New employee is forced to spend $53 on a surprise birthday party for a mean coworker, when she asks the others to pitch in, no one does: “I hate that this was pushed into me”

Author image for Giuliana Tiscioni
Giuliana Tiscioni • Writer
Aug 20, 2026 8:00 AM EDT

Do your coworkers even care about your birthday? 

Not once have I heard of coworkers planning a surprise birthday party at the office for each one of their colleagues. Mostly it's just a "Happy birthday!", maybe a small gift from the people who know you better, and in some cases, they give you the day off. But in some offices, things work differently, apparently… 

A new employee found out that at their office, every month each of the coworkers pitches in $27 to buy cake and a gift for whatever colleague is turning one year older. This time, a coworker named Emily declared that she didn't want that; she preferred that each of her coworkers spend the same amount of money to buy several individual gifts. The manager still thought it was necessary to buy cake and balloons to celebrate at the office, and she asked the new employee to organize it, even though she had already spent her $27 on the gift. She did it anyway, spending a total of $53. The best part? None of the other coworkers pitched in or paid her back, and Emily was mean to her and made her cry. 

This Emily sounds like a delight to work with… Please, if someone knows of another place that has the same custom of organizing celebrations every month for every employee, I need to know. And I would very much like to ask the manager: if they're always partying in that company, when do they actually work? 

Celebrating birthdays every month requires having the budget to do so, and maybe not everyone can actually afford it, especially when the celebration is for people who are not actually your friends, just your coworkers. What we're all hoping is that those coworkers pay the girl back; she deserves to have everything reimbursed for being nice enough to plan everything for someone who clearly doesn't value it. And next time, she'd better learn how to say no. Because obviously, you can't trust anyone in that office. 

Add as a preferred
source on Google
Advertisement
  • So this week is my colleague's birthday (I'll call her Emily) usually everyone would pitch in the same amount to buy each colleague a gift plus birthday cake but Emily wanted each person to give
    via Darky8

  • Who is this Emily?

    her a gift instead of pitching in to get one gift. Her rule was that the gift shouldn't be over 27 dollars since that's the amount we usually spend when we pitch in.
    via Darky8

  • "This month..." So it's a monthly occurance

    I bought her a gift that cost me 21$ & I was glad that I'm spending less money on colleagues gifts this month and brought the gift with me today. During
    via Darky8
  • Cheezburger Image 10657433856
    via Ekaterina Shevchenko for Unplash+

    Gift for Emily.

    Representative only.

  • work I was suddenly called by my line manager who asked if I bought Emily a gift and when I said yes she looked a bit surprised but then she told me to plan
    via Darky8

  • Apparently, gifts weren't enough

    with another colleague (I'll call her Sera) to order cake and ballon for Emily so we can celebrate and she said the whole team will pitch in.
    via Darky8
  • Cheezburger Image 10657430272
    via Pramod Tiwari for Unsplash+

    Cake and balloons for Emily.

    Image for illustrative purposes.

  • I went to Sera with the news which she was not happy about because apparently she had to deal with the same thing before and at the end only
    via Darky8
  • two people paid her (one of them being the line manager) and when she told the line manager that the rest didn't pay her, she just said "okay" and moved on
    via Darky8
  • so she didn't want anything to do with it. I didn't want to do that but I ended up paying for the cake and the balloon which cost me around 53$ I already told
    via Darky8
  • another colleague about the amount and how much they need to pay me after I decided the amount between us so they can pay me back but so far no
    via Darky8
  • one took me seriously Sera told me should've said sorry but I can't but being a new employee I just felt pressured to do it.
    via Darky8
  • 10
    via Ben White for Unsplash+

    Employee worried about her coworkers not paying her back. 

    Model portrayal.

  • Drive them crazy until they reimburse you

    I'm not a confrontational person & honestly I hate that this was pushed into me so what can I do to get them to pay me back?
    via Darky8
  • P.S the worst part of this is that Emily was being mean to me & I ended up crying in the bathroom. The whole thing was dumb but I hated it even more cuz I'm the one who's paying for her birthday celebration!
    via Darky8
  • HotLlama_8001 Who is this powerhouse "Emily" who can demand that every person spend at least $27.00 on individual birthday presents...from CO-WORKERS?
    via HotLlama_8001
  • Where do you people work? 35 years working in industry, multiple places. Never heard of anything like this. Something is fishy here....
    via HotLlama_8001
  • VFTM You better get confrontational pretty quick. All of this could've easily been avoided with a "no"
    via VFTM
  • Chaotic Crashy Don't let anyone bu y you into spending money on people you work with.
    via ChaoticCrashy
  • LawyerDad1981 "Emily wanted each person to give her a gift..." Then Emily is entitled AF.
    via LawyerDad1981
  • I want to live on a tropical island but we don't always get what we want. I would shut that nonsense down immediately. No one should be able to force you to do something like this. And guess what? You don't.
    via LawyerDad1981

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

terrible coworkers workplace-stories office stories coworkers reddit story karen coworker Office workplace Reddit entitled people
Scroll Down For The Next Article