{"id":6,"date":"2006-10-20T14:51:40","date_gmt":"2006-10-20T18:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/officepolitics.com\/advice\/?p=6"},"modified":"2006-10-20T14:51:40","modified_gmt":"2006-10-20T18:51:40","slug":"everybody-gets-a-gift-card-except-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/everybody-gets-a-gift-card-except-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Everybody gets a gift card except me…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Office-Politics,<\/p>\n

I have worked at a company for less than a year. I was married after I had been at the company for about 6 months. Traditionally whenever anyone is married, has a baby, death, special event a card is passed around and money is collected. This happens at least once every two weeks. However, for my wedding NOTHING was done. No cards, no announcements, nothing. Today I received an email asking for donations for someone’s birthday. I went to go sign the card and was told I needed to donate in order to sign it.<\/p>\n

What is going on? What should I do \/ expect? Should I pay or not pay and not sign the card. When I inquired about this I was told it is cards are normally reserved for those that have been around for more than a year. Am I expecting too much just to receive a simple card on the biggest day of my life? Should I wait a year before I donate myself?<\/p>\n

Thanks,<\/p>\n

Newbie Newlywed<\/p>\n

OFFICE-POLITICS REPLY BY FRANKE JAMES<\/strong>
\n\"franke<\/p>\n

Dear Newbie Newlywed,<\/p>\n

What a dumb policy not to give cards to people for a year. My suggestion is to rise above their pettiness and contribute to the card.<\/p>\n

You won’t get anywhere (socially) by not contributing. The office gossips may draw unfair conclusions about your character — e.g. “Well he said he wanted to sign the card, and then I told him he had to contribute money like everybody else and he walked away… What kind of person won’t give a small amount for a coworker’s birthday?” They’ll tear you to shreds. The fact that they stupidly overlooked your wedding won’t be mentioned in their script.<\/p>\n

The ‘good’ that can come of this is that you will be more empathetic. Whoever is the brains behind the company ‘gift and card’ policy is mean-spirited. There’s a new book out called “The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness<\/a>“>The Power of Nice.”<\/p>\n

I am just reading it now — but the quick scoop is it’s got the right message. ‘Be nice’ and know that it can be the path to success.<\/p>\n

Thanks for writing to www.officepolitics.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\nLet me know your feedback.<\/p>\n

Franke<\/p>\n

Franke James, MFA
\nEditor & Founder, Office-Politics.com
\nInventor, The Office-Politics Game<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Office-Politics, I have worked at a company for less than a year. I was married after I had been at the company for about 6 months. Traditionally whenever anyone is married, has a baby, death, special event a card is passed around and money is collected. This happens at least once every two weeks. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-office-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}