Send an email to say that though you've enjoyed doing this over the years, you're now stepping back. Full-stop, you don't need to justify this or arrange an alternative.

Leave it to your colleagues/manager to decide if they want someone else to carry this on.

Personally, I think 'official' gifts should only be for milestone birthdays and occasions; if you do it for every birthday, you never stop!

Card rotas (e.g. last birthday buys card for next birthday) are OK in theory but can fall apart if people are on holiday or with the inevitable disorganised/can't be arsed person you get in every team, so someone needs to own it and be prepared to step in if needed. Again, quite possibly more trouble than it's worth, but let your team decide.

What I hate about gift collections is that it's always women doing it. Men wouldn't do stuff like that but women are always expected to. It's all bollocks.

Hate it too op. It is time consuming. Nobody wants to take it on either. You be sick it.

Of course there was the great scandal where some git took the cake in the kitchen and cut a big slice before the get together for the cake and tea, it was Agatha Christie levels of whodunnit, never did find out.

Thoughts and prayers. We've never quite recovered from the who stole a colleague's Pork Pie scandal.

I don't think it is leading to a happy work environment.
Most people don't like it.
That may well be why no one else has come forward.

Well, is it? The Japanese have a much more integrated work/life culture and although I think this is probably quite as tricky as our culture of hard lines, UK ideas of professionalism are not the only ones in the world and frankly I get a bit ticked off with the lengths everybody has to go to in order that lazy arses are preserved from finding out that they are failing to do their job.

Everybody knows who is useless at work.

But if they were truly happy about it and felt it was a good use of company time, they could have amended the timesheet system to allow it to continue eg some form of code like "special admin"

I don't think it's reasonable to wander round John Lewis on company time, sorry

Yep. In over 30 years working, I've only ever known one man organise a colleague's present.

I was that person at work - but id buy enough cards for the whole team at the start of the year then vouchers were the emailed code type or purchased online. There are workarounds if you enjoy doing it

Good for you. i wouldn't be doing it either. The MD of my work put a stop to asking for donations and buying gifts and cards. Whenever its someone's birthday they get a virtual card via email now.
i used to be the person that bought the cards for colleagues and when it was my birthday i never got a card, so was glad that things changed.

Such a shame. Don't feel bad. It's management's fault for instead of addressing that workers lateness directly, they then subjected you all to timesheets, which I'd resent more, than the issue with cards.

At my new workplace it's cards and gifts for big birthdays only.Much better than every year.

That's been my observation too.

Please stop doing it this shakedown is one of the worst bits of office life you're not a martyr you're annoying everyone

We do cards. I buy the cards. My assistant sorts out getting them signed. If people want to bring cakes, they do.

We do a collection for birthdays with a 0, mat leave, leavers and getting married. We tend to arrange collections on-line nowadays.

It's a nice touch but a bit of a pain in the arse.

@TinyMouseTheatre :

"Perhaps the time sheets haven't just been introduced for your colleague but for others too who think they going shopping on works time is acceptable?"

Not everyone works at a place that had your nose to the grindstone for 7.5 hours constantly.

At everywhere I've worked people have chatted, had a bbq in the summer, gone for Christmas drinks for an hour after work. People pop to Costco to buy stuff for our work. Not all companies are the same. Some are more relaxed. Saying that when we work, we work really hard.

Why do women always choose to do it though. They aren't being forced to. It's up to them if they don't.

The OP has decided she no longer wants to do so she should just stop. There is no need for it to be something to stress over.

You ANBU. I think getting presents and cards for everyone’s birthday at work is a stupid idea but as the manager of a team, if I agreed this was something that the team was doing I would 100% give you and extra 15 mins to get the card and present. I might even go wild and stretch it to 30!

I doubt the company is that bothered about benefiting the employees at the expense of work getting done. Yes they've got a duty to you on some level, but not to treat you or cheer you up when you're all there to work and are being paid appropriately.