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!!!

That makes it worse in my opinion.

This person gets on with and likes you on a personal level, not just "at work"

They bought something that they thought you would like and found later found out that actually you didn't like it. So much so, you left it in your locker for months to regift in a raffle you know they see, with no regards to how that would make them feel

Can you not see that?

You don't get told who's watching your items on eBay - you just get told how many people are - so I'm confused as to how your colleague would have known that somebody they knew was watching the item?!

Well it's presumably more like giving someone who only drinks merlot a bottle of pinot noir. Perhaps pretty different to the drinker but to someone who doesn't know, both in the category of "red wine" and therefore a perfectly nice drink choice.

Most people who know someone likes candles won't know they want X sort not Y sort. So they think they've got you a thoughtful gift. You then give it away at work (nothing wrong with giving it away in general) and that flags to them (smh in their minds presumably anyone else who saw you open it) that the present was so unsuccessful you've given it away.

Surely you can see why someone might think that was poor form on your part?

I wouldn’t have given it to a work raffle, because I feel that’s a bit socially unacceptable.

However if I was your colleague, I wouldn’t have minded. If I took part in a workplace secret Santa, I would assume there was a reasonable chance I might miss the mark with the present. I wouldn’t take it as a personal slight.

Is the secret Santa compulsory? Just wondering why you were in it given you seem quite environmentally conscious- they are very wasteful whatever you end up getting (unless it's a multipack of chopped tomatoes).

You’re on the spectrum, aren’t you? Because that would be the only excuse for your intransigence on this.

You must know that getting affronted by being gifted Chablis when you only drink Merlot - and gifting that back in a space where the giftor would see it - would be rude and graceless, too?

But you're happy for someone else to burn it, or put it in landfill?

Honestly OP at best this was utterly thoughtless. The basic rule of regifting is not to tell the original gifter!

What the hell is wrong with regifting?
If the candle was a ‘good enough’ gift in the 1st place, why not put it back in the pool?
Suppose OP should have just binned it? adding to landfill?

aside; I put scented candles i don’t wish to burn in drawers with clothes or linen.

Regifting is fine, but not to an environment where the original gifter will see it.
No harm done but it’s a bit rude.

It also makes no sense at all because whoever won the raffle would take the candle home and presumably burn it. So the OP isn't ok with using candle herself nor regifting it to someone who means a lot to her because of potential health risks. Nor is she fine with just throwing the candle away.

But she IS totally fine with a lesser known work colleague burning the candle because the price of a raffle ticket donated to charity is an acceptable compensation for someone else getting cancer???

There’s nothing wrong with regifting, but she’s regifted where the original person who gave her the gift has seen it. That’s the issue.

Work colleague doesn’t socialise as part of the group. Several team members have lifestyles that work colleague finds uncomfortable so she actively avoids them! She won’t really talk to them either because of their lifestyle choices (it’s a very long story!!)

You are clearly rattled at being called out on your rudeness - I agree, most people wouldn't raise this in a 1-2-1 and would just think badly of you to themselves (and possibly others).

If you're having 1-2-1s - please tell me you're not her manager? Because that would be something I told EVERYONE about, how much of a twat my manager was, if you did that to me!

It was pretty dumb to re-gift something to a work raffle that a colleague gave you. Did it not ever cross your mind they'd see it and find out? That was a really stupid thing to do, not just very thoughtless and insensitive. You could have taken it to a charity op shop if you didn't want to put it in landfill.

Multiple reasons why you weren't very smart in this scenario.

A colleague got you a gift that was something you actually like. It turned out not to "be up to your standards" so to speak do to the wax used in it, so you don't want to use it. You then keep hold of it for a year, letting any fragrance dissipate over that amount of time. You then think, I know can't be arsed with getting anything decent for the raffle. So why not put in this old candle that I wouldn't use because I don't approve of the wax quality and worried about negative environmental and health issues. I don't care if someone else suffers said negative effects and anyway people buying raffle tickets shouldn't expect the prizes to be nice because it's a charity raffle.

Raffle happens and your colleagues see the regifted candle. The person who gave it is embarrassed in front of the rest of the staff who might have also been aware of them choosing it for you in the first place. They withhold their upset until they can have a quiet word in private. They explained that it made them feel undervalued and it was demotivating. You have no sympathy or empathy and think that they shouldn't feel like that as it's "just a candle" when it would have been really easy to say "Sorry I didn't think about it being a secret Santa present and didn't want (such a nice) candle to go to waste". Or something else that acknowledged it's not nice to have someone publicly give away something they have been given, especially when it's in front of colleagues at work.

It might have been precipitated by the candle, which isn't a life or death issue on the face of it but surely you can see why it might upset someone? It's not about the article, it's about your actions that feel like you don't care whether you upset your colleague. If you didn't mean it as a snub, why not say sorry and try to make your colleague feel better, rather than judging if their feelings are valid or not?

In hindsight can you not concede that it would have been better to regift the candle anywhere else other than directly in front of the person who went to the trouble of choosing it for you and preferably before any fragrance had gone?

No, it wasn't their life's work, but producing their life's work wasn't the task they had in hand a year ago - their task was to produce a thoughtful gift, which they thought they did. You have then, bizarrely, advertised the fact that you didn't want it. You could have given it to charity, or re-gifted it to someone not associated with your work, or sold it on ebay... but you chose to run the very likely risk that it would be recognised as unwanted, embarrassing your colleague in the process, and grossly underestimating the fuel that this would be for sniggering gossip. This will be remembered by your colleagues.

You're both unreasonable.

Putting something in the work raffle that you were gifted by someone AT WORK was incredibly crass and rude. Of course you pissed them off!

Even given that, whilst the gifter was understandably pissed off, they've made a mountain of it. Just smile and nod at the person in future and don't give headspace to people who give zero fucks for your feelings.

No issues with regifting or passing gifts on - but donating to work raffle where you know the original gifter will see it is just rude. Totally unnecessary!

I've only done a secret santa once and get quite anxious about buying presents. Maybe thats silly and i took it too seriously but I went out of my way to choose something nice and even went over the budget. Fortunately she really loved it but I would have been pretty hurt to find it in the following years raffle. What doesn't make sense is if you are so concerned about the environment you wouldn't use it then why give it to someone else to use? Pretty thoughtless all round really

I'm not sure it did go tbh.

Hanging on to it for a year for the work raffle is pretty odd, I imagine it smells of nothing by now. Why not just give it to a charity shop? I think it was an insensitive and pretty crappy thing to do.

Last year one of the attendees at my son's party regifted him the gift that he had we had given him at his party 5 months earlier. It did hurt my feelings a bit tbh.

Insensitive to give it to the work raffle as opposed to a million other places it could have gone. I'm mortified on your behalf.

Your reasoning for not wanting this candle is also a bit high and mighty... "I'm too good for a paraffin candle to burn near me, but someone else can have it."

If you have such an issue with the dangers of paraffin, why subject someone else to them?

So you wouldn’t use it for environmental reasons but don’t mind if someone else does? Hmm.

Good point!