OK, so I work for a manufacturing company based out of Houston, Texas, but we are up in Washington. We supply to the refineries around the states. I've been with this company for almost 2 years, 1/4 of the time as a temp, and I work on the production floor. For even more info, we are not union while the main Texas location is. We are actively looking into changing that. I make just above what they paid at McDonald's here.
Anyway, we have a busy season that just ended called a turnaround, where the refineries tear down a bunch of stuff and then replace it as fast as possible. As part of our job, we are on one week callout rotation. During turnaround, this can be up to 6+ callouts in a weekend.
So we have our outside salesperson, she is not great at her job and to top it off she assumes that if she is in the room, you are hanging on every word and ready to respond, while herself being a highly distracted person. Lots of sales calls and text constantly that take priority over your current sentence. She also likes to get us snacks, donuts, lunch every once in a while.
So my question. After this turnaround ended, she came in and gave everyone on the production team a card, it was a very nonchalant “oh this is for all the help over turnaround.”
I was thinking it was a 15$ coffee card or the like, but it turned out to be a 100$ visa gift card. She got one for me, all three full-time production people, my manager, and one salesperson.
So I guess here is the question: Am I wrong in being insulated by this? I talked to the rest of the team and manager, and we were all kinda uncomfortable receiving that much money on a whim. Like, that money wasn't a oh boy a new toy situation for all the receivers, my self and others added it to the other 100 dollars in the bank, oh boy I can go get new work shoes because mine are falling apart.
I'm highly considering having a sit down with my boss and letting him know that I'm not comfortable receiving that much money from a coworker. But I also, at the same time, don't want to deprive the other crew from a future gift. I just think it is shitty to drop almost 1k on gifts for coworkers when the rest of us are making so little.
Tldr: Coworker in sales gets paid way more than me and the other production team, give us all 100$ gift cards like its a nothing gesture. Are we right to be insulted and uncomfortable when we make 80c more than McDonald's?