I am also retired from government “service”. Supervisors/Management would sometimes purchase small gifts of appreciation for their team, but that was all their own money. Many government offices have a “social committee” who do fund raisers during the year to pay for the Employee Appreciation parties.
The places I worked for with management screwing employees over for unexpected lunch fees were all private sector. Those were the bosses who expected their employees to pitch in to buy them nice, personalized birthday and Christmas presents, but who would in return give staff a 5 dollar Starbucks gift card for Christmas and ignore birthdays.
My January birthday got ignored for a Trump victory party in 2017. The monthly team budget for January was blown on that. I realize the manager forgot about me, it was still disgusting that he didn’t toss me enough money to go get a lunch.
I’d decided earlier that I’d forgo my usual Thai place for the usual birthday team lunch to appease one of the Trumpers in my group who didn’t like any of that ‘weird’ food
My absolute favorite was the time management threw a Secretary Appreciation day for me. I was the one tasked with ordering the food, which didn’t include vegetarian offerings. I was also tasked with making sure that everyone got the lunch they wanted and then cleaning up after they were done.
When I demanded to be paid for working through my lunch hour, my sup told me that I couldn’t do that because I was offered lunch and could have just picked the meat off my hamburger and eaten the bun.
Our company headquarters employs about 150 people on site. Since the COVID outbreak, our HQ office has continued stay open, however about 80% of employees have decided to work from home. We have brought in lunch every day for the remaining 30-35 employees since mid March, on the company dime. Still going strong. We just call it “lunch”.
My former company would do that during whatever polar vortex hit Chicago that year. I assume they got a good deal from whatever restaurant they ordered from
I’ve never heard of this practice but the government employee angle makes sense. The only time I get my wallet out while at work is when we do a lotto pool or informally plan a lunch. Pre-pandemic, word would go out that one of the guys was picking up taco fixings from a local Mexican grocery store. A stack of tortillas, couple rotisserie chickens, some carnitas, frijoles charros, some salsa, couple 2 liters of pop. Five bucks per person and we’d eat like Tlatoani. I can’t wait to get those lunches going again.
By contrast: I’m currently working for a private school. Between all of the coronavirus measures and the completion of a major renovation project, my department was very busy in the week or two before the start of classes. The department head gave us all gift cards to a local ice cream place, and a gift bag with chocolates and markers. She didn’t have a departmental budget for that; she just paid for it. Now, that definitely makes me feel appreciated.
In the federal government, managers and supervisors are strictly prohibited from collecting money from subordinates. They aren’t even allowed to accept gifts from people who report to them. They’re allowed to give gifts, however.
