obviously, you can't be trusted to act responsibly with the actual cash they might have given you instead.
I agree. Tacky.
Makes me think of our end-of-year staff function. The woman who organizes it always wants to "show off" how sophisticated she is by getting the staff to go to all these "fancy" places she's been to.
Moyo restaurant in Melrose Arch. Yes, *very* authentic South African - NOT! And one bowl of stew for a table of eight people with six pieces of lamb in it... yep, that's going to satisfy my hunger.
Goblin's Cove... I want to sit outside and have leaves blowing into my food instead of inside *where the fancy artwork she went on about is*!
Spa day... So the school is paying R500 per person so we can have a foot and body massage and lunch? Please!
What I don't get is, instead of all these extravagant things, why don't we go to a local place (I know lots of lovely local places with *much* better food and service) and give us (the teachers) the extra money. When one teacher asked why we couldn't just have the extra R500 (which to some of us is a lot of money, especially with medical aid, car payments, etc), she was told, "Well, you don't have the money to do this for yourself, so this might be your only chance to go!" Yeah. Like that is going to help morale.
We collect money for the end-of-year bonuses and function; it doesn't come out of school fees (it's against the law for school fees to be used, AAMOF) and then we're not allowed to choose how the money is used.
Tacky to the nth degree.