Christmas in May

Many government employees, like private-sector employees, are very generous in their communities.  One office I worked in was especially giving during the Christmas season.  Long before I arrived in the office, employees would 'adopt' a family and provide presents for needy children and adults.  Sounds great, right?  What would be interesting about a blog post about a giving tree?  Keep reading...

In early December, my manager gathered his management team and we discussed the upcoming holidays.  We talked about granting leave, the office pot-luck, and of course, the office giving tree.  One supervisor has always gravitated towards leading the giving tree campaign.  Our manager was new so he asked us how it worked.  The supervisor explained that she normally emails the office asking if any employees know of any needy families.  She went on to explain that one employee's husband manages a non-profit agency for homeless veterans so the employee nominated some families served by her husband.  You might think, "oh that seems a little bit borderline inappropriate."  But I'm just getting started!  So the supervisor continued to explain that one employee nominated his daughter who ran into some hard times.  I'm still not done.  She ended by letting us know that one employee nominated herself.

This was my first experience with the giving tree project in our office so my head was about to burst.  Our manager was in a similar state of shock and asked if the other employees were aware they were donating to a co-worker's husband's clients, a co-worker's child, or directly to a co-worker.  Nobody was sure, but the supervisor said she made sure it was all anonymous.

I finally spoke up and asked if people realized that we could not go forward with this bizarre plan.  The manager, who I thought was on my side, said he agreed.  BUT...he added that it was too late in the season to change the program this year so he just was going to wash his hands of it and turn it over to the supervisor and he specifically asked not to be informed about the project anymore.

So to summarize, we had employees who saw nothing wrong with taking handouts from their co-workers who thought they were donating to needy families in the community (they technically were I guess).  We also had a management official who saw nothing wrong with this process for years.  And we had a manger who decided his official course of action was official plausible deniability.  I was not innocent in the entire process either.  Perhaps I could have done more to stop the event but instead I just sat back and enjoyed my egg nog.