This young worker was taken aback by an older coworker’s abrupt rejection of her holiday gift.
What to do with a gift you don’t like? I never worry about this, honestly. If I don’t like a gift that someone gave me, like a lotion or a book or even a sweater, I just regift it to someone in a whole separate friend group. That’s an okay thing to do, right? If I was already going to buy that person a gift, I may as well regift them something they’ll enjoy and will never know the difference. For the same reason, I also don’t really mind if people regift things to me. Whatever makes the world go round! There are thrift stores for a reason — just because someone else didn’t appreciate something doesn’t mean you can’t reuse it and enjoy it fully.
This person basically did that during a workplace gift exchange. Her coworker, who’s in an older generation than her, gave her a scarf and a pair of socks, and this younger woman wasn’t thrilled with that gift. It’s pretty generic, but it is also the kind of thing that most of us can still use (who doesn’t need new socks every now and again, am I right?). This young woman accepted the gift graciously, but her coworker rejected her gift.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Depending on your perception of this post, which you can read below, you may or may not think that the older woman did anything wrong. It seems like these coworkers already have some beef marinating before this whole debacle, which could certainly tint the way that this whole conversation played out. The older woman didn’t care for her lip balm present, but her rejection uses fairly neutral language. If she doesn’t like the flavor, it’s kind of generous for her to offer up the gift to someone who “will actually use it.” Of course, if she had a nasty tone while saying that, or she thrust it into her younger coworker’s face, that’s a whole different story. The younger woman insists that the coworker has it out for her… but I’m curious if there are just generational or cultural differences that are driving these two apart. After all, when you’re young, you haven’t met tons and tons of people who are different than you. You might take someone’s speaking style or tone in a whole different manner than they intended, just because you’re accustomed to people speaking to you in one specific communication style.
Commenters landed on both sides of the argument. Some called out the younger coworker for being unkind, while others thought that the older coworker was being ridiculous. And some also thought that it was wild to have an employee gift exchange in this economy, which is just totally unnecessary! Keep scrolling to read the full exchange and comments, and see who you side with.
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