Ten years ago my company gave every employee a turkey for Xmas, this year we are being told to participate in bake sales and chili cookoffs out of pocket to pay for the party managment wants instead.

I work for a company that's very well placed on the fortune 500 list. It doesn't look like I'll be able to afford meat for my holiday meals this year. Edit: Absolutely not mandatory, but of course HR and managment have been just so disappointed and surprised in our lack of enthusiasm. The issue is not that we no longer have a free turkey. The issue is the notion that we should be happy to participate in funding an activity that the company used to offer, all the while we are having meetings every week going over the details of our “record profits”.