It’s time for the work gift exchange. I enjoy giving people stuff and never really minded picking up an additional item, providing the established dollar amount was reasonable. And since my expectations were low I wasn’t disappointed by the endless stream of coffee mugs filled with candy. I don’t care for White Elephants, or gag gifts though, with their potential for awkwardness and hurt feelings, but other people’s worst present stories are entertaining,
At a secret Santa party 25+ years ago, one of my coworkers received a can of pork brains. Everyone was horrified. Someone asked, “who did this? Were YOU her Secret Santa? Were YOU her Secret Santa??” to each of us. I was too stunned to respond. The inquisitive someone then said that it must have been me because I didn’t say no. If you ask me I think it was him.
(For the record, my own gift was an old lead pipe. Haw haw haw!!)
The brain recipient kept the can in her cubicle until her last day with the company, a few years later. We opened the can at her going-away party. It smelled terrible.
Worst White Elephant Gift Exchange Ever
So my supervisors set up a White Elephant for the staff as staff bonding and good times. Sounds fun. First gift I pick up was the biggest bag in the gift pile and it turned out to be these two big reindeer dolls and truthfully, I didn’t like them but I acted as if I loved them like they were my children. So it’s established that it looks like I want them.
So I’m straight chilling with my reindeer and three turns later, someone comes up to me to take them from me. I got sad, because I was actually started to like them. I gave them up like a mother reluctant to give up her children to child services.
So I go for this other bag and inside is the really cool snowman mug with hot cocoa mix and a comfortable ass fleece. I wanted this gift more than than those reindeer.
Of course next turn, them bitches get robbed from me. I was legitimately upset.
So I sulk on over to the gift pile with only three gifts left: two envelopes, and this clearly used Dunking Donuts bag. Naturally, I choose the worst looking choice, thinking that the packaging is just a ruse and there is like a gold chain or a $100 Chipotle gift card (I REALLY love Chipotle), you know, something really awesome.
I open it and my face fell faster than Felix Baumgarter (or however you spell his name).
Inside is a box of Q-tips with only 1/5 of the Q-tips remaining. I was SO upset, confused, and sad.
After trying to pawn off my newly won shitty gift, and everyone shared what they brought, the guy who brought the Q-tips thought the gifting were supposed to be joke gifts. :/
WORST CHRISTMAS EVER!
Pro tip – If you have to participate in an office White Elephant or Secret Santa this year you can’t go wrong with Trader Joe’s Rainbow of Honey.
How do you feel about workplace gift giving, Deadsplinters? Are you the branch elf or department Grinch?
I could take or leave the Christmas season as a general concept, but I like giving gifts! And I would never do a gag gift thing at the office. Save that for friends!
I love giving presents too, finding a little thing that someone casually mentioned and surprising them with it. I’m a small person and was born on Christmas Day. When I was little my siblings told me I was an elf, maybe they weren’t teasing
Not a fan of White Elephant exchanges, way too mean. We like to give a small personal gift to each staff member and a bonus regardless of how well we have done for the year. We used to have a Christmas party at a restaurant but it became too difficult to get a date everyone could do and really wasn’t fair if everyone couldn’t make it. Now we just do a lunch at work but even that, somebody has to come in on a day off.
You treat your staff right, I’m sure they appreciate it. I prefer an in office lunch to going somewhere in the evening or weekend. There’s enough to do over the holidays with family, neighbors, and friends without adding another social obligation.
I’ve just added another reason why permanent work from home status is so awesome.
We found our Grinch! Just kidding, it’s a stressful time of year, I understand why people don’t want to do anything more, even if it’s seemingly small. And for some people it isn’t, even a $10 or $15 gift is a financial burden when they’re already shelling out for children, friends, family. I’m not saying that’s you but, we’ve all had coworkers who could ill afford it.
Ugh, I just fucking hate work-related Christmas parties. I’ve attended parties outside of work hours, which fuck that because I already spend too much time with these people anyway. I’ve attended parties during work hours, which fuck that because I’m busy goddammit. I’ve attended parties with White Elephants (or, Yankee Swaps) and those are invariably bullshit because nobody can decide what the rules are. I’ve been involved in Secret Santas which likewise are terrible. I’ve never once received a gift that I found even remotely useful, aside from the one genius who gave me a $20 Starbuck’s card. One time I got a pair of socks (!) that didn’t fit and were clearly from the $2 clearance bin. Another time I got a fucking Amazon Echo Dot–why would anyone want to gift a home surveillance device? Even the potlucks sucked because so few people would actually bother to bring something they made and would always bring these terrible veggie plates from the local grocery store. Nope. No, thank you. Just leave me out of it all.
Ugh work holiday parties after hours are the worst. Even seeing people I like doesn’t make up for the fact that I’m using more of my precious time for work beyond the 10 hours (including commute) that they get from me 5 days a week.
My book club did a white elephant exchange with used books last night. That was kind of fun actually. You weren’t required to spend any money, just grab something from your pile o’ books you are meaning to read. I lucked out and got two because my gifter’s husband thought the one she picked was too depressing, so I have a depressing book and a not so depressing one!
See now this would be ok.
I’m up for any kind of book exchange!
i like it when work gives me gifts…which they usually do a couple times a year…in fact ill be getting a mysterious box of…god knows what this friday..and should still be getting the xmas box in a couple weeks…which is usually a box full of snackages and wine (wonderful tradition)
i dont get paid enough to go around buying stuff for my coworkers tho…so im glad we dont do that here…least not anywhere ive worked so far
Please report back on the mystery and Christmas boxes. I wanna know what you get!
roger wilco 🙂
I guess I’m the grinch, because I always try to put thought into gift buying and I find a lot of people do not, so I end up disappointed a lot. It just ends up being a junk exchange with maybe 2 nice things. I have one coworker I regularly exchange with because we actually know what the other likes. My dept doesn’t do gift exchanges for xmas, maybe because we have a JW on the team and it would be excluding, maybe because our boss is a thoughtless dude, idk 😁
Most people don’t put any thought into it. I don’t know if it’s because they’re just bad gift givers in general or because they don’t want to do it. It really would be better to leave it out of the workplace all together. I think people would be relieved.
I’ve never worked somewhere that did gift exchanges and I’m a-okay with that.
I can be problematic. I don’t think I’d encourage it if I was in charge.
It can be problematic. But honestly, I can be too.