My coworker refused every single office fundraiser. Birthdays, weddings, sick relatives—she never contributed a cent. People stopped inviting her. Someone once joked loudly that she was “cheap with a good salary.” When she suddenly resigned, HR asked us to sign a card. No one knew what to write. Months later, I ran into her by accident at a pharmacy.
She didn’t recognize me at first. While we talked, an older man approached her with a bag of medications. She paid without hesitation. When I asked who he was, she said he was her former foster father. She’d been covering his prescriptions quietly since his insurance lapsed. She never joined fundraisers because she had a fixed monthly limit — and she’d already spent it.
