my coworker repeatedly pushed me to contribute to a boss’s gift I couldn’t afford
A reader writes:
This happened several years ago, but I still think about it and I’m not sure if I handled it correctly at the time.
I started working a new job at a design firm in October of this particular year. I was a fairly low-level assistant-type person. In December, one of the senior designers sent out an email to everyone asking for their contribution to the annual Christmas gift to the two principals of the firm — a case of expensive wine for each of them. The email was framed as an invoice, not a voluntary contribution. Everyone was to divide the cost equally, not relative to salaries or tenure or anything.
At first I brushed it off because I had only been working there for a few months, so surely this didn’t apply to me. But the designer, Samantha, continued to send reminders, and after I continually ignored her she came up to me personally to ask when I was going to give my contribution. I explained that I had only been working there a few months and that the amount of the contribution was too much for someone in my position. She did not respond well to this and continued to stop me in the hallways to ask when I was going to contribute. I continued to calmly let her know that I was unable to do so.
The background that she didn’t know was, at the time I was in some serious financial trouble. I was not making much money and was living in an expensive city. I had credit card debt I couldn’t pay, and right when this was happening I had a judgment against me and my bank account had been seized. I literally had NO MONEY. I couldn’t access any of the money in my bank account at all. The only cash I had was what my friends were loaning me. It was a terrible and incredibly stressful and embarrassing situation that I did not want anyone to know about.
Well, you can see where this is going. Samantha continued to pester me and I eventually broke down and told her (through tears!) that I had a judgment against me and no access to cash and to please stop asking me because I was on the edge of becoming homeless. She did not take this well! She was sort of grossed out by me crying, and about my situation in general, and clearly thought I was some kind of awful criminal or something.
Anyway, the principals found out about her extortion racket and were rightly angry. They told Samantha under no uncertain terms that she could never take up this type of mandatory collection again. She never spoke another word to me after this, and several of my colleagues told me I had upset her and that I should apologize! I did not apologize and I left the firm a few months later.
What should I have done in this situation? Should I have gone to the principals directly myself? How could I have saved myself the embarrassment while also somehow letting her know that this was not appropriate?
That’s awful, I’m sorry. Samantha was completely out of line at multiple points in these events, starting with the initial demand for a contribution and continuing through her insistence on hassling you for a contribution after you’d clearly said no, and then in driving you to feel you needed to share your personal financial situation with her.
The good news is that this doesn’t seem to have been a firm-wide problem; the principals were appalled and shut it down forcefully. This was just a Samantha problem … well, and also maybe a cultural problem in that people hadn’t already spoken up about Samantha (and then some suggested you apologize to her, which is mind-blowingly bananas, but it sounds like the principals would have had words with those people too if they’d known).
As for what you should have done … first, I think you’re being unfair to yourself in second-guessing your actions or feeling like you didn’t handle it well. You were in a horribly stressful time and had a coworker barreling past the usual social contract to hassle you about something she had no standing to demand. Plenty of people in less stressful circumstances wouldn’t have known what to do, either.
And frankly, I think you handled it fine! You told Samantha firmly and repeatedly that you weren’t going to contribute. I’m sure you wish you hadn’t broken down in front her of her, but that’s not a decision you made — it was a natural reaction to the pressures you were under and the fact that a more senior colleague wouldn’t stop harassing you for money. But she’s the one who was in the wrong; you did nothing wrong and have nothing to be embarrassed about.
Had you written to me at the time, I would have suggested that you go over her head after the second time she pushed you to contribute. Ideally at that point you would have talked to your boss (or, depending on the structure and dynamics of your office, one of the principals) about what was happening and asked them to tell Samantha to lay off you. But I also understand why you didn’t — you were new-ish, more junior, and unsure if this was a norm in your office.
Truly, Samantha just sucked, and everything on your end was completely fine.
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