When you’re being encouraged in a place that supplies your income and with that your livelihood, an “encouragement” becomes pressure.
Similarly, my brother-in-law once bought a rather expensive gift for my father-in-law and asked if we wanted to pitch in for it. He’s truly a great person, we get along great, and if we said no I don’t think it would have been a big deal at all… But being the one who married into the family relatively recently, it’s a difficult thing to push back on. And that’s in the best case scenario with someone you know, love, and trust. We don’t know that OP has that same kind of relationship with their coworkers
TSA knows who you are way ahead of time when you put your secure flight information in, and maybe it checks the information when your boarding pass is printed. Airlines close check-in so they don’t have unexpected people showing up during boarding. But if you get rebooked on a different flight or something, they can check you in at the gate whenever.
Also, United and Delta let you check in 30 minutes prior to departure if you don’t have bags.
That brings some weird factors into play. If I’m slightly more qualified to work a job than another candidate, but I live across town and the next best guy lives down the street, it’ll be hard to justify choosing me over a factor unrelated to my performance.
Also, what if I move way into the country or the next major city over? (I live in Denver, and it’s not uncommon for people to commute from Colorado Springs). If that adds 2+ hours of daily round trip commuting to my day over something that was 100% my choice, it’s not really fair to the employer either. I’m not a “think about the businesses” type normally, but that is kinda BS for someone to make a decision that increases someone else’s costs (or decreases their output) by 25%
One time my dad and I were sitting in the car while my mom and wife were shopping (fabric store, not our jam). They kept calling us and we kept answering, pretending to be our voicemail messages.
I don’t know how we could keep calm while talking, because we were laughing our asses off in between calls, but it worked!
And better Call Saul. Mostly because they’re so short it’s over by the time you find the remote.