I also like what my sister’s company does. Each person brings something – eg cake, biscuits, muffins – into the office on their birthday. Some people make it, some people buy it. Each person only does it once a year (more if they want to, of course), and if they don’t for some reason there’s no hard feelings – I think often someone else will do it instead. People have even started asking my sister for baking lessons because of this (and enjoying learning to bake)! :)

I’d been on medical leave for a month after surgery and came back six weeks before Christmas to find emails about the $50 “donation.” I refused. My gifts for the two people in my department and the VP were usually loaves of banana bread. When office manager got my email politely saying that I was not going to take part in the expensive gift, she went ballistic. She verbally abused me to my face, as well as to others in the office. I finally went directly to VP, telling her “X has bought you very expensive Christmas gift (without saying what it was), and as I have different plans for a gift for you, and declined to cough up $50, she’s gone off the deep end.” VP had a wee talk with office manager, who continued to make my office life awful in other ways (she did this with 1-2 others).

Current office had quite a lot of gifting (everyone in dept. buying for everyone), but I’ve not taken part from day one. I say thank you, and then get rid of the stuff at home. I will do something like buy enough donuts for the office, which is appreciated.

Another thing to lookout for is the loaner’s/lender’s fee which is like 1% of the loan amount or something around there. You pay that fee up front by having a larger loan, but if you return the money within a certain time (I think it’s around 30 days) then that fee is erased.

Also, student loans are normally the cheapest loans around, so if you have credit card bills, or will have debt going onto the card, then the Stafford loan might be a better choice.

When I graduated, my rate was around 4%, with my first loan being around 2%, but my friends didn’t believe in “school loans” so they put everything on their credit card at 20+% interest rates. Yeah… where’s the logic?

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I have good memories as a child of often running around with friends under and through my parents’ and the neighbours’ clotheslines, spinning them around, hanging selected strange things off them, etc. We were outdoors kids and they were a toy to us. The clotheslines weren’t in the way – it was fun, even if my mum didn’t appreciate the odd towel being knocked into the mud.

I recently left a “desk job” where the department was run by a narcissist who only did the gift exchange under the guise of wanting stuff for herself. She would buy crappy stuff for her name, but then put expensive stuff on her list.

People tried to change it, but the narcissist in charge wouldn’t listen. I am relieved that I no longer work in this department because I’m not sure that I could even muster up some fake enthusiasm for this.