Tell her to write a nice email thanking everyone, with photos of her baby sleeping in the crib. Although a hand-written note is probably the best response, in this day of instant messaging, some photos of her baby enjoying the crib are thanks enough from the busy mom.

She should refuse to write notes at all...her coworkers sound like awful people who she's better off not remaining friendly with. What kind of people actively nurture such resentment towards a busy new mother? You're supposed to at least pretend that gifts are selfless gestures of kindness, or at the very least give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she thought her obligation was fulfilled when she presumably thanked them in person at the shower. Emily, I can't believe you encouraged this extortion and I'm really disgusted.

swerve10:

her coworkers sound like awful people who she's better off not remaining friendly with.

Awful people who bought her a $700 crib. And burning all bridges with the entire office sounds like a dandy idea! Next, you'll advocate she burn the expensive crib just for the principle of things!

What I love about this issue are the extremes. Demanding notes when she thanked everyone "profusely" in person is over the top. But comments like the one above are just as bad in the other direction. Because a few notes is simply asking too much?

I like the email and photo idea the OP suggested.

Hmmm, I'm guessing she didn't go straight to the hospital from the baby shower and give birth, so the expectant mother probably had more than enough time to write a few thank you notes - if she had cared to. Please remember that in an office, it's very tough NOT to contribute to every birthday/shower/holiday gift giving or exchange without looking like a Scrooge. Even if people are short on cash they are going to feel the pressure to contribute something. A personal thank you does generate great good will, and really, it doesn't take all that much time to do.

Jeez o pete, how hard is it to write a frakkin thank-you note? And yes, I DO believe the email propsed in original post is an acceptable idea - it's the acknowledgement that counts.

I can only imagine non thank-you'ers are the same people who put shit back on the supermarket shelves without regard from whence it came, creep up to my elbow in line at the bank to peek at my deposit slip, and clip their toenails in their cubes. Manners!

Christine_Stone:

Jeez o pete, how hard is it to write a frakkin thank-you note?

Well, when I was pregnant my MIL insisted on throwing a baby shower even though I was pre-eclamptic. My BP was sky-high and the edema was terrible, but it would have been bad manners to call off the shindig. (She had planned it well before my health became an issue.) My fingers were so swollen I could barely hold a pen, but I wrote thank-you notes to those who had shown up and given gifts. It took a couple of weeks of cranking out 1-2 notes a day until I got them done. Point is, in my case it was quite difficult to write those stupid thank you notes - especially when I had thanked them all personally and felt like a dog turd that had been stepped in and smeared. I was raised to write the notes, so I did, but looking back it seems like a silly practice when you thank someone in person.

Perhaps the new mom is completely run ragged from the new baby. Perhaps she is under the impression that a sincere personal thank you is sufficient. Perhaps she doesn't want to waste the money, paper and ink for something that will immediately be tossed in the recycle bin. Why is receiving a thank you note so important when you will immediately toss it out anyway? Give them a hug, say thanks, and save a tree.

If my math is correct, $700 crib/ 20 coworkers = $35 per person- pretty steep for an office shower.

In my experience, the people at an office shower are a) coworkers who are not close enough to the new mom to be invited to the family shower or b) people who are invited to the family shower, who end up buying two gifts. So it's possible that the coworkers were kind of touchy to begin with.

Now, whether the co-workers should begrudge her the gift or not is kind of a moot point, because they are. And I don't know how this office works, but alienating 20 coworkers can put a real damper on your work effectiveness and productivity, especially if you are depending on these people to get your job done. So yes, I think you don't go wrong by writing than yous, even if they don't seem strictly necessary to you; but especially in this case, it sounds like there's a lot of resentment building against this woman, anf the sooner the LW can sit her down and say something, the better.

Christine_Stone:

Jeez o pete, how hard is it to write a frakkin thank-you note? And yes, I DO believe the email propsed in original post is an acceptable idea - it's the acknowledgement that counts.

I can only imagine non thank-you'ers are the same people who put shit back on the supermarket shelves without regard from whence it came, creep up to my elbow in line at the bank to peek at my deposit slip, and clip their toenails in their cubes. Manners!

If it is the acknowledgement that counts, then she has already satisfied that. The letter clearly states she thanked them during the shower--that is an acknowledgement! The question is why would a thank-you note still be demanded?

And yes, the email plan sounds fine, as long as it appeases the coworkers. The thank-you note (or lack of one) is not worth starting feuds with coworkers over.

I found this whole discussion very bizarre. I´m Hispanic, I live in another country. In my culture thank-you notes are not that mandatory. Sure, I've seen the custom at weddings, where you send the gifts in advance, but in a freaking Baby Shower?? I mean, birthdays, Baby Showers, Bridal Showers, Anniversaries, all of these are ocassions where you open the present IN FRONT of the person that gave it to you. You thank them, that's it. Now, it may be a culture thing, but I just don't get what the big deal is. And probably the new mother doesn't get it either. Is not that she didn't have time or that she's thoughtless or anything, she probably doesn't even know she's suposed to send these notes!! The attitude of the office people is also bizarre for me. Maybe for them it is customary, a basic rule of politeness, so they are offended. But they are oerreacting. I agree that if the coworker talks to her she should send the notes and just be done with it. But I also think they are making a BIG deal out of nothing and Prudie is just enabling these people to act like real jerks. And, according to many posters here, the rule for the Thank-You notes is not that clear when the gift is open in front of the giver and is acknowledge. So again, if this isn't a rule written in stone in your culture (and it obviously isn't, hence all the discussions), then the office workers are acting like real JERKS.

