AIBU in thinking 'what's wrong with everyone just signing a card?'?

[Floogal]

Another whip round thread. My manager is turning 40 soon. 2 of the supervisors are organising a card for everyone to sign, alongside the dreaded whip round. They have even emailed and WhatsApped their bank details so people can contribute (alongside cash donations). FFS, what is wrong with people just signing a card? I'm always grateful for birthday and Xmas cards and that is good enough quite frankly!!! I can understand gifts if someone is retiring, but birthdays is a bit much.
For one thing there is a big income disparity at work (as other workplaces) and it is wrong to pressure people to donate. Also, I hate the sucking up.
The worst part is, I have worked on other places with even more extreme whip round cultures.

Only buying gifts such as something for Christmas to colleagues lower than yourself. So the boss gifts his team a Christmas hamper but the team wouldn’t have a whip around for the boss and so on.

Just say no. It works. I just don't care what anyone thinks of me. I have enough to pay for at home.

I thought there was an unspoken rule that you don’t give the management gifts? Frankly we didn’t do this sort if thing fir birthdays - maybe a drink down the pub after work or you might bring in a cake, but whip rounds were saved for leaving dos (and not of the manager)!

Totally agree as it's never ending, and only some are recipients.
I ignore it at my workplace as it was every blooming week! Also it was never my birthday lol

Bingo. Got too much downtime at work to smarm up to the big girls. Also, yes, I wonder what happens to any left over money 🤑 💰

UPDATE

My supervisor, who is organising it, has WhatsApped and round emailed her actual bank details again. so people will feel obliged to contribute more than £5. I'm tempted to contribute something like 30p for my own amusement.

Sounds OTT for a 40th birthday. If someone was leaving the company, maybe okay. I haven't worked anywhere where people get given cards and presents for a birthday. If you were friends with them outside of work, then yes.

There should be a workplace ban on it. Supermarket cake at the most. Card only. As someone pointed out, you can have someone turn 30, engaged, wedding and baby in the space of a couple of years. That's a lot of presents.

I would just ignore it.

I think you're making something out of nothing.

Just don't contribute if you don't want to.

I don't give to collections unless it's someone I knew really well and liked.

I WFH though so there's some people I literally never see because we're not in the same meetings.

There seems to be a collection nearly every month with weddings, babies, people leaving (then coming back lol) and I'm not spending money on people I barely met.

Hate it, felt much less pressured when there was an envelope to drop a quid into. Now it's bank details given it's awful.

I received a text a few Christmas ago as colleague had decided to get senior staff a small gift from us lower grades. Asking for JUST a fiver. I so wish I had stood my ground as the gifts were completely unnecessary and the JUST a fiver pissed me off as did the direct text request.

I need to be prepared if ever asked again .

Even with just a fiver god they all add up.. find its got silly now. We 5 in our group but still you have remember all the dates (school buses)

We have a whip round but its reasonable abd fixed at £3pp and there is a list of everyone's name and birthday so no one gets missed off.

Otherwise they can be hell on earth...

I don’t think staff should have to pay for staff birthdays/wedding gifts/leaving gifts. Its the job of the company management. Any company that expects staff to do this is tight, probably pays poor salaries and has an unsupportive culture.

I have worked for my company for 13 years: we have never asked staff to put their hands in their pockets for gifts like this.

In public sector they can't... no bonuses no christmas meals. We pay for it all ourselves. Ironically someone can go off sick and get 6 months full pay from the public purse but a few drinks at christmas....🤔

@IDontHateRainbows I am working in the public sector, and it is fair that taxpayers should not be funding our Xmas parties and the like.
But, I am more irritated by the brown nosing and guilt tripping. The boss is pleasant enough, and I am happy to sign a card. That's it!

OK fair enough. I don’t think its on to expect junior staff to chip in for gifts for managers though. If the organisation can’t afford it they can go without.

Yanbu. We have a few people leaving the school I work in at the moment. They all earn a lot more than I do and there is no way I am donating money. I would have liked to have signed a card but the cards and collections are in the same place so you can't avoid donating money. The last time there was a big birthday in my team I ended up buying my own card and giving it to the person separately. I hate the whole thing. It is too much now. I don't want presents either. It really isn't necessary

I’d personally email the supervisor and say bluntly and honestly she’s being a bit tone deaf sending requests for money round to people who earn 5 times or whatever LESS than the manager and does the supervisor not realise that?

@Thepeopleversuswork and @NotTheSuggestedUsername that is the main issue. I'm on the lowest pay scale, while boss comes in a nice car etc etc. whenever I have suggested the unfairness of gifting up, I get called petty.

Personally, I believe not letting people sign a card unless they cough up is a form of bullying.

I think it’s poor management not to pick up on this where there is a large pay disparity. It’s bound to cause resentment!

It depends on how big the company is but if it’s a small company they could announce that they will from now on provide a cake for anyone celebrating a birthday, for them and their immediate team, in place of birthday collections which are being phased out.

And if it’s a company with a large work force, just send around an email saying that owing to the col crisis the practice of birthday collections is being stopped.

I totally agree, I am back
working in a UK environment after many years of being in international teams and it is doing my head in. I’ve been asked to contribute to Matt’s wedding present (never heard of the guy) and we were asked to give our personal phone numbers as part of a recent fitness challenge (have these people not heard of GDPR?) It just to wouldn’t even occur to me to share my personal phone number with a large group of colleagues. I used the work one…
The chat for this thing was ludicrous, I’d get 180 messages over the weekend, full of pictures of people with their other halves.
It’s lovely really but most of the rest of the world has a much clearer delineation between professional and personal and I’m finding it quite hard work tbh!! I’m aware I sound like an old miseryguts… most recently I worked for a French company and I had no idea about anyone’s personal life. It was good because it reduced the number of things I needed to remember!

Ive always taken a very hard line on the fact that I think office collections are a racket. The person who did them used to look through the office door and if she saw me there she waited until I was away before she dared enter and hawk round for contributions.

Some time ago one of my relatives had just got her first office job when someone was hawking an envelope around wanting £10 a head. She did not know the person and had not even had her first months wages. So she politely excused herself by saying I don't have £10 to spare. The person doing the collection directed her to the nearest cash point. On my advice she went to HR and told them she felt bullied and humiliated. Soon after a memo went around forbidding all collections except those specifically authorised by management.