#1
My mom’s boss gave everyone a pen (a really cr*ppy, normal pen) with their names printed on normal white printer paper that was scotch taped down the side of the pen. This sounds made up even to me as I type it, but it’s still in our junk drawer.
#2
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.
#3
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.”
#4
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.
#5
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.
#6
Two free tickets to a cinema. The issue was that the closest cinema in that particular chain was about 800 miles away from me.
#7
An email that only upper management would be getting the end of year bonus (sent to entire company by accident instead of just upper management). Then laid off 2 weeks into the new year.
Found out from a friend in the company a little while later that the board of directors held a vote. They keep their car allowances at the expense of a wave of layoffs, or lose their car allowances and 10-15 people get to keep their jobs. Pretty sure it was unanimous.
No matter how many times a company says you’re family, just remember that it’s the type of family that would gladly cut your throat to make sure the fat cats get to eat.
#8
Jelly of the Month membership instead of my Christmas bonus. I wanted to put a pool in the backyard but nope.
#9
Noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones. I'm sure they were good and useful to some people, but I'm legally deaf.
#10
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. 😭
#11
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.
#12
I was gifted a ham for the holidays…..I’m Jewish.
So, what’s the best strategy at approaching corporate gifts? Assuming a budget is set and the logistics are all figured out, all that’s really left is to pick out a gift, to make it personal, and then to put the plan into motion.
In terms of what to pick, the short answer is it depends. On what? You have to pick out a gift that your employees will actually like.
#13
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.
#14
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.
#15
New owners this year. Old owner gave us 10% of our salary as a year end bonus. New guys gave us $100 amazon cards that were drained by the time we got them. Everyone was pissed but didn't wanna say anything so I did. He asked everyone and they claimed to be delighted with their cards. Spineless bastards. Lmao.
#16
An ultra-religious self-help book so we could become less miserable, incompetent and immoral.
#17
Teacher here.
One year, as our Christmas bonus, we got a defective plastic keychain that read "I love teching!" Spelled exactly like that.
Normally, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.. but after the s**t we had been through, with zero support from admin, s**t pay, disrespect, etc. the keychain set us all off. It was adding insult to injury.
Like, not only is our "bonus" a keychain that didn't even work (the hasp had no spring), but the spelling error meant that a) someone didn't even check them when they arrived, and b) someone put them in every teacher mailbox without looking at them.
Admin sent out an email that basically said turn your keychains back in so they could send them back and get corrected ones. So, adding insult to injury.
I appreciated the sentiment, but all of us could've done without that.
#18
Company coffee mug with the company name misspelled. It was a large company.
#19
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”.
#20
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.