Maybe that written (or e-mail) thank you seems to matter more because anyone handed a gift at a shower, wedding, or whatever, naturally says thank you, making it seem more like a polite acknowledgement than a personal expression of gratitude (even if the recipient is the gushing type). I give because I want to give, but for me, at least, receiving a thank you note or e-mail after the fact definitely feels more personal, and it does make me feel very good to know my gift, and my thoughtfulness, was still appreciated after the excitement of the the big day/party is over.

I

I have to agree...write the thank you.....how hard is it to spend what, $1.00 for a card including postage, and spend 5-minutes writing and addressing card to send a more 'formal' thank you to someone who spent (as noted by another posted) about $35.00 on the gift?

Not to mention people that spend their money to buy something as well as the time to go out and buy it, wrap it, and go to the party......

It's not just saying thank you for the gift, it's also for the time and effort they put into the gift....

And the email with photos and some note of "My daughter loves the crib, she gets such a peacefull night's sleep in it, thank you all again so much for the wonderful crib!" would IMHO be acceptable instead of individual cards....

See quilled, and I think that having someone thank me to my face carries more weight than a card that they scribbled after the fact. The personal thank you is immediate and allows me to see the pleasure that they got from my gift. I don't need any more acknowledgement of my "thoughtfulness" in giving a gift. I mean really, you need your "thoughtfulness" appreciated so long after the event? You need to stop giving gifts until you understand that you should just feel good about giving the gift and realize that the appreciation is just frosting. You give because you want to give, not because people will think you're great because you did.

In a pooled gift, especially with 20 people, I would not expect a personal thank-you note. That's ridiculous. The gift itself is not very personal, why should the thank-you be? Pitching in $35 (which everyone in the office was probably pressured to do) is not the same as personally choosing something thoughtful and special. If she is going to thank the office, they should get a pooled note, just like the gift was given.

As far as the office dynamic, $35 is a little on the high end, so I suspect she either works a really high-paying job or her coworkers are really good at pressuring each other. If she doesn't work at a high paying job, I'd find it hard to believe that twenty different people would each love the same coworker so much they'd be willing to give $35 for a gift, which is a lot of money for an office present. So either $35 isn't really much to them, or they have a really messed up office dynamic where they are pressuring people to contribute who don't want to, thereby fostering and fueling the resentment over this trivial thank-you note nonsense. I feel sorry for the mom, because this office sounds like a emotional mine field.

Thanking someone in person is perfectly appropriate. The only way I would send a thank-you in addition to that is if the gift was particularly extravagant for that individual to have given. That way the note "goes the extra mile" just like the gift-giver did. This, however, does not fall under that category.

Yup, okay, but by acknowledgement I meant a nice reflection on the thoughtfulness of the gift (this is the point of thank-you notes: to put forth some effort and reflection on the expense & trouble that went into getting the gift). To be clear, we aren't talking about a crappy snow globe or something - it's a $700 gift. That she will use every day.

From the vehemence of the reactions on both sides of this issue, I can tell that "you were obviously raised in a barn" behavior to me is normal to another group of people. I wouldn't hold it against someone for NOT writing a thank-you, but it would definitely delight me to get an email as described in an above post.

To each his own.

thentherewere7:

I mean really, you need your "thoughtfulness" appreciated so long after the event? You need to stop giving gifts until you understand that you should just feel good about giving the gift and realize that the appreciation is just frosting. You give because you want to give, not because people will think you're great because you did.

Hold on there, 7, Quilled's generosity is not the issue here, nor that of any other poster. The issue is that this woman's coworkers ARE feeling angry and resentful, whether any one of us thinks they have a right to be angry and resentful or not, they are. It isn't about the principle of thank you notes.

Whether they are angry and resentful because they gave a $700 crib and got no acknowledgement- not even a group email- or whether they are angry and resentful because the LW bullied and badgered them into giving more than they were comfortable with, we don't know. We know that one or more of the coworkers asked the LW about a thank you (note I said asked, not demanded). It could be common practice in this particular office to write individual thank you notes to each gift giver, and the new mom has violated this office norm.

Given these facts:

1) Coworkers gave expensive gift;

2) New mom, in six months' time, has not sent thank you, which, right or wrong the coworkers expect;

3) Coworkers are annoyed and ask LW to explain to new mom that thank you note is, in their minds, proper etiquette;

Given these facts, what do you recommend the new mom do? March over to all 20 of her coworkers, lecture them on how "ridiculous" they are to need "their thoughtfulness acknowledged", and tell them to "understand that they should just feel good about giving the gift?" Is that going to improve her work relationship with these people? They're not going to change.