Etiquette question regarding lack of thank you

Of course you should have received a “thank you” card. My goodness. Common sense. Anyone claiming otherwise was brought up in the lower middle class or below.

Thank you

(And that wasn't hard to write)

Question 4 letsrun wrote:

TopPercent wrote:

Of course you should have received a “thank you” card. My goodness. Common sense. Anyone claiming otherwise was brought up in the lower middle class or below.

Thank you

(And that wasn't hard to write)

Your way of life does not equate to her way of life. That is what you are failing to understand. You lack total understanding of humanism. You have certain belief system, which is failing you, because you think all others should follow or adhere to the same principles.

Life does not work like that. An elephant does not live like a Lion and a Lion does not live like an Elephant. They have two different natures, and so do human beings.

She does not owe you one single thing. It is her choice, just like it was your choice to purchase the gift.

Scorpion_runner wrote:

Question 4 letsrun wrote:

Thank you

(And that wasn't hard to write)

Your way of life does not equate to her way of life. That is what you are failing to understand. You lack total understanding of humanism. You have certain belief system, which is failing you, because you think all others should follow or adhere to the same principles.

Life does not work like that. An elephant does not live like a Lion and a Lion does not live like an Elephant. They have two different natures, and so do human beings.

She does not owe you one single thing. It is her choice, just like it was your choice to purchase the gift.

She owes me nothing. It is completely her choice as to whether she wants to show appreciation and consideration. To put this in your words, in my way of life this is a nice thing to do.

I don't want to dismiss your idea of a different culture. I retired about 1/2 a year ago. And I have to explain something to you. My retirement party was really the greatest day of my life. I was totally shocked by the number of people who came and the impact that I had on people. Seriously I had no idea. I was touched by what they said.

It was a great legacy. Now I 'm not the smartest guy at work, I am not the most productive at work, but I got the best out of my people. And I didn't care if it was the cleaning lady, the delivery guy, the kid doing an internship, I made a point to treat everyone well and to let them know they were appreciated for what they did.

So maybe my experience or work culture is different from many. They were great to me at my previous job. So now when I feel I don't even get a decent thank you from a gift, when I bend over backwards to help someone out, and don't seem to get appreciation it is disappointing.

It's a very different culture.

I would have written a thank you but then I am old school. Young people don't write thank yous it seems anymore. I don't think that they were brought up that way. I used to make my kids write thank you's . Now you are lucky if you get an email. I recently sent to different gifts for new parents for their babies. I sent them gift cards. Have NO idea if they got them or not. I'm sorry but it is rude not to write a thank you.

Ha, now that's a mid-90's response...or 2012.

Usually if you get a Christmas card from someone that you didn't send one too, sometimes you then decide to send one to be nice.

In this case you gave a card and a present. A normal person would think that maybe card with a thank you would be an appropriate response.

This woman is very self centered. There is no excuse for rudeness.

dog in the car wrote:

young people don't say thank you.

The sense of entitlement is great with young folks. And of course look at all the young people posting here who think its OK to take a gift without a real thank you. If anything they are ragging on the old guy who was generous to give a gift because he thought a written thank you would be appropriate.

My experience is that the younger employees don't work as hard and are quicker to lie and taker time off when they are not sick. Certainly not all, but a large number are like that. The posts from young people on this site show how common that attitude is.

The OP should stop helping out as much as he does. They don't deserve it.

1) It obviously does bother you that she did not reciprocate since you posted it on a newsgroup!

2) While a thank you note for the wine would be a very nice gesture on her part, I think it is pretty rare to do. She thanked you for the gift.

3) I wonder if she felt awkward about getting a gift from you. You are a temp and if there was not a company or group understanding on gifts then you should expect one either.

This. Did you get her the wine so she would enjoy it or so she would send you a thank you note. She did thank you.

You didn't give her a gift; you gave her an obligation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38x6kWB-xD4

I would read this as the reply " let's stop this back-and-forth workplace gift giving idiocy now".

Gifts to friends in real life and presented in a purely social setting. Yes it is possible to have a friend that is a coworker.

Mgr gives a gift it is the same one for everyone in his chain of command and paid for with company funds.

You guys have the wrong read on this. You can give a gift and expect a thank you note and its still a gift not diminished in any way. If he expected a gift back then it's not a gift but an exchange of gifts But That clearly was not the case here. If a co-worker who I work very close with gives me a Christmas card and a gift and I give them neither a card or a gift, you can be sure as hell I would give them a thank you note. Are you serious when you say in that situation you would not give a thank you note?I Someone goes to the trouble of buying you wine and a card when you give nothing and you would not write a little note saying you appreciated the gift? Seriously??? You would just take and feel no need to give a note of appreciation. Do any adults over 40 also feel this way?

Erfworm wrote:

Luv2Run wrote:

1) It obviously does bother you that she did not reciprocate since you posted it on a newsgroup!

2) While a thank you note for the wine would be a very nice gesture on her part, I think it is pretty rare to do. She thanked you for the gift.

3) I wonder if she felt awkward about getting a gift from you. You are a temp and if there was not a company or group understanding on gifts then you should expect one either.

This. Did you get her the wine so she would enjoy it or so she would send you a thank you note. She did thank you.

I'd rather work with the girl who doesn't write thank you notes than the guy who obsesses over incredibly mild slights.

I didn't say that I wouldn't write the note if I were her. In that case I most certainly would. However, if I were in OPs position I would not feel that I was "owed" a thank you note. To complain about this seems tacky and unclassy.

The op didn't say he was owed a thank you note. He asked if the gift recipient should write one.

And we both agree that we would write a thank you note because we think it's the right thing to do.

Dear Old Dude,

Please do not give your female office coworker a Christmas gift it is creepy and weird. I would have responded sooner with a hand written note, but only retired people do that and I didn't want to encourage your inappropriate behavior. Hopefully we can let this go without having to involve HR, your advances are unwelcome and make me uncomfortable.

Sincerely someone who only spends time with you because I'm getting paid and I really need the money,

Jane