When you work at one place for some time, you become part of that community. If there are a lot of like-minded folks working there, that can be a great thing – after all, you have a lot of shared experiences in work, and in many cases you spend as much time with your colleagues as you do your own family. So if your vibe fits that of your colleagues, you might have a great time at all work events – even the boring ones.

But if your colleagues have very different priorities, it can be hard to fit in, to enjoy their company at functions and events outside of the office, and the constant barrage of things to celebrate might become a bit overbearing. This is why most companies like to keep things low-key, especially office-sanctioned events, meaning that they can be inclusive and non-stressful, for everyone.

So when the government worker in this story heard that her colleague was going to plan cakes for her colleagues’ birthday, she thought nothing much of it. After all, how disruptive can a slice of cake be? But when she learned of the planned cakes – and was billed for half of their cost – she started thinking about things very differently.

Read on to find out what happened here.

Obligatory birthday contributions are making me call in sick tomorrow

I am a supervisor/manager at a government job in the USA (California).

We do not have a company credit card. Anything we do in-office, we have to spend our own personal funds on. For example, if the fridge in our office goes out, we have to split the costs amongst employees to buy a new one.

The reason I bring this up is relevant to my story (and the reason we have to pay for these things on our own is because the state I work for does not allow taxpayer dollars to be used towards them).

For context, we are also in the office two days a week for team building, three working from home.

Let’s see how this workplace drama really started.

My coworker “Barbara” is also a supervisor/manager. We both manage a team of two each. Above us, we have two managers, and then we also have three coworkers who work in our office suite, for a total of eleven people.

Barbara is the team cheerleader and events logistics person. If there’s a reason to celebrate, Barbara has the decorations, the planning, and everything else down. Barbara recently asked everyone for their birthdays and their favorite type of birthday cake.

Recently, we had two birthdays, one for team member A (my direct report) and team member B (one of her direct reports). She informed me on Teams that Team Member A’s favourite cake is red velvet cake and that she already pre-ordered it at Whole Foods two weeks prior… and she also included a cake for Team Member B, with the total being $120.00. She suggested that I chip in half.

I let her know that I was not comfortable contributing $60 of my salary to buy a cake, and to leave it to me to buy my employee some cupcakes ($18 for luxury cupcakes from Sam’s Club, highly recommend if you have one in your neighbourhood). She replied, “Well I already ordered it…” and I let her be.

Read on to find out how things went down on the person’s birthday.

The day of the office celebration, she brought both cakes in and I did not contribute because I felt like it was coercive.

The following week (last week), she bought yet another cake from Whole Foods for one of her direct report’s in-office baby shower. On top of that, she had baby shower games and gift card prizes for the participants. To her credit, she did not ask me to contribute to this celebration.

And here we are, tomorrow is another in-office Tuesday, and this time we are supposed to celebrate THREE birthdays for the month of June: one birthday of my direct-report employee, plus Barbara’s, and also my direct manager (who also is Barbara’s boss).

Again, I received a message today from Barbara on Teams asking if I had bought my employee an ice cream cake, since that is his favorite. Since his birthday is not until next week, I did not think of that (and I also don’t have access to the list of everyone’s favorite cake).

Read on to find out what happened with the ice cream cake.

Needless to say, I let her know that if we are going to be celebrating his birthday tomorrow, I can stop by a store and pick up a treat (some donuts, cupcakes, or other sweets), but no, she insists it must be ice cream cake.

After lunch, I got a Teams message letting me know she went to Baskin Robbins and picked up a $30 ice cream cake and some cookies, and that “should be enough…”

In addition, she is getting a cake for herself and for my boss.

The implication is real: contribute.

Let’s see how she’s feeling about this.

I feel sick to my stomach and coerced to give up $30 here, $60 there, and $90 over here. Considering we are a team of eleven, contributing $30 every time someone has a birthday would be about $300 a year out of my own pocket.

I became a manager to lead and earn more money, not to spend it on what I consider to be relatively expensive office treats for people that are just colleagues.

I am considering calling in sick tomorrow so I can avoid the birthday celebration altogether and save myself the guilt and pressure of contributing to what I consider to be over the top, as far as office birthdays is concerned. I am also concerned that by not contributing, I am putting a target on my back as a “non-team player” in the very likelihood a promotional opportunity comes up, which is unfortunate.

Please don’t be a Barbara.

It really sucks that this woman is being put in such a difficult position by her colleague.

Barbara is making a whole lot of assumptions about what her colleague can afford, and that really isn’t right.

It’s important she takes a stand with this, and who could blame her for calling in sick?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a mom who is irate after she gave a group leader money for her daughter’s lunch, only to have him pocket the cash and ask all of the kids to pay their own way.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

This person thought Barbara’s plan was crazy.

While others offered much more appropriate solutions.

Meanwhile, this Redditor had experiences with a much more preferable system.

Sure, many people enjoy a slice of cake, but the sheer amount of cake that Barbara is ordering is bordering on unhinged. There are eleven people in this team. Eleven. And some months they’re having three cakes at one party, because there are three birthdays that month. That means eleven people having to consume three cakes between them. Some people would be revelling in that, but others? That’s heartburn central.

But that’s without even mentioning the financial pressure that Barbara is putting on her colleague. There’s a different between asking people to throw in some change and requesting that a colleague pay hundreds of dollars every year to subsidise this elaborate birthday cake habit. One is relatively normal, if a little annoying at times. The other is completely unreasonable.

Of course this woman doesn’t want to rock the boat or not be seen as a team player, but in reality, she should have someone backing her up here. There’s no way she should be made to do this.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a person who abandoned their own D&D campaign when their friends stopped paying attention.