today's ask a manager comment section update: someone wrote in about giving their company's new intern $400 in visa gift cards to use at the company cafeteria, with a note that said "i remember what it's like to be a broke college student. these should help you enjoy the food at work and save as much money as you can from this job." this turned out to weird the intern out a bit, and she (intern) went to her manager to ask about his thoughts on the gift. kind impulse from letter writer and reasonable reaction from intern, imo! what do the comments say? oh, they're acting like the letter writer just killed a man and offered his corpse to the new intern with a letter professing her undying devotion, and also questioning whether the letter writer was REALLY as broke as a student as she claims
@rigormorphis idk maybe its just that i’m not in a field that pulls high salaries but $400 is a LOT of money, i would definitely be uncomfortable receiving that much from someone i didn’t know very well, and wondering what kind of strings were attached especially since this is already a situation where as an intern vs an established employee i have a lot less institutional power than the gifter
@Satsuma@glitch.cat.family @rigormorphis@federatedfandom.net Having been on both the giving and receiving end of this sort of thing, it is super common, particularly in certain types of white collar work. The amount will almost certainly be related to tax laws around deductible expenses and fringe benefits.
It's a tax write-off for the gifting company (or even the individual!), in other words. One that's intentionally framed to seem extremely generous, while being barely an accounting blip in the scheme of things.
Take the money and don't look back, lol.
@Satsuma yeah that absolutely makes sense! that's why I said the intern's reaction was reasonable (tho I maybe should've elaborated on that) - it's a lot of money and she and the letter writer had just met, it makes sense that she was weirded out.