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!!!

This is all very 'I just say what I think'. You've been told why its rude, you fail to understand, are lacking in emotional intelligence and seem weirdly proud of your ignorance. All very odd.

From your comments here and your actions I suspect you are horrible to work for and that is the reason for her low output.

when dealing with a difficult or unpleasant boss, the small unkind things they do seem worse.

Some reflection on your leadership style might be a good idea. (I’d say you were my old boss but he left in the last 12 months, and did something similar with gifts.)

I guess if you're not horrible to people they feel more motivated? Who knew?!
Not exactly difficult to work out.

She thought she'd bought you a lovely gift. She probably picked the scent thinking you'd really like it. She was probably glad she got you as she knew what you liked. She might have really liked you and thought good of herself that she could get you something she knew you would enjoy.

Then she sees it back in the raffle a year later. Yes, that's pretty demoralising.

It's fine to not like a gift. You don't have to use it-but you absolutely should not have let the gift-giver know that by re-donating it where she would see it, that's a total slap in the face.

And £10 might just be £10 but it is money spent on a work colleague

Yeah, that was a bit rude 🙄

You have been both stupid and rude.

But we all share the same atmosphere 😅

I think both of you were unreasonable.

Good grief, she needs to get a life.

you've basically indirectly rejected a gift that was given to you so it's a bit insensitive and awkward yeah. I mean to call a meeting over it and say "her motivations been impacted and she doesn't feel valued" is just HR speak for that was a bit of a nobbish thing to do.

If it was me, I'd have probably just quietly noted that your lacking in social skills because at the end of the day it isn't worth the drama. I find work relationships pretty shallow and fake to be honest so tend not to expend too much mental effort over them.

MOOOOO

I wouldn’t have given it to the raffle but to a charity shop instead.

I know. I don’t burn them either 😊 as someone pointed out on a Christmas thread, most big candle sellers use parrafin (Jo Malone, White Co, Diptyque or whatever the spelling is etc).

My point was the charity shops near me don’t want cheap stuff from my experiences.

So whilst other people can say their locals charity shops near will take a £10 candle, my experience is very different!

Clearly you've never been to a charity shop.

Putting that point aside, if you think it's total shite and no good for a charity shop, what we're you thinking holding on to it for a year and bunging I'm the charity raffle??

Presumably because you're so much better than the rest of us and our shitty local areas and crappy £10 candles.

I never said that.

I said I don’t burn parrafin wax.

I think Jo Malone and the rest of them are pretty shit FWIW. Overpriced and synthetic.

Because someone might like it.

I don’t like lots of things that other people do (Love Island, Eastenders, David Beckham, football, Adele…)! One woman’s rubbish is another woman’s treasure.

Paraffin issues aside, @WorkRaffle, can’t you see why your thoughtless action in donating the present your colleague gave you to the work raffle where she would see it, and know how little you valued her gift, was unkind and hurtful?

What a twat. Obnoxious and revelling in it.

You said your area won't accept £10 candles.

Charming.

She sounds a bit precious and over sensitive yes. But you really don’t seem to be taking onboard anything said here and clearly don’t like her. Just because you have the hide of a rhino doesn’t mean everyone else has. She may be down about other issues and this may be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Just aswell you aren’t her manager.

I’ve admitted it was poorly considered.

But I am quite bewildered people think that it is justification for her not to do her job.

It would be more polite to give it to a charity shop, but your colleague should be more robust.

This was essentially regifting, which is a big social faux pas.

She’s fine to be hurt by this. However, not being able to do her job is over the top.

Both these things can be true.

That's so rude!

Regifting is a bit of a grey area for most people. I've done it myself. But you have to be really careful to make sure the person that gave you the gift doesn't find out and it's really embarrassing if they do.

It seems to me like you went out of your way to hold onto this gift for a whole year in order to make sure the original gifter knew you didn't want it. Because you're so environmentally friendly, (but actually you don't care about the toxic chemicals as long as it's someone else burning it and not you). Beyond tacky.

I think you’ve overanalysed this.

I simply couldn’t be bothered to take it home when I knew I’d just be bringing it back, so it got put in my locker for a year, pulled out and put in the collection point!

Hardly anyone is going to remember what they gave someone for secret Santa a year before. The fact she remembered is just unfortunate, and not something I could have predicted.

No malice was intended, it was just poorly considered. If I wanted to make a ‘point’ as you and so many seem to think I did…I’d have done something spikier.

I'm not sure anyone thinks that. What we are saying is that:
a) it was tactless of you to do this
b) it’s good that she flagged it to you – so you think better next time and she is not fuming internally
c) You need to apologise properly ("I'm sorry you feel like that" is not an apology)
d) She maybe feels that you don’t value her in general and this was the last straw (we may be reaching there)
e) (my view) she realises she hasn't done the work (not OK obvs) and reached for this as something she wanted to tell you and to deflect the issue; have you never given a bit of a red herring reason for something you should have done differently?

I don't think d) is OK (clearly she should be getting her work done) and also I wouldn't feel as bad as she clearly does personally. But I think there's a lesson here in thinking about the feelings of others. Your OP said your colleague felt unvalued which I think is a legit response.