After studying at university for four years, at the beginning of this year I landed my first full time job as a teacher.
This year has been a massive learning curve, stepping into full time work for the first time. I’ve been lucky that I’m working with a really supportive group of teachers who have guided me and taught a newbie like me the ropes.
We all work on Stage One and have grown close throughout the year. But over the last few months, a trend has been developing between my colleagues and I, that as a first year teacher on a relatively smaller salary, is slowly but surely sending me broke.
It all started when Jane* fell pregnant and Linda* who has been working with Jane for a few years now thought it would be nice for us to all put in and buy her a baby shower gift. She asked the other teachers on our stage to chip in too, four of us in total. Wanting to look like a team player I obliged. We each put in $50.
But then Linda decided she wanted to have a team dinner to see Linda off. So we did and in addition to covering my own meal (which I expected) we then split Jane’s meal too. In total, I ended up spending well over $100 on Jane, but being new to the school and wanting to make friends with my co-workers, I shrugged it off.
Top Comments
I think you tell them what you can afford and do that. Who cares if you look stingy? This way you still contribute, your relationships with fellow co-workers is fine and you aren’t totally broke. Just explain to them you can’t afford it due to your expenses and you’d still like to put in buy a smaller amount until you are able to do more
Gee, it is a different environment to what I am used to. I work in an industrial/engineering environment and we might have someone bring in a cake or join old mate at the pub on the Friday of his birthday but I never thought of everyone chipping in a pineapple for a workmates birthday!
Although saying that, I guess if we know someone has been trying to keep their birthday a secret, a big cake with too many candles at lunchtime is the order of the day!