Leavers gift collection.

[Poodlelove]

A colleague left work last month and I have been off sick after surgery, so wasn't there when he got his present.
We all put in to the collection but usually it is £5 or £10 but there is no pressure and people can put in less.
There are approximately 60 staff.
We usually buy something for them to keep , a joke present and then a voucher.
I saw my colleague whilst in the doctors and I asked how their new job was going etc and I asked what presents was he given on leaving day.
He received a card that nobody had signed, a bottle of pepsi , a chocolate bar and some flip flops , it wasn't wrapped up or had any tissue paper , just shoved in this tiny bag.
He showed me a photo on his phone and I felt really embarrassed and I put extra in because I worked the longest with him and he is a very kind and helpful colleague.
My husband told me to phone work and asked what happened but I don't think I should.

Sounds like someone has stolen the £300-£600 donated by the 60 staff.

Is the voting:
YABU: Phone work to ask what happened
YANBU: Leave it

???

You need to ascertain whether anyone actually did the collection. Then if there definitely was one you’d be correct to query this with your manager since there must be a question over what became of the funds.

If you were off sick I’d suspect that it was forgotten about and someone cobbled together that shit stuff at the very last minute.

Very poor.

How much did you put in op? Id ask any close work colleagues if they contributed and go from there. What he got would cost a tenner so I think someone stole money. Unless was he very unlikely, is it possible noone put money in?

Who collected in is it still in a drawer? God thats cringy op the poor guy.

This.

In our office there is me & one of my colleagues who have sort of fallen into being the people who keep track of these things and make sure there is something sorted.

I was off for most of last year on maternity leave & my colleague was off for awhile long term sick when 2 people ended up leaving and I since heard they did end up getting something really rubbish just grabbed from the corner shop last minute as nobody remembered- it could be something like that.

Yes sorry , thank you

Twenty pounds . There were four others leaving in a different department, I didn't contribute to them , but others did.

Phone work! Someone needs to be accountable for that as it looks like the money has gone missing. Even if all 60 didn't contribute, that's not even £20 worth of stuff.

How terrible of the company to not even get anyone to sign a card!

I'd definitely be chasing this with managment/whoever did the collection... if I put in money I expect it to be all spent not pocketed by the person doing the collecting

@Poodlelove please do take this further as surely there’s a fraud element here? All those items total approx. the sole value of just your own £20!

Also your poor work colleague, those ‘gifts’ are more like a cruel joke.

So 5 people were leaving?

Is it possible that their collections were all put together and then split out 5 ways, which would means that it could end up at much less?

And what flip-flops? Were they branded ones?

Not signing the card was poor form though