> > > >>She has had a few issues lately and resulted in my not getting her anything for Christmas as I felt she didn't deserve anything.
> > >
> > > Wait, we're supposed to *earn* Christmas gifts? Funny, I thought people just gave them out of the goodness of their hearts. Silly me.
> >
> > If you have a job, try asking your manager to promote you or give you a raise out of the goodness of his heart. It might work for you, but I have earned through hard work every promotion and pay raise I have gotten.
>
> While that may very well be the case, it's completely irrelevant. I don't know about you, but where I come from equating Christmas to a job just doesn't work.
>
> I give gifts at Christmas because I like giving gifts to people I care about. Keeping a list of who's been bad and good is Santa's job, not mine. :-P

I don't want to get into the details of why she didn't, but suffice to say the problem caused has led to all the members of my family being stressed, and will in all likelihood be going to court soon to prosecute my parents. I figured that if she will be a form of child delinquent, she doesn't deserve nice things.

I also like giving gifts - to people who will appreciate them. She won't, and this I know for a fact. At her birthday in October, she got a mobile phone (not a fancy one, but one she can make calls on). Despite it being a must-have accessory, she doesn't even know how to turn it on.

It's even been remarked upon (by family and friends) that the only thing she cares about is her character on RuneScape.

On the subject of work, though, in every job I've been at, promotions and pay rises only seem to go to those whose face fits - not those who earn them. Take my current company: 4 people including me have just been promoted from one team to another, changing roles as we did it.

Now, as the most experienced member of the previous team, and most qualified to carry out the new role out of the 4 (confirmed by the rest of the team, the last supervisor review), I ended up being paid the least out of the 4. Why? Because they didn't want to promote me as I was too good at what I used to do.

I could write so much more on the corporate world, where it is a case of "if the face fits", but I don't want to spend the next 3 days whining. I even lost one job because my face didn't fit, despite my being more skilled in IT support issues than my boss (apparently an MCSE).