Article created by: Mantas Kačerauskas
Corporate gifts have become a bit of a standard among many companies in terms of employee motivation. Whether it’s a personalized birthday gift or a gift given to everyone over the holidays, it’s definitely a great way to show the employees that their hard work and loyalty to the company have not been ignored.
Unless you’re like these folk on Reddit who themselves, or their friends and family, had to endure getting gifts that leave much—much—to be desired. It does beg the question of whether getting nothing would’ve been a better choice.
Not me, but one year the company my brother works for gave each employee a CD of the owner playing Christmas songs on the harmonica.
A small, nickel-sized, heart-shaped rock sent in the mail. It was supposed to represent their appreciation for the extra work during Covid. All I could think of was Charlie Brown trick or treating, “I got a rock.”
That year the company decided it wasn’t going to provide basic office supplies for the break room. Coffee, tea, eating utensils, napkins, nothing. That year for Christmas we all got a brown paper bags fashioned like lunches. Inside was a metal straw, cloth napkin, a child sized set of plastic cutlery that fit in a travel case, a copy paste printed piece of paper with food puns in relation to our job, and a single fun sized hundred grand candy bar. This Fortune 500 company had over a billion in raw profit that year. Oh, and the cutlery ended up getting recalled due to some terrible forever chemicals in them.
A letter from the CEO telling us how he is going to celebrate Christmas with his family up north to go skiing. That was all.
Two free tickets to a cinema. The issue was that the closest cinema in that particular chain was about 800 miles away from me.
Noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones. I'm sure they were good and useful to some people, but I'm legally deaf.
I worked at a hospital in the billing department. I got a travel thingy of hand sanitizer. Meanwhile, the IT department who shared our building got North Face puffy jackets. Jokes on them though, it was Christmas 2019 and I had hand sanitizer for COVID. 😭
We were told we were receiving our Christmas bonuses soon, and then we were all given a poinsettia. The poinsettia in itself wasn’t so bad, mine is actually still alive years later, but the fact that they had the audacity to call it a bonus was absurd.
I was gifted a ham for the holidays…..I’m Jewish.
Nurses Week 2022 (height of Delta wave COVID). We were given rocks on a keychain. The rock was engraved with the word “Hope”. We might have gotten some chapstick too.
Not me but a friend - all staff at the hospital received a kitchen scrubby for Christmas. Not even themed. Just random browns, greens, pinks, and yellows... seems like the boss bought dollar store multi-packs and opened them to give everyone one piece.
An ultra-religious self-help book so we could become less miserable, incompetent and immoral.
Company coffee mug with the company name misspelled. It was a large company.
During the pandemic, my partner’s company sent employees each an envelope through the mail with a sticker in it for some appreciation week I laughed so hard at that. It literally was a sticker that said “happy appreciation week”.
I was re-gifted a gift basket given to my boss by a client and he forgot to remove the card that was addressed to him.
Starbucks gift card that had no money on it and they had no receipt for it.
A coin commemorating a billion dollars in sales.
Expired food.
A pack of 10 tissues at the onset of COVID.
Not me but a coworker at last year's raffle got a Nintendo DS cleaning kit. For a normal Nintendo DS, not even a 3DS. They aren't being made anymore.
I used to work in a record shop in the UK and usually got a bottle of wine as a Christmas bonus. Then the company was bought by Virgin and our Christmas bonus was a copy of Richard Branson's (Virgin's CEO) autobiography.
5 dollar Subway gift card. My boss made me come in on an off day to pick up because, “she did not want me missing the company bonus”. I really wonder if our managers need how much was on the cards? We talked about it for months.
An email from the boss saying he is donating "on behalf of the company" to a charity he is a chairman of.
A cheap plastic key ring with the company logo on it after working 16-hour days for months to win a massive contract. No overtime paid either.
Nothing. And I work for a giant company. Not surprised though.
