Count me in with the “I-hate-school-fundraiser” extortion thing. Some of it (candy and giftwrap) was such crap anyway, I would rather just give $25 to the PTA directly, rather than have to buy the junk they were selling (and out of which they got something like 15%.)
But…when I was selling pizza kits, I would take it to work. For the pizzas, I had people knocking each other over to get to me. Those were actually very good and at a fair price. I would also buy occasionally from others in the office.
But of course there is the downside. The owner of the one company I worked for refused to ever buy any fundraiser stuff from the lowly peons who worked for him, BUT when his daughter’s private school had a fundraiser, of course we were all pressured to help them out. The poor private school kids desperately needed a new stable for their horses…we public school parents were just trying to buy books for the library! Grrrrr!
Save some of the hastle for saying no to the things that come after they get married like the baby showers, the fund raisers, etc, donate some condoms, or hell, just pay for the Novaritis implants. Send me anenvelope, I’ll chip in for the Navaritis.
I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. My company doesn’t allow solicitation of employees by other employees (by solicitation, I don’t mean that other thing you’re thinking of, although they probably don’t allow that, either). So I never have to contribute to someone’s wedding/shower/fund drive.
Of course, we have the Annual United Way Extortion Fest, so it probably all evens out…
My office has a great way of dealing with this crap - maybe some of you can use the info.
When a special event warrants a present for an employee, the head of the department (the publisher, in this business) buys the gift from all of us using the corporate charge card and puts it on his/her expense report. The company essentially buys the gift and our wallets are spared.
As far as the United Way goes, if an employee donates a day’s pay, s/he gets an extra vacation day and has a chance to win two plane tickets to anywhere in the world. It’s good incentive and no pressure.
If an employee is selling something or participating in a run/walk charity event, the policy is to post the announcement in the kitchen on a bulletin board. That way, those interested can approach the employee.
Essentially, no one pressures anyone to donate or participate. Have I mentioned how much I love my job?
Welcome, Annie—you sound like a hardened old Doper already!
Sax, can I have a job with you and Ike?
As for me, I’m in dutch for refusing to donate to the United Way—because a good percentage of the charities they give the money to are churches.
And oh yeah, the surest way to get yourself a party and lots of gifts around here is to get yourself knocked up. I swear, I am the only non-pregnant woman on this floor, and sometimes I find myself nervously checking MY waistline . . .
I’m feeling pretty lonely here. Isn’t there even one person who’ll take the opposition with me?
Everybody’s talking like when you give gifts, you’re paying into some account that you can later withdraw from. “I’ve gone through menopause; why should I give to someone who’s pregnant.” “I’m gay; why should I give to someone who’s getting married.”
You don’t give an expectant mother a gift because you might be pregnant someday. You give her a gift because it’s a nice thing to do for someone you work with.
And even if you don’t know her, if she works in the same building with you the odds are pretty high she’s a friend of a friend.
And for gods sake, we’re talking two dollars here. You can skip the fries with your happy meal to make up for it.
I was talking about exactly this with my roommate this weekend (she’s divorced, BTW), and made the crack that when I graduate from University I’m going to throw myself a “still Single” party, so I can get all the goodies a married couple get and set up my household with little expense.
She found this very amusing. I consider it payback for being “nice” and donating a buck or two to all the bridal shower gifts/wedding gifts/retirement gifts/baby shower gifts I’ve given over the years. Not to mention the fund drives.
Sorry, Bill, looks like you’re still alone. I do it, but I hate it. My money’s tight enough. The only time I didn’t resent it was when one of the women in my office got pregnant for the second time despite being on depro-provera. She and her husband were both working two jobs to make ends meet. I gave more than a buck to them, I guarantee you that.
Bill, while I agree with you that people shouldn’t give gifts so that they can claim one later on, I would never give a gift to someone I don’t know. Working in the same building doesn’t confer automatic friendship. If I’m going to give presents to people at work merely because they know someone I know, then why don’t I take a survey among my out-of-work friends and find out if they have any friends whom I don’t know - maybe I can give them presents too.
Giving gifts to strangers isn’t a nice thing for anyone but the recipient. Why should I spend $2.00 - why should I spend $0.50 - on people I don’t know just because we happen to have the same employer?
