I know I’m relatively new here at this company, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a quiet person. I’m friendly, but I’m not best friends with somebody after I’ve known them for five seconds.
NO. I do not want to go to the damn bridal shower.
I don’t even know this woman. Just because we use the same letterhead on our correspondence doesn’t make us best buds. She works in another department, on the opposite side of the building. I’m sure she’s a lovely person, but I wouldn’t know because I’VE NEVER SPOKEN MORE THAN TWO WORDS TO HER. (Although I, personally, would be ashamed to hold a bridal shower at work. Seems to me like a tacky ploy for more gifts. If you really are good friends with your co-workers, have the event off-site, off-hours.)
I don’t want to waste my lunch hour ooohing and ahhhing over boring gifts for a person I don’t know, eating food I don’t like. No thanks. Not unless you pay me time and a half for that hour of my life I’ll never get back. Isn’t it bad enough you guilted me into chipping in five bucks for the gift? (Five bucks I can’t really afford, thankyouverymuch!)
I SAID NO! Geesh. You’re a very sweet person, and I’m glad you want to include me…but what part of “no” don’t you understand? And no, teasing me about not being a social butterfly is not going to change my mind. You’re not going to “convert” me. Unlike some people, I actually have a life outside of work. That means I have friends and family to do social stuff with. In my free time. At my own choosing. Without being guilt-tripped into it! I come here to…you know…WORK! That’s it.
So, since this is the Pit, you can take your Guilt-Trip-Begotten-Fancy-Assed Gift and shove it where the sun don’t shine. And follow it up with one of your fucking finger-sandwiches. It’ll probably taste better that way.
Oh yes, being hit up for money at work. Charities, other employees, other employees kids and so on and on and on.
I say no. Nobody presses me on it much anymore but I’m sure they think ill of me. God save anyone who is rude enough to push me after I say no.
If I’m pushed, I say that I cannot afford it. If they have the balls to come back with a reply like ‘it’s only $5’ I then reply that I forgive them for their comment because they don’t know my situation so they don’t understand what kind of complete fool they are to make such a statement.
That usually sets them back on their heels and they never ask again.
Now, to be straight, I do ok and my financial situation is ok. I just choose to spend my hard earned money on me and my family. Now, if people would actually spend money on me (which has never happened), then I might be more generous in the future.
These days it’s perfectly appropriate (and in my case, truthful) to explain that you have cut back on your gift-giving and fundraiser-giving budget so that money can go to 9/11 funds.
I’m trying to scrape together a decent donation to add to the Scholarship fund set up in my classmate’s memory, and anyone who pushes me after my first polite “no” to other donations will hear about it. I hope it makes them feel ashamed for not letting it go.
Everyone in our office recently got invited to a baby shower for a woman we all universally loathe. She treats us all like her personal servants and has set back the working relationship between her office and our office about 50 chilly degrees. We fought over how many of us had to go as “emissaries” and the rest of us just gave–sparingly–to a common fund for her gift. I’m still resentful over it, come to think of it.
I’m working on that skill, truly I am. I’m not a very aggressive, forthright person. In fact, I can’t believe I actually posted in the Pit. That took guts for me, since I don’t have a very thick skin. But like I said, I’m working on it. I guess I can look at this as a place for assertiveness training!
I really need it, because it’s apparently necessary for survival at this company. Seems like every week there’s a bridal shower, or a baby shower, or somebody’s birthday, or somebody’s grandson’s best friend-in law graduated from preschool.
If they want me to contribute to all of those gifts, they’d better start giving me a (much) heftier paycheck.
It’s hard Oreo, to say no. You need some sort of catalyst. I was giving about $15 a week for years which comes to several thousand dollars (no shit) until I got married. Then…
Nothing.
No friggin present just some 6 bit card. I realized then what a chump I was and haven’t donated a penny since. Of course if you do this, you will be the cheapskate bad guy but it is just insane in that you get hit up at least 1-3 times a week.
I did actually break down in Sept when a cute little girl, about 10, came around collecting money for her school to get a huge flag. I gave her a dollar. She looked at me and then showed me her list of donations and they were $10-$20 each insinuating that my lousy $1 was, well lousy. I took the dollar back and wished her luck.
oreo, if you really have trouble saying no, try telling people that you don’t keep cash on hand. i know plenty of people who only carry checks or a debit card to curtail their spending. no cash, no donation. sorry.
I hear ya on the “not a social butterfly” part (we don’t get a lot of begging from coworkers here; if there’s a shower, gifts are at the individual’s discretion).
I like to go out with my friends sometimes, sure. But I also like evenings at home, and some nights I just don’t feel like going out. Apparently, “No” is not enough in these cases and people will press or get snippy. I have explained over and over that “I don’t feel like going out tonight” does not mean “I hate you and am avoing you, just you, personally, forever” but it doesn’t work.
Plus it feels like some of them are never satisified. I could say yes half a dozen times in a row, and propose some outings myself in the bargain, and I still get shit if I turn something down. One woman has turned my invitations (movies, dinner with a group, whatever) down more times than I can count, but has actually taken it upon herself recently to lecture me when I’m not up for something she comes up with.
Ok Rosebud, I hear what you’re saying and to add on…
What gets my goat is when others ask me to do something and I say yes, and yes, and yes but when I propose something it is no, and no, and no.
It’s like I can only be allowed to be a follower. I’ve even asked person A if he wants to get lunch, and be told no then person B asks person A and I and all of a sudden A’s up for lunch! How weird! I take it as an insult since, well, it is.
