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?

Personally I'd breathe a sigh of relief if this came to an end! At my office we do an e-card when someone leaves but that's it. Sorry but I don't want to spend a tenner on a colleague's birthday.

So. This is your role. Then the time sheets get introduced. And instead of pointing out to management the issue and letting everyone know you weren't doing it anymore - you just asked a few times to a few people if anyone else wanted to do it.
And then sat back and watched the colleague you do like be upset to prove a point.
If you don't like the time sheets then say.
But what you did was childish and spiteful.
The debate about what offices do isnt the issue. You deliberately hurt a colleague to spite management like a child. Grow up

i worked at a place where we had to account for our time in 15 minute chunks (to invoice the customers) and this included stuff for internal work too, and when i was in charge of collecting and ordering cards and gifts, i just wrote it in our system. It is nobody else's business what you are doing in work time as long as management are ok with it.

Your manager isn't, but maybe it would be better to include this kind of thing as someone's duties, in the name of inclusion and harmony

Youve repeated this multiple times now
If they were that happy about it they would have agreed to you building it in as part of your tasks even when the time sheets came in -in the same way someone in corporate services can pop out to get milk or a PA organises the boss's dry cleaning or whatever, so they obviously arent that bothered if they're happy to let it slip by the wayside rather than giving you an extra few minutes for lunch.

You can try again telling a manager that stopping will have a disproportionate effect on wellbeing and asking for a compromise- if the timesheets mean you have to be in the building and logged in, can they give you an hour a fortnight to order presents online?

Realistically you didn't need to go out every single time for everyone's birthday - just buy twenty cards at a time.

I think it was a bit unfair to stop just before the birthday of someone who had put a lot in, personally I would have gone to the effort of getting her something and then told everyone that you no longer have capacity to do gifts so does someone else want to take over.

But timesheets are very standard, since i started working 20 years ago I've never worked anywhere that didn't have a method of logging staff in and out. So even if this one colleague was the reason for introducing it, the management aren't unreasonable to do so, its more lax they've never had anything in place before.

The office collection has largely died a death due to people no longer carrying cash and being able to throw their loose change in. Very few people want to be bothered with bank transfers and it's not anonymous either.

I recently did collection for a close work friend who was leaving. I didn't get loads but it was enough to buy a gift card for her favourite store and a few other bits. Managed to get everything from the supermarket where I needed to go anyway so it was no real hardship to shop in my own time.

I did find chasing the card around the office quite annoying and stressful though as it was just left on desks and not passed on, so won't be putting my neck out to volunteer again any time soon.

Yeah stop doing it. It's the office "wife work" and you never get the blokes in the office doing it.

Remote/hybrid working also killed it off in many offices.

We put people's bdays on the office calendar. People either buy a gift or they don't, it's totally optional.

Some companies give everyone their birthday off work as a benefit
Everyone receives an E card

Therefore stops collections & gifts

I can’t believe you didn’t make the effort to do this one last collection, even in your own time, for someone who always puts into a collection and is extremely generous in doing so. That wasn’t nice at all. Just email round now saying you are no longer able to take on this role but with immediate effect you’re no longer being involved, including organising someone else to do it.Most people will probably be pleased to see the back of it.

I am in a huge team and there is some sort of occasion nearly every week. I told everyone I wasn't going to do it anymore so it didn't come out of the blue. Nobody wants to take over.

I completely agree with this. Never seen a man do it.

If they weren't happy with what I was doing then they only had to say and I would have stopped. That is on them not me.

They are not willing to give me the time to organise and buy the gifts so I said someone else can take over. They said fine but no one has.

I wasn't wandering about John Lewis on company time. That was in my own time in the evenings.

If they were not truly happy then it is on them to say. I would have quite happily stopped.

It is not just one last collection. There is now a retirement, another birthday and mat leave. When is the best time to stop?

If the company were as happy with it as you're saying then it wouldn't have stopped, I suspect that the time taken was being noticed and people like shirking colleague took advantage. Shirking colleague was easy to deal with from a management perspective, they would be warned and disciplined if that were really the reason. You've been fed a sop to placate you.

Take the win, you don't need to do this anymore. Everybody happy.

You could order from Amazon.
You could get cards/presents from the supermarket in your weekly shop.
You could order vouchers online.
You don’t need extra time to do these things.

Of course you don’t have to at all. I suspect you liked doing it as it gave an excuse to have extra lunch time. Now that’s stopped (and they could easily give you that time if they wanted) then it’s fine if you no longer want to be bothered. It is horrible for that colleague though and I might have done it for her one last time if she was a friend.

Yea but it was one last collection at that point and it was for someone you said yourself had always been extremely generous. Same thing happened to me at work- they stoped collecting just a week before my 50th and I’d done 30 years of contributing generously to collections so yes I was really quite upset albeit glad to see collections ending. What’s done is done and you’ve told everyone so that’s it, collections over with. Just forget about it now.

It will be a bit crap for those have gifted this year but not received but I can’t imagine giving my colleagues in my small team, whom I’ve liked and worked with for 15 years, gifts for their birthdays. Cut it out and if you want to gift people do it privately .

She was the only one who was vocal about it. Other people who had been generous too didn't say anything (as far as I know) when their birthdays were missed because no one came forward to take over.

People are saying they miss the cakes and celebrations but are silent when it comes to doing the work involved.

you just need to write it off and forget about it it now, you’ve done your turn now and that’s that. Well done for all the time you’ve taken responsibility though, I’m sure it’s appreciated.