A woman with more than 40 years at the same workplace retired early rather than keep working under a new manager who used the job to collect freebies from suppliers — bad for her career, good for her health.

• A new manager was installed from above a few years ago and changed how supplier gifts were handled.
• Gifts that the old boss shared with the whole team now went straight to the manager's office.
• Free lunches and vendor-funded events went from monthly to almost weekly, and she was the one told to arrange them.
• Other departments noticed and talked, and the stress showed up in her health checkups getting worse each year.
• She quit before reaching retirement age, and her health numbers have since improved.

Outlook: Workplace gift-taking like this rarely stops on its own, and the people who leave are usually the ones who refuse to go along with it.