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Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

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Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#271

Post by tomjakubowski »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #255

My favorite: being asked to pick a company-branded jacket out a few available options and then never receiving it because I work remotely. I managed to fly in the same week the swag arrived. There were 5+ open boxes of swag visible, but person responsible for handing them out wasn’t available every time I checked. I didn’t matter that my name, size, and selection was on the list. After I went home there was a company…

You could have just taken one in the size you reserved. If you're the helpful type, you could leave a note.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#272

Post by kayodelycaon »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #271
kayodelycaon wrote: post #255

My favorite: being asked to pick a company-branded jacket out a few available options and then never receiving it because I work remotely. I managed to fly in the same week the swag arrived. There were 5+ open boxes of swag visible, but person responsible for handing them out wasn’t available every time I checked. I didn’t matter that my name, size, and selection was on the list. After I went home there was a company…

You could have just taken one in the size you reserved. If you're the helpful type, you could leave a note.

I couldn't actually. There was a counter and three people between me and the boxes. They actually wanted to help me but weren't allowed to. I'm not going to ask a retail employee to risk getting fired over a jacket.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#273

Post by bitcurious »

jerlam wrote: post #49

Not just employee gifts, but nearly all gifts are valued less by the receiver than the giver. A gift represents a decision made on behalf of the receiver by the giver. In very few situations would the receiver make the same decision as the giver with the same resources. It's assumed that the receiver will use the same resources in an optimal manner, so gift-giving is a net negative. In some circumstances, gifts are v…

The gift is the very fact that it’s non optimal. I wouldn’t spend $500 on a coffee grinder. That’s the gift. Otherwise I’d already have that coffee grinder.

It’s only a “net negative” if the receiver of the gift can’t afford their necessities.

The same is true when there is information asymmetry. I wouldn’t spend $10 on this specific candy from Japan, because I didn’t know it existed. It’s “non optimal” and again that’s the gift. I get to try a new candy I’ve never heard of.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#275

Post by OJFord »

PopAlongKid wrote: post #231
OJFord wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so aggressively sure that was an American anecdote?

I'm not. That is why I went out of my way to qualify my reply with "(in U.S.)" to clarify what jurisdiction I was commenting about.

'Wrong.'

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#277

Post by jnsaff2 »

segmondy wrote: post #196
jnsaff2 wrote: post #158

So I had a buddy, he was a junior-ish very talented dev in this big retailer where I was working as well. This retailer obv had massive campaigns for black friday, but also obv very shitty and inflexible systems. This buddy of mine found that the black friday promotions pricings import failed 5 min before midnight. Meaning that not only would there be no black friday pricing, there would be no pricing at all on the s…

Let's say he was giving 500,000GBP. 10% Great right? You have just given folks incentive to plant problems and reap the reward. You might say, they can audit and if you caused the problem, you don't get the reward. Great! Now, let's collude with another team mate, I cause they problem, they fix it, we split the rewards. Once you give monetary incentive, folks start figuring out ways to game it. There was an agreement…

jeez. really?

the COMPANY was run really shittily already, there was absolutely no effing reason to plant anything. all the people tried to make the company better, for shitty effing pay.

have you ever seen a world where people take some kind of pride in their work? want to have a positive impact?

I think giving 25 pounds was strictly worse than not giving anything at all. This was an insult.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#278

Post by allenu »

mcv wrote: post #133
allenu wrote: post #46

One place I worked had layoffs and project cancellations, so morale was way down. As a tone deaf move one day, we got an email saying as a treat because we appreciate you all being here despite how shitty everything is, you can purchase yourself a coffee and expense it (max of $10). That turned into more jokes than anything. Morale was horrible and they thought making people feel good was letting them buy coffee, whi…

Yeah, giving people an extra form to fill in is not the greatest gift. A better idea would be to go around and ask people what kind of coffee they want and then getting it for them. It's still not going to significantly raise morale on its own, but at least it's not going to sink it further, and it focuses on the nice gesture instead of the bureaucracy.

I agree that somebody walking around asking for your order and bringing it to you while you bang away at code would be a super nice gesture. The problem in the case I described though was everyone was working from home, so picking up your own coffee was the only way to do it. (Again, making it even more pointless as a gesture.)

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#279

Post by MysteryChessBox »

We got "free pizzas" for something I don't even recall anymore this year at my company, sent to our home. Problem: It was a gift generalized to two whole regions, and of course I was in the "wrong one" for this. My pizza was sent at 4pm with no input from me, same with some colleagues, while we were working our asses off at the office studio recording on-demand content (we stayed up to 9:30pm). Needless to say I arrived to some cold soggy pizza at home. A gift (pizza) of choice voucher would have been much better and less embarassing for leadership.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#280

Post by zaptheimpaler »

i am pretty sure money would suck just as much when considering the amounts. if a company is giving you a pizza party, gift card, water bottle etc. worth like $5-$10, the cash equivalent is $10 extra on a paycheck.. that sounds equally juvenile as any of those other gifts because the actual insult is the _amount_ .

rewarding say a much harder *year* of work over COVID with a few giftcards or $50 sucks balls because everyone knows we deserve much more than that. the only meaningful rewards are large bonuses or promotions and that will just never happen.

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