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!!!

Don't be daft. The OP was insensitive but there's no "grievance" here!

You were mean, hurtful and rude and I dont believe for one minute, given the way you talk about this woman, that it wasn't deliberate. You could have disposed of the candle a hundred other ways but no, you chose to humiliate your work colleague. And of course a charity shop would have sold it, that comment was just beyond stupid.

First rule of re-gifting: Always regift to a different social/work/family circle where there won’t be a crossover

OP you are such a snobbity! Of course charity shops will take a nice £10 candle. A £10 candle isn't a "cheapo gift" as you put it (horrible language which just shows what you think of colleagues gift in the first place even though £10 was probably the secret santa budget). £10 on a candle might be very expensive to someone and considered luxury. I would certainly consider a £10 candle a nice product! It's all relative.

And you say in another post that it wasn't your intention to upset her but it clearly was otherwise you wouldn't have donated it back to the raffle where she would obviously see it. It was deliberately provocative and such a socially poor thing to do that it would be immediately obvious to 99% of the population no to regift in the same social circle so as not to hurt or humiliate the original gift giver.

Here you have a coworker you dislike (and who probably doesn't warm to you either) who got your name in the Secret Santa and took time and care to buy you a gift she thought you might like within the £10 office budget (of course you're not going to get a organic soy-wax candle made of unicorn-tears like you wanted). She got the best possible version of something you were known to like within the budget. That's a kind and thoughtful thing to do.

Whilst she is having a disproportionate overaction to what you did, I'm secretly glad she called out your rudeness to your face. I would think much less of you!

You are rude, and snobby, and the faux-naivety over not understanding what you did that was such poor form in the first place makes you an even more rude snobbity.

😂

Drip, drip, drip and you’re still unreasonable. You’re really trying everything you can to be morally right, aren’t you!?

Why were you asking if OPs colleague was 27-32 years old?

You really believe a charity are going to refuse a £10 Boots candle? They really wouldn’t, they’d happily accept it.

Your colleague was dramatic and OTT in her reaction, but you were rude to regift it somewhere she would see, that’s so tactless.

theres a lot of other ways you could of regifted or donated it

absolutely rude to put it back in work raffle

Shouldn't you be at work now doing important managing stuff?

You couldn't have put it in a charity shop over the past year? Sorry I find it odd you hung on to something you didnt want for a year just to put it back somewhere the person who gifted it would see it. If they were so bog standard I would have said you received a duplicate

Imagine being offended that someone didn’t like your gift and made a decision to give it to charity. I can’t even understand how people get offended by stuff like this but looking at the poll I’m clearly in the minority. I wouldn’t even remember that I had bought it tbh. I would have expected the TL to say something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry you feel like that, of course you are valued and I’m sure xxxx didn’t mean to offend. However, I do not feel it is a work related issue and shouldn’t really be discussed in a team briefing. I imagine that may be quite embarrassing for xxxx.’ I actually think the team leader needs to tell her that she isn’t to bring personal issues like that up in front of everyone, I think out of everyone you’ve been treated poorly there, I’m hard to embarrass but that would have made me feel a certain way in front if everyone - where do you work that she felt comfortable doing that? Raise your own grievance with HR if you want to be petty - I’m feeling petty today.

I think it’s a bit insensitive. Everyone would have hoped that their gift donation was received gladly. You should have donated it outside of work or given it to a friend.

So you won't use it due to environmental issues, but you are fine with someone else using it and submitting whatever it is into the atmosphere that you are disagreeing with.
It doesnt make sense.
Plus it's a bit insensitive to put a gift back into the pot. Unless the directive is to put second hand stuff in, I think you could have done something else with this candle, sold it on facebook or something and bought another item with the proceeds for the raffle.

You're getting a hard time on here, OP, and I'm with you.

This colleague remembers a Secret Santa present at work from a whole year ago.
She's got time while at work to go through the ‘catalogue’ email listing all this year's items.
She blames you putting the candle back for her having 'no motivation.’

She's obviously got no life and too much time on her hands, plus she's looking for an excuse to slack off at work.

Imagine going to this length about an off the cuff remark! I think you may have found the people that lack resilience! Hahahaha.

What is “feel motivation?”

You are both in the wrong to some extent but look on the bright side. This is the perfect passive aggressive work story and pretty hilarious. If your colleague plays her cards right and buys enough raffle tickets she could be regifting it to you for next years secret Santa.

The last Secret Santa I did, one colleague gifted the other a framed picture of a ‘man train.’ (Don’t google it) Thank your lucky stars you only got a candle lol

Your colleague is sneaky and sly to use that as an excuse for low productivity.

You didn't do anything wrong.

But she didn't give it to charity, she gave it to the work raffle, where she knew damn well the colleague who gave her it would see it.

She obviously knew who her "secret" Santa was and from her further posts, doesn't like her.

I think it's an overreaction from your colleague but I guess if she's hurt, she's hurt. Maybe don't regift something that might be recognised like this again. I wouldn't give the matter much more headspace though.

Everything about your post screams that you did it on purpose and that speaks to your character.

Even if this was an innocent mistake. Most people are telling you that this wasn't a nice thing to do. Add to that, that you are in a more senior position than this person, I think it was awful. As senior manager myself, I cannot imagine doing this. It is irrelevant that you are not managing her directly.

On the one hand you say you get on well socially but yet you seem to have nothing nice to say about her at all. Then you say cahrity shops wouldn't want a £10 unused candle What a snooty comment. It's doubly odd seeing as you started your post by saying you would have liked it but it was made from paraffin. Something just isn't adding up.

If I've missed a post where you say you were joking, apologises and I take my hat off to you. This is a brilliant wind up.

And the question wasn’t ‘WIBU to have done this’ it was ‘were they unreasonable to have raised it in a 1-2-1’, which I still think they were. How can re-gifting a candle damage someone’s motivation?!

They were not unreasonable to raise it with the person in question - i.e. with you. Some people take re-gifting personally, and she clearly does, especially as the person who did the regifting was her manager, who gave absolutely no thought to how she might feel (otherwise they wouldn't have giving back at work). A lot of people regift but they don't make it obvious.

Your colleague sounds like a bit of a twat.
Does she always make everything about her and take things too far?

I’d ignore her silliness.

I'm intrigued that the OP thinks Hotel Chocolat stuff is 'cheap junk'...

I googled!

Typo on my part as I changed the title (she had said I hurt her feelings and motivation). I think the motivation issue is more odd as I can see why it might have hurt her feelings

It's like re-gifting something back to the person who sent you it, if you want to re-gift because the wax doesn't meet your standards 🙄, give it to your aunty or something. Also it'll do the same to the environment whether you light it or sam from accounts lights it.