This isn’t a full blown pitting because I may be over reacting that this bugs me so much and I am sure I’ll get blasted if I am being unreasonably disturbed.
The holiday season is very special in our office. Not only do we give generous bonuses, we have two parties; one office luncheon pot luck and one lavish dinner affair paid for by the company. During the pot luck we have a “kris kringle” gift exchange and the staff chips in for a gift for the CEO. However, the thing that is closest to my heart is the needy family we sponsor each year. We are provided a family with names and ages of the children and participation is voluntary. Currently as I look across my desk to my office, it is filled with so many gifts for this family, that it actually brings tears to my eyes.
Obviously this isn’t my issue. My issue concerns the gift for the CEO. Each staff member is asked to contribute 20 dollars which they did. The person in charge of the gift decided to spend three times the amount he collected since he found the “perfect gift”. He has not asked anyone to put in more money. He only asks that it is made known the he purchased the majority of this gift. (How he expects that to happen is beyond me but knowing him he will probably just say it when the CEO opens it.) This man is a notorious ass kisser to the point that it is a huge joke around the office. This gift does not matter to me as I am friends with the family and although I throw in my twenty as a gesture of good will, I do something personally for the family.
Whew. Enough background.
Now for what bugs me.
The man who spend this huge some of money did not give one toy or gift card to the charity family and never has. I would tend to think he gives in other ways if he wasn’t so vocal saying he can’t afford to give to charity because things are so tight. Instead, he spent a huge some of money to get in good with the boss.
Okay, dopers. Tell me I am just being petty and he can do whatever he wants with his money and I have no reason to be so bitter that he’d rather spend his money on a millionaire since it is his money to do whatever he wants. I can take it.
I don’t think you need to connect the two things. He’s an ass for trying to hog some glory in the CEO’s present. He shouldn’t get that task ever again.
Honestly, I find it a little uncomfortable that employees are collecting money to buy the millionaire boss a gift in the first place.
The guy sounds like a huge douchebag and his punishment should be open mockery. Of course he can spend his money however be chooses but if he’s the one who made it public so he deserves the consequences.
Are both gift-giving affairs voluntary? I wouldn’t mind having my choice of the two, being expected to pony-up for both things would make me a bit Scroogey. Especially if management is actually keeping track.
If he’s so keen on having his gift giving proclivity made public, then by all means everyone should know he gave NOTHING to a needy family. Otherwise he needs to stfu. Can’t have it both ways.
Why do you have to give $20 to the CEO? I hate it when I hear stuff like this. Gifts should never flow up, they should only flow down. That guy is making 10x what anybody on the floor is making.
That being said, the guy in the OP is a big jerk.
And I also wouldn’t want to be pressured to give to a needy family that someone else chose. I donate when and where I want and hate being pressured to give. I don’t participate in those kinds of charities, tbh. My money goes towards organizations that are funding research and education. It’s the “give a man a fish or teach him to fish” dilemna.
I don’t celebrate christmas, but I think gift-giving philosophy should apply all the same. Basically, if you’re not willing to give a gift anonymously, then you’re not really giving a gift.
In this case, this is really no different than if he’d thrown in a bunch more for his birthday gift, or whatever other reason. That he wants to make it known that he spent so much more makes it clear that his motivation isn’t because it’s the perfect gift, but that he “gave more” than everyone else. Not only does he come off looking like an ass-kisser to you all, but it runs the risk of creating issues around the office and, depending on the CEO, could just make him look bad or make everyone else look bad.
Regardless, if it’s going to be a communal gift, you all need to have pretty solid rules about how it works so people don’t get hurt. First, it should always be from ALL of you, with the idea that it was more or less equal contribution. Second, if anyone wants to contribute more, they can, but it’s part of that anonymous bit and no one else should know about it, particularly so people aren’t guilted into giving more when they don’t want to. Third, if you’re going to go above the budget, it either comes out of his own pocket as part of the first point, it goes back to everyone to decide if they want to contribute a little more.
So, yeah, this person isn’t generous to a fault, he’s a glory hog and a jerk.
Yeah. This would give Miss Manners the vapors, and it leads to precisely the issues the the OP is encountering.
I am actually not a fan of any “optional” holiday gift-giving at the workplace, but sponsoring a needy family bothers me a lot less than giving the boss a gift.
Just reread my initial post and noticed I wrote some instead of sum. Sorry about that. Too late for the edit.
Regarding it being mandatory to donate to the CEOs gift… I would say…kind of. A person walks around and says you “owe” 20 bucks. If you don’t have it when she asks, she will say bring it when you can. I would imagine that you could say you are unable to contribute and they wouldn’t let you sign the card but I don’t think this has ever happened.
Personally, I hate it too but it isn’t something management does. It is something a couple of staff members do. I would much rather they put a jar somewhere and let people donate what they can but it really isn’t under my control. Since Christmas bonuses range from $500 to over $10,000 I don’t think a small gift is unreasonable, but I am not fond of the way they go about it. I will say they do ask for suggestions from everyone as to what the gift should be. This year a certain person just had his mind set on something well beyond budget and without asking anyone, put a nonrefundable gift on his credit card.
Didn’t we recently have a thread where the OP found something really good for his boss and wanted to give it as the group present, but it was expensive, and he was trying to figure out whether or not to ask for more money or take the hit himself?
I hate, hate, hate “voluntary” gift-giving in the office, regardless of how worthwhile the cause is. This mostly happened at my former place of employment where, because I am female, it was expected that I contribute to every bloody baby shower in the office, even for people I didn’t know. At any rate, it sounds like everybody knows what a douche the gift-buyer is so I wouldn’t spend any more time worrying about it.
With respect to the CEO, he’s a douche also, for not putting a stop to the gift-giving. All it would take is an e-mail saying he/she has appreciated the gifts in the past but they are totally unnecessary and that it would be preferable if people simply contributed a tad more to the charitable gift. The generous bonuses are great, but I would still bristle at being compelled to give some back to a guy making a boatload more money than I do even with the bonus.
Exactly what I came back to say. I don’t expect all would feel this way but you know you’ve got a keeper whenever they do. I mean it’s a position meant to excel in good judgement and leadership, right?
Out of curiosity, are these bonuses performance based and just coincidentally handed out around Christmas time? Regardless, unless the CEO is the sole owner, it’s not really his money so I don’t see why he deserves a gift for giving out company bonuses.
Eh, depends on the boss. The guys in my little isolated section gave our direct supervisor a nice retirement gift recently and in the past an annual birthday/Christmas gift ( almost always a gift card ). He reciprocated in turn for Christmas and Thanksgiving. But we never gave anything to his boss. Or his boss’s boss. Or his boss’s boss’s boss. Or his boss’s boss’s boss’s boss ;).
Basically just him because we worked with him everyday and he was a good boss, by and large. We didn’t feel obligated and there was zero pressure to do so.
Apparently I spoke too soon about him asking for more money. He informed me that he “demanded haha” more money from one of his coworkers and agreed to wait until bonus time. There was definitely a hint in that conversation that I might want to contribute additional monies as well. My only comment was about how nice it was for him to be so generous.
Why don’t you be direct with him? The agreed upon amount was $20, he is asking for more money because he personally wants to buy a bigger present, and nobody else is obligated to spend to his comfort level here. He isn’t going to take the hint.
The CEO is a GREAT guy. No doubt. Someone asked about if the bonus comes directly from him. While it is a complicated formula, in short the answer is yes. If he did not bonus out this money, as managing partner, it would be his to keep.