The Gift Dilemma

A female friend of mine received a gift from a young man she works with and has only known a short time. The gift wasn’t overly extravagant, but it was more than you’d expect to receive from a co-worker. Because she was uncomfortable about it, she tried to give it back — several times. Each time it would just reappear, placed quietly on her desk. The young man knows she has a boyfriend and has given gifts to a few other people in the same workplace. When my friend reported the gift to one of the managers, the reply was that he did that all the time.

Did the young man give the gift because it brought him joy or because he holds out hope that somewhere down the road, if she is single again, that she will remember him. Thus the dilemma — should she have kept the gift? When someone is as persistent as this man was it makes it extremely difficult to stick with the choice to not accept the gift — especially since it just kept showing back up even when returned to him.

My feeling is that because the bottom line motivation is really not known (is this just his way of doing “random acts of kindness” or is he hoping for a deeper relationship?), that accepting the gift is okay. Had her manager reacted differently then she could have been supported in returning the gift. Taking it any further could just result in giving the man more attention (which may be what he’s after) or creating a scene at work that would reflect badly on my friend. However, I do believe that if another gift shows up, she will need to resolve the issue once and for all. Your thoughts?

Pumping out 2.5 kids

It is so dang tough to be an entrepreneur! Many people give up their dreams because they know they are expected to get a good job, buy a big house, marry, and pump out 2.5 children. I know I fell for it. Twenty-three years later I finally got up enough courage to walk away from a successful career at a major corporation. My heart was not willing to continue to live (literally, based on the physical symptoms I was manifesting) without its passion being pursued, so I made the choice to go after my heart’s desire. However, working outside the machine means lots of lonely hours, tons of financial worries, and no guarantees. Yet I still wouldn’t trade my fear for my old job! To all you entrepreneurs out there: What did you do to keep faith over fear? Oh, by the way…I never did pump out the 2.5 kids.