And I absolutely refuse to ever contribute to a present for the owner or boss. Buying presents for superiors is completely and totally inappropriate. The only possible exception I would make to this would be to buy flowers for the boss who’s in the hospital; even then, the business should be buying the flowers and having everyone (who wants to) sign it, or better yet, just signing the card with a general “get well soon from everyone at the office.”
Hey, I contribute willingly and freely, when the recipient is somebody I know, somebody I like, and somebody I probably would have given a gift to anyway. But when I feel like I’m being dunned, forget it.
And I don’t give to the United Way because a fairly large portion of the UW donations actually pays for UW overhead. I prefer to give directly to the charities of my choice - this year, it’s Planned Parenthood, Amnesty International, and some locals. Let them get 100% of my money, instead of the 72% UW would give 'em.
I have no problem with people who want to give their money away, I find it very noble of them. My original objection was more to being pressured by others in the office to donate. When the biddies in my office made their first round, they sent out a email to all of us that said something like, “Well, we’ve collected $150 for the wedding present, but we don’t feel it’s enough. We’re going to keep going until we get $200.” Extortion!
As far as the “it’s only $2”, there are 92 people in my office. We’re expected to contribute for everything from weddings to birthdays to baby showers. At $2 a person, I’m already at $184 a year for birthdays alone. Now that I think about this little statistic, I know that the stuff that people get from the office doesn’t cost that much. Now I wonder where all that extra money is going…
We have collections here now and again, but I work with a small group, so it’s not a big deal. We’ve had a couple of baby showers and we either treat people to lunch on their birthdays, graduations, etc. or have a potluck lunch with a cake. A couple of things our larger organization does:
–Buy snacks and drinks at the local grocery store and sell them at a slight markup, using the “profits” to fund group birthday parties (i.e., a party for everyone who had a birthday that quarter, rather than for each person.)
–Hold barbeques, bake sales, and similar events and use the money to fund larger, free events such as a company picnic.
The “extortion” type fundraising would be a drag. I’ve been impressed at how my current company manages to put on social occasions at work without too much pressure.
My office has about 20 people, about half of whom are women in the bonding and reproducing phases of their lives. Another quarter are men and dedicated misanthropes such as myself, the other quarter midlife women.
While the lassies enjoy marriages and births, the ‘major life event’ that our middle age sisters and brothers experience is critical illness-cancer, strokes, MS, et al. Let’s review-too sick to work, sick pay is about 70% of the regular wage (god bless collective bargaining), costs often increase due to the need for medical supplies, too weak to cook a plate of pasta for yourself or vaccum the bloody livingroom.
What this person needs is some flowers! Everyone chuck in 50 cents.
When I suggested that if we all tossed in the standard shower-booty tarrif of $10 we could get our beloved radiation sickened coworker a few visits from Mollymaid- ‘oh no, let’s not do that!’ (imagine nasal whine). Standard Safeway bouquet was purchased instead.
Bugger them. They can buy their own baby toys and crystal bits.
All right, here’s a story for you. The last company I was at had about 30 employees at the time of this story; pretty small. A key employee had a baby. Well, his wife did, but you get the idea. I was a senior manager and I bought (after asking several employees for advice) a present for him on the company’s dime. It wasn’t a huge present; under a hundred bucks. As I say, it was a small company and everybody knew everybody and this guy was very well liked. Everybody was happy…
Well, the HR gal and the CFO freaked. They figured this was setting a bad standard, and setting a precedence, and opening us to lawsuits from people who wouldn’t have kids. It was OK for employees to collect amongst themselves, but not for the company to organize and pay, they said.
So, to smooth things out, the CEO and I personally split the bill for the present.
And the company didn’t buy presents for future occasions. A loss in my opinion. Whatever. Work doesn’t have to have a fun side or a social side, I suppose. But it’s detrimental to think that people don’t have a fun, social side to their lives, and enjoy a break now and then.
I love this idea. It would be welcome for a baby gift (for after baby is born) as well as when one is sick, believe me! Who needs more flowers that are just gonna die in a few days? A practical gift…how practical! A maid visit would be MUCH more appreciated than flowers. I wouldn’t mind pitching in a few bucks for something like that, rather than the standard bouquet of daisies and mums.
I nominate Annie for SD office manager!
Funny you should ask. They didn’t take up a collection for me, because of my rep for not contributing (even though I do contribute most of the time; I just happen to gripe about it the most.) That’s fine with me, though. I’d rather not get anything from these people, and not be expected to contribute. That way I can buy stuff only for people I like.
