[JessMcA]

My DP is a bit grouchy about this and he's not sure if he's being petty or not. I'm inclined to think not, but... what do you think?

At his work there are two women about to leave on maternity leave (I'll call them A and B). As always, his work did a collection for the girls to buy them something. The woman who did the collection © is friendly with both A and B, though closer to B. Anyway, C collected for both women together (ie combined one collection pool for both) and then went and bought the presents.

DP wasn't super thrilled about the joint collection because he would have ordinarily contributed more for A than B, because he's friendly with her - more than that, she's a very popular person in the office, very warm and generous, always the first person to bake a cake for someone's birthday or bring flowers or whatever. Whereas B has a couple of friends in the office but is otherwise unfriendly to the point of rudeness. Anyway, it wasn't his ideal situation but he thought, whatever, it's fine.

But then my DP found out that C used the joint money to purchase both gifts, and rather than splitting the money in half and buying something for each with half, she bought unequal presents - the one for B substantially more expensive than the one for A. Now he knows there's nothing malicious about it on C's part - she likes both women and she just chose a present she thought would be useful to both. And he reckons A wouldn't care in the slightest about the disparity. But he's still stewing about it because he feels like the office has ended up subsidising a present at a level above what they would have voluntarily done for one person, and given less to a person he thinks 90% of the office would really go out of their way to be generous for.

Anyway, what do you reckon? Is he being petty being annoyed about this? He keeps saying he knows he's unreasonable, spiteful, etc... but I don't know. I think I might have been annoyed in the same circumstances. If I gave money to 2 people I'd expect that money to be split equally. Then again, if the recipient doesn't at all mind, and there's nothing malicious about it, what does it matter?

Any thoughts?

[raone]

No that would annoy me heaps and I would probably buy gifts myself from then on. It's not even about not liking the other as much. It's just what is fair.

[Holidayromp]

Unfortunately because the gifts were bought by a representative for the whole office using the money there is not alot of say.

In future instead of placing money into a pool and relying on someone else to do the buying I would suggest as a pp did buying a present and handing it to the receiver directly.

Also in your DH's circumstances I am not sure how that would go down in the office as well. It does reek of favouritism and it will be picked up. I would be surprised if there wasn't any fallout as a result.

[JessMcA]

He doesn't think there'll be any fallout - he only knew about it because he overheard C mentioning it to someone else (she was asking whether they thought A would be offended). The presents were very different, so I guess you'd need to be really up to date with baby stuff to know what was worth what? I wouldn't have guessed the presents were that different in cost if it had been me.

It's always so awkward with these office things - you don't want to look like you're not contributing... but I guess you could just say that you're going to get them something yourself.

Anyway, thanks for the replies - I'll reassure him that other people don't think he's being mean about it!

[crackles]

he can pretend his money was split 50/50 but other people's were split a bit different :-P

I agree with pp's

I would be a bit annoyed but not much u can do about it

[I'm Batman]

Me, id ask for the lady to put some more money into the other ladies present. Its really rude to create such an obvious disparity. Or I would put in for my own gift.

[Jemstar]

I would be annoyed, but if there was genuinely not going to be a problem for the women concerned then I would let it go. I would, however, insist on separate collections in future. Even better, separate collections made by two different people.

[Funwith3]

Now he knows there's nothing malicious about it on C's part - she likes both women and she just chose a present she thought would be useful to both.

I disagree. She intentionally spent more on one woman (who she was closer to) than another woman. It sounds malicious. The obvious thing to do was split the money in half. Anyone can see that.

[bakesgirls]

I think the money should have been split equally between the two women for their gifts. I don't think it's OK to have such an obvious difference in gifts. The money people gave towards the gifts was for both women, not for one more than the other.

[Yomumma]

Bit of a white worry.. so long as person A didn't care they got a cheaper present then who cares..