Trying to do gift budget what about collections at work?

Chatterbox_3

Oops! so you have to put IN!...I've been taking OUT!...I thought they were giving to us...silly me

Seriously...as I work in a large place our particular department (all girls) do a birthday bag for birthdays. We all contribute a wrapped prezzy and a birthday card up to the value of a fiver. One of us takes charge of organising which card they're going to be given and the prezzy is discreatly placed into a bag with all the others. When the birthday occurs the birthday girl picks out her prezzy from the bag. It's a bit like secret santa. We sing for free (we couldn't charge...equity and all that...LOL)

The downside is were a bit sick of getting candles and smellies. :rotfl:

mandarinduck

My last place did a collection for every birthday, baby, leaving, sickness etc. Unfortunately, as no one was ever willing to volunteer for the collections i ended up doing most of them and inevitably topping it up because so many people said 'I'll give it to you tomorrow' and never did. I always ended up at least a fiver down. Eventually we agreed a turn based thing but people still ended up backing out (one women declared on the morning of my colleague's birthday that she just hadn't had time - despite knowing for two weeks and everyone had to rush round and buy something at lunch time).

I think collections can be nice for really special occasions but they put too much pressure on people when it's for every occasion, not only financially but for the extra work involved. As someone said, it's collecting the money, finding the gift, wrapping it, getting the card signed and so on.

At my OH's work the birthday person brings in cream cakes and that's it for a year. It might cost £5-10 but at least you don't need to pay anything else for the year and you don't have half as much hassle.

MandarinDuck

debbiedeejay

I work in a department of 12, and in the past we just used to do the normal envelope passed round,put whatever in and a card and pressie bought from what was in the envelope.

All occasions were bought for and big birthdays,weddings etc usually more was put in, so a bigger,more expensive pressies could be bought.

Anyway at the beginning of this year one of our new admin staff brought in the new system. Basically those who wanted a pressie put a fiver in the pot and once their birthday came round you get a bottle of wine(red or white),card and wrap up to £5 in cost.
Seemed ok but I had a special birthday the next month and after forking out loads the past 5 years for other special birthdays (they had been given lovely jewelry,watches,perfume and flowers) I did feel cheated a little but hey maybe I'm the lucky one and look young for my age;)

katecheshire

When there were only a few of us in our admin department we used to put in £5 each so when your birthday came round you basically got back what you put in - usually vouchers for the person's preferred shop. The the department got doubled in size and we seemed to be putting in all the time. In fact I said I wouldn't employ any more people with birthdays in June!!! We decided to set it at £2. We have also had a lot of people in the company having babies in the past year but again we stick to £2 because there are now about 50 people altogether so they get plenty and people can put in more if they work with that person.
One thing I have noticed is that since we put it down to £2 for birthdays people seem to bring in a little 'extra' present. Also from bringing in a cake it has grown to bringing in almost a buffet!! Someone remarked that it was getting a bit competitive - I think I might put a stop to that as it is getting a bit silly.