To think what other people have contributed to a leaving present is none of my business?

[DuelingFanjo]

Someone is leaving. One person has contributed only £1. Apparently most other people have contributed £5. Until I heard this my plan was to contribute £3. We are a fairly large department and I don't work closely with this person. Now I feel guilt tripped into contributing £5 because people are messaging eachother and bitching about the people who contributed less.

Would it be unreasonable of me to only contribute a pound knowing it will get round the office but also knowing it would be making a statement to those who are bitching.

Contribute what you want to - I vary a lot with these things, depending on how well I knew the person, and what's in my purse at the time! I'd hate to think anyone was bitching about it. Well, in our office they couldn't, because they don't know who puts what in!

And if you know they are bitching about this, I'd try to have a word with the manager to get them to put a stop to it. They may have to change the way that the collections are dealt with if it's causing this much bad feeling.

Don't be guilt tripped into giving more than you want, it is about getting something for someone who is leaving, not a competition. I only put into collections for people I know and get on with and then it is an amount that I decide. If anyone thinks I'm a bitch then that's ok, it's unlikely they will be getting feck all from me in a collection anyway.

Office politics suck.

Take money out.

Sorry, seriously, £5 is a lot. Ignore the politics.

God the people in your dept sound horrible.

What if the person who contributed that £1 is really on the breadline and it's all they can afford. Or maybe they didn't have any other change. Whatever the reason yabu, it's really not their business. The lack of emapthy people have sometimes is astounding.

Why don't they just pass an envelope round so donations can be anonymous ? That's what we do

I meant yanbu by the way.

I am guessing that because so far almost everyone has put in a note (£5) then it's kind of obvious when someone puts coins in. Still, someone must have fished into it and had a look to start bitching.

To be honest everyone knows that the person who contributed only £1 is really careful with his money, his perogative IMO.

I might just chuck in a load of coppers so they have something more to gossip about - although I like the person who is leaving so I will make a nice contribution.

I always thought it was usual for it to be anonymous, so people could put in as much or as little as they wanted.
There have been times when I have put very little into a collection, even though I wanted to put more, because I was skint at the time. I certainly wouldn't want to be slagged off for it.
I think you should put in £1 too so that more than one person has done it.

YANBU.

Whenever I've collected, I purposely become "distracted" so I don't see whatever's being put in. It's none of my business.
Whenever I'm asked what others are putting in, I say I don't know. Unless it's someone I dislike or a senior manager, in which case I say a fiver

Seriously, though, this checking up on who's contributed what is so vulgar and intrusive. In one place I worked, I was asked to contribute to a leaving present for someone who had been spectacularly unpleasant to me. The envelope was left in the collector's pigeonhole for donations, but she kept coming to me to ask if I'd put money in. She eventually left a named envelope in my pigeonhole for my donation. I binned it.

Put what you can afford/want to and damn their eyes.