Confessions | Life | Personal Stories | Article
My Colleagues Wasted My Money By Not Using The Holiday Souvenirs I Bought For Them, So I Stopped Buying
by The Simple Sum | 24 Jun 2024 | 2 mins read
![202406_Souvenir_1200x675 holiday souvenirs](https://thesimplesum.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/202406_Souvenir_1200x675.jpg)
When I first started working, my company had a culture of putting snacks in the pantry or buying gifts when someone travels overseas for a holiday or work trip.
I thought that was a norm and so I developed buying gifts back for colleagues as a natural activity to do whenever I was overseas for a holiday.
It was also fun to pick out nice snacks or touristy gifts like souvenir pens or notebooks.
There was once I returned from a holiday in a neighbouring country and I bought many snacks for my colleagues. I was shocked when I checked the pantry 1 month later and my snacks were still not eaten.
Related
I felt disappointed as I could have spent that money buying something I liked. Were they not good enough? There was even a colleague who said that the snack was not as good quality as the ones she could get if she went herself. Talk about ungratefulness!
There was another time I bought cute pens for my colleagues but then I realised that most of them just threw them into the drawers and didn’t use them.
Since those bad experiences, I told myself to resist the urge to buy souvenirs and snacks for colleagues whenever I was overseas. I only buy a few items for a selected group who appreciates them. It’s alright if they think that I am stingy and don’t buy gifts for them.
I also managed to save more money which I used for myself.
This article is part of TSS Confessions, a weekly column where we delve into personal finance topics that are unscripted and genuine real accounts from people.