Work Raffle - Colleague claims I’ve damaged their feel motivation

[WorkRaffle]

Last year I was gifted a candle in secret Santa. Great, I love candles and wax melts.

However, for reasons related to environmental concerns and the composition of the candle (the wax used), I won’t use it.

Absolutely fine. Instead of chucking it in the bin, I just kept onto it and waited for this year’s raffle to come by as I figured it would be a good choice. All raffle proceeds go to charity and people only buy a ticket because it’s for charity rather than because they want something nice. So I gave my candle to the raffle.

Anyway, work colleague discovered I had submitted the candle to the raffle! She’s really angry and brought it up yesterday in our weekly catch-up.

I was pretty thrown. Apparently my gifting the candle to the raffle has impacted the colleagues motivation as they don’t feel valued!

AIBU to think the person is being completely ridiculous and unreasonable to have bought it up - it’s a candle from Boots, not their life’s work!!!

ok thanks - I have 2nd hand embarrassment for her then 😃am near that age myself and we should have grown up by then

You’ve made yourself look cheap.

I genuinely thought these candles were manufactured in the millions. How was the colleague so sure it was the one she bought? Had she had it personalised for OP?

I don't think you are actually "bewildered" . You just want posters to say she was unreasonable for using it as an excuse for but doing her work. Which I think is true, but it seems to have gone over your head that you also behaved badly and unkindly yourself and it's fair enough she pointed that out.

What @Bertielong3 said, all day long.

It was at best inconsiderate, at worst downright nasty.

Your colleague was decent enough to tell you to your face. I wouldn't blame her for telling other colleagues behind your back.

If I found out someone regifted something I gave them to a charity shop I wouldn't mind too much, but might be a little disappointed they didn't like it. If they brought it back a year later to work to regift I'd be embarrassed or wonder if they were being passive aggressive.

Oh for god's sake it's not hard to see a candle and make an educated guess that it's the same one you bought colleague a year earlier, they don't just churn them out with no packaging or branding, so for example if you had bought someone the 'neom perfect nights sleep lavender and jasmine' candle and saw the exact same one in the raffle a year later it would not be hard to work it out.

But come to think of it, OP could have done an innocent face 'you don't think I would have done that surely, must be the same candle someone else had ' and turned it back on the colleague to get out of it, that's what I'd have done then she could have made the colleague feel like the bad one for thinking such as thing of her, too late now OP but remember that for the next time .

Sorry, missed it.

Im guessing you now know who gave you the secret santa gift

What OP could remember is not to put gifts into a raffle that the giver might recognise and be hurt by.

You are so funny OP . I actually got sucked in for the first couple of your posts . Sadly i will be reporting the thread as its agsinst the rules to say what i really think .

She doesn’t want to burn it because she thinks it will give her cancer. Whether you agree or not, its not hypocritical! Hate when people don’t RTFT

OP it was rude to put it in the raffle. You should have given it to charity instead. It wasn’t the only option to regift it at work!

I think my sarcasm was lost on you…

The exact opposite , i think its quite amusing , but i guess that wasnt the intention .

Yep, the shark is close to jumping.

This. If you’re so concerned about the environment, you wouldn’t want anyone else to burn it.

I imagine, given her attitude towards other colleagues and their beliefs and lives, she will get quite the unimpressed response!

'Oh were you my Secret Santa last year? Thank you, aren't they nice candles? I've given several as presents since.'

Job done, no drama.

Regifting must be done with care where the giver won't find out.

I mean you do realise how identifiable all of this is and that you could be easily exposed if your colleague or anyone in the team reads this post.

Your colleague has more than enough grounds for a grievance and your employers for a conduct case. You sound like a complete lose canon.

Honestly, if someone had done that to me, I would have laughed about it - It’s a flipping candle, it couldn’t be more innocuous.

It’s actually the sort of thing my colleague would do and we’d probably all find it funny.

This. Obviously she's ridiculously overdramatic but it was pretty rude of you to do this.

It's a bit rude and I can see why she is upset. Big no no if there's a chance the original gift giver would find out 😯

Re-gifting it to someone else is fine and the right thing to do, but not at the same damn workplace raffle!

Of course the person is likely to be offended!

No, they were right to have raised it in a 1 to 1 with you - how else to express how it made them feel? Go to your manager and complain?

You acted in an insensitive way and rather than seething on it, the person you upset told you. Best thing to do, in my opinion. I would probably just have despised you for eternity.