Some workplaces are totally chill, while others have a certain culture that it takes time to get used to.

For example, while some offices are friendly but coolly professional with co-workers, others have a closer approach with frequent get togethers out of hours.

In some offices you’ll find your lifelong best friends, while in other workplaces your colleagues are acquaintances at best.

When the woman in this story set up a collection for a gift for a colleague, she was sure that others would contribute – if they didn’t have their own gift planned, that is.

But little did she know, her collection was about to land her in the middle of a whole load of drama.

Read on to find out what became of the gift, and how a relationship with her coworker was ruined as a result.

AITA for not including the whole department on a baby shower gift/card?

I work in a health care office, and one of the physicians we work with is about to become a father.

Our office manager decided to throw him and his wife a lunchtime baby shower during the work week that people could just drop in for as and when they are able to.

I work directly among twenty other employees, and about three weeks prior to the event I sent out a group text to everyone volunteering to buy a gift and asking anyone that wished to be included to please send whatever contribution they were comfortable with.

I also added the caveat that if someone wasn’t comfortable contributing, or wanted to go their own way for a gift, that was fine and absolutely no pressure to join in on the group gift.

Let’s see how this departmental gift collection went down.

I sent reminders two weeks prior, one week prior, and three days prior so that I would have enough time to shop.

Most people contributed, though four did not.

Again, no big deal, I was able to buy a very nice gift off their registry with the money I collected.

I also bought a card to which I put the names of everyone who contributed in case the physician and his wife wanted to send out individual thank you cards.

But then things started to get a little frosty.

Two weeks after the shower as we were all arriving to work, those who contributed noticed thank you cards sitting on our desks.

One of the four people who didn’t contribute came up to me and asked what the card I got was about.

I explained it was a thank you for the shower gift and she said “well why didn’t I get one?”

I further explained that I only put the names of those who actually gave money for the gift, because I assumed the other four went out on their own.

She became irate and cursed me out (yes actually cursed) for not including her, saying it made her look cheap and like she didn’t care, and she had assumed that the gift I bought was from everyone in the office regardless of contribution.

Yikes! This woman got more and more out of line.

She said I should have put “from the department” and not individual names, but I don’t think it’s fair to those that actually spent money for the gift to give credit to those who didn’t contribute anything.

She called me a literal jerk and stormed off to her desk, then badmouthed me the rest of the day.

She didn’t say why she didn’t contribute so I am now wondering if maybe financially she couldn’t and was ashamed to tell me? If that’s the case I am wondering if am I the jerk and should have just included everyone.

The rest of the office sided with me, the other three who didn’t contribute didn’t care that I didn’t add their names but I’m not sure if it’s because they got their own gifts (I didn’t ask).

AITA?

It sucks when such a nice gesture eventually leads to a whole heap of drama for the person who was nice enough to organize it.

Sure, the woman might have been in financial difficulty and unable to contribute, but she could have had a quiet word with the woman who organized the collection to explain her situation and ensure that her name was still on the card.

Instead she’s ashamed because her assumption turned out to be wrong, and she’s taking it out on the kind person who actually had the motivation to go purchase the card and gift.

Let’s see how the folks on Reddit reacted to this.

This person agreed that the colleague was absolutely the one in the wrong, not the woman who organized the gift.

And others thought she’d approached the donation situation in exactly the right way.

However, some thought she’d put those who couldn’t afford it in a difficult situation.

While this Redditor suggested a better way for approaching similar situations going forward.

She’s totally out of line.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.