Working in an office often means you have to socialize with your coworkers daily. When they have significant events in their lives, you also have to congratulate them, and sometimes even chip in for a collective gift. In fact, 43% of American workers say they have contributed to group gifts in the workplace or among family and friends.
One recent story sparked a debate about whether that should be a given. After a woman refused to chip in for her colleague’s retirement gift, coworkers accused her of holding grudges and being petty. The woman tried to justify her position, saying, “She was horrible to me for years,” thinking that the colleague hadn’t earned any sympathy or a going-away gift from her.
A woman was asked to chip in for a going-away gift for a colleague she hated
Image credits: Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Coworkers pressured her to contribute and called her “petty,” but the woman saw no point in gifting something to a person who mistreated her for years
Image credits: luke2burn / Reddit (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Agitated-Result-4553
“When she was undermining me and making comments… nobody stepped in for me,” the woman wrote
Most commenters sided with the woman, saying she owed nothing to the horrible coworker
Others suggested looking at this from a different point of view and think about this in terms of her career in the future
