How does your office handle birthday, baby, retirement, etc. gifts? Who pays for them

[CBC News]

Employees at Canada's tax agency have been using government credit cards to buy retirement gifts, flowers, greeting cards — even to make charitable donations.

And some of the abuses are so serious that the agency launched several investigations into potential frauds.

A litany of problems is cited in a June 2008 audit of the 1,704 MasterCards issued to workers at the Canada Revenue Agency. The cards were used to buy more than $55 million of goods and services in the year ended March 31.

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How does your office handle birthday, baby, retirement, etc. gifts? Who pays for them?



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[tracy]

We don't do birthdays beyond a cake maybe. Other special events we all contribute to. I'm fortunate enough to work with people I generally like, so I don't mind contributing at all.

 

[TenPenny]

Because we're a small office of about 6 people, in a company of 12 people, the company buys cake and pizza for everyone's birthday, and the company buys wedding or baby gifts as appropriate. The owner being one of the 6, it's standard procedure. But it was his decision to make it so.

 

[Vereya]

It's usually the custom in Russia that whenever an event like this happens, "the hero of the occasion" organizes a holiday, with lots of food and drinks and desserts. It usually turns out to be very expensive, it's a lot of trouble, and it's not worth it, as a rule, because the gift you get in return hardly ever covers the expenses :smile: Right now, though, I work in a company where most of the employees are men, who can be hardly expected to sit up all night making salads for a birthday party in the office :smile: and so we just all contribute to a gift, and the person we congratulate just buys a cake, some juice or a couple of bottles of some light wine. I really like this arrangement.

 

[Andem]

Each employee spends 33.000$ on company credit card purchases for birthday and xmas gifts? Does anybody else think the CBC is being at least just a little bit misleading in their journalism?

 

[lone wolf]

Damned civil servants

 

[Ron in Regina]

Our Corporate office consists of four people (the two co-owners, the consultant who sold the
company to the two current owners, and myself). Traditionally, birthdays and such are
celebrated with the company buying lunch (Perogy Pizza & Boneless Garlic Pork Ribs) at
the same table in the same restaurant every time, without fail. We personally might buy gag
gifts depending on whatever the current running joke is at the time. It's a good (predictable)
system and I like it.