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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

#71

Post by murphyslab »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #62
thaumasiotes wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the Amazon employee discount. 10% off any and all purchases on the site. Up to a maximum of $100 per year. Or in other words, a benefit you could never even notice you had.

Not quite so generous. 10% off any items shipped and sold by Amazon. Up to $100 per year. To be honest I think I would prefer a complementary Prime subscription.

You'd think that Amazon would do that (and apparently they do not) just so their employees would be more familiar with the products and able to offer better suggestions on improvements.

Guess I now know why the Prime Video interface is so terrible!

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#72

Post by joe-collins »

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…

See also: the stereotypical pizza party.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#73

Post by kappuchino »

Weird. Did noone else notice the obvious? A prepaid/gift-card company rooting via a (sketchy) survey based article for prepaid/gift-cards as the number one gifts.

How convenient.

I would love see the numbers behind the survey and the questionaire and the selection method of the sample.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#74

Post by joe-collins »

yieldcrv wrote: post #55

I hired an operations person to plan silly stuff like this because people that worked for me wanted a culture When I was an employee I hated non-work related stuff as part of work turns out, even the patronizing stuff is team building amongst the workers. they build rapport with each other by talking about how patronizing it is. shrug. moving on.

That's... a perspective I hadn't considered before, and now I hate it even more.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#76

Post by jamiek88 »

spoils19 wrote: post #29
tboughen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m glad that works for you, but it doesn’t for me. The one ‘life hack’ that’s ever worked for me is to own a single type of sock (white, cotton, Nike). The entire batch of 30 pairs was bought at the same time so they wear evenly, meaning all socks match with all other socks. When I get down to a few functioning pairs, into the bin they go and a new batch is ordered. My family knows not to buy me socks…

Sounds horribly wasteful to throw it into the bin. There are a myriad of uses for old socks, even if they are no longer wearable.

Like what?

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#77

Post by bayindirh »

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…

This is a very simplistic and very narrow perspective about gifting when looked from this side.

I don't consider gifts as the items solely. The person who brought the gift spent some time pondering what would I like, gave his/her best shot. Spent time and funds to acquire this and gave it to me.

Yes, it might not be the exact item I'd get; yes, it might not be crazy expensive (or just flat out cheap and simple). But it's a small anchor which makes me remember the person who gave me the gift and the occasion. The thoughtfulness and kindness what makes a gift, a gift.

That gift is priceless for me from now on. It can be a mug, it can be a pin, it can be a watch, or anything.

Putting everything on a material perspective is just not very kind, and is a great disservice to the person who bought the gift.

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