Company Gift Time Again? 116
realratso asks: "So it's that time of year again... the holidays. Time to choose the 'company gift' for everyone in our small programming company. We've done all the stuff with the company logo- sweatshirts, t-shirts, travel bags, glasses, mugs, etc. It all seems so boring. Is there any gift which you have received at your workplace that was super-cool, not gender specific, and relatively inexpensive? Something that was really usable and worthwhile that you appreciated, but might not buy for yourself? Maybe a new techno-gadget? (and no, 'just money' is not a valid answer)"
Gender important? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Gender important? (Score:2, Funny)
You like pain, don't you?
Got it. (Score:1, Funny)
Anal beads. Seriously.
Yuck (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yuck (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Got it. (Score:2)
Re:Got it. (Score:1)
Hookers? (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Hookers? (Score:1)
Re:Hookers? (Score:1)
How expensive is expensive? (Score:3, Insightful)
If not, I recommend a jaunt to Thinkgeek and get a boat-load of those Digi-Q remote controlled racing cars. :)
Re:How expensive is expensive? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How expensive is expensive? (Score:1)
Hamster! (Score:4, Funny)
And It has the side benefit that next year the workers will hope you don't get them anything.
Klein Bottle (Score:5, Interesting)
More affordable... (Score:1)
Re:Klein Bottle (Score:2)
I dunno. $30 for the "baby" Klein bottle is pretty reasonable. Add maybe $0.50 for having Kinko's print the company logo on a sheet of transparent sticker stuff, and a little bit of time to stick 'em on.
Besides, they're from Cliff Stoll, of Cuckoo's Egg fame. It just doesn't get much geekier than that.
The opposite. (Score:3, Funny)
Our company just gave us layoffs
Re:The opposite. (Score:1)
How can this be?!?!?! The economy, I am told, is turning around and is great!
How about (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How about (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How about (Score:1)
Re:How about (Score:2)
Re:How about (Score:2)
Re:How about (Score:2)
I'll bet you haven't tried (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I'll bet you haven't tried (Score:1)
Foosball Table! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Foosball Table! (Score:2)
Everglide Mousing Surface (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Everglide Mousing Surface (Score:1)
Re:Everglide Mousing Surface (Score:1)
Go out for lunch (Score:1)
Re:Go out for lunch (Score:1)
Hashish and Tequilla (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hashish and Tequilla (Score:1)
condoms (Score:1, Offtopic)
Even if you think you don't need condoms, you do.
You can fit a gallon of water in one - great if you're planning on going on a desert trip.
They don't break too easily if you don't put too much water in 'em, so they make nice re-usable water balloons.
You can cut 'em down the side and use them as lallies.
If smuggling's your thing, youc an always pack them with coke and swallow them!
blow a french tickler up a little bit and it looks like a mouse. Give it to your cat as a toy.
I tell ya, condoms are nature's duct tape!
Re:condoms (Score:2)
Re:condoms (Score:2)
Security Blanket (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Security Blanket (Score:2)
They were given at a time when we knew some rough changes were on the horizon, so that my have swayed our view. In fact, I think everyone I know of that got one got laid off 5 months later.
I thought they were cool, but not being a manager I didn't rate getting anything. (except to keep but job, but the jury's still out on that =])
Thinkgeek (Score:2)
Swingline (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Swingline (Score:1)
Re:Swingline (Score:1)
See the movie "office space".
Stuff from thinkgeek (Score:2)
Nerf guns (Score:2, Informative)
Be sure to load up with extra darts, however. Those things can get themselves lost in the time it takes you to blink.
Re:Nerf guns (Score:1)
You don't even need extra rounds if your employees are geeks, because all that quake-playing and matrix-watching has made them sharp shooters!
Not a valid answer so don't bother reading this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not a valid answer so don't bother reading this (Score:2)
If you're already getting the bonus, what else would you like from your boss?
Have you already given away Umbrellas? (Score:3, Interesting)
2 best gifts (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone was working on Monday already, Christmas was on Tuesday. The friday before, boss walks in, says everyone has monday off, fully paid, and took us out to lunch.
The other best gift was gift certificates to the restraunt of our choice, Boos just went around, asked everyone individually where they liked to eat out, and bought $30 gift certificates to that place with a card, and put them in a holiday mug.
Re:2 best gifts (Score:2)
I wouldn't mind a gift certificate to the local used book store. The one with lots of math books -- better selection than everywhere but the university's science library.
Leatherman micra... (Score:1)
Let your people choose (Score:1)
A few years ago I worked for a company who had the perfect solution. They created a gift list with about 15 equally valued items on it. I remember the traditional food-and-drink box, a darts board, a clock and the option to donate the money to charity. Everybody filled in a form and this way everybody got exactly what they wanted!
Re:Let your people choose (Score:2)
How about something useful: (Score:2)
It's got Scissors, Clip-Point Knife, Tweezers, Nail File / Cleaner, Flat Phillips Screwdriver,
Extra Small Screwdriver, Medium Screwdriver, Bottle Opener & Ruler (Inch / Metric)
Best of all thinkgeek are doing them for $20
(Yes, I've got one. I've also got a Leatherman Wave. They're a bit more expensive...)
Re:How about something useful: (Score:1)
Re:How about something useful: (Score:2)
Gift certificates to B & N, etc.. (Score:1)
Cannabis?? (Score:1, Insightful)
OK...say you've got a 300 employee company -- all of whom enjoy recreational cannabis use and your per-employee budget is around $50.
This gives you a gift budget of around $15,000. When dealing with cannabis, the economies of scale apply quite nicely, and you can get a pound of (very) heady nugs for between $1500 and $2500. At these prices, you would have between 6 and 10 pounds of stinky, heady cannabis. This would give you between 1/4 and 1/2 ounce of very high quality cannabis per employee -- depending on the cost of weed, pinching, hashmaking on the side, etc.
Lastly, if the nugs were available at $1500/lb, and you set your employees each up with 1/2oz, you'd have 10oz left over to pocket...another huge win (worth ~$4000 on the street).
Assuming you can manage to stay out of jail and convince your auditors that this cannabis fits into your capital expenditure budget, I believe that this is the perfect gift.
how about a fat wad of cash (Score:2)
You can't pay bills with a company shirt, a coffee mug, or a company party. I would rather have something that is of actual value.
They might already get holiday bonuses. (Score:2)
Re:how about a fat wad of cash (Score:2)
Absolutely. I have never met anyone who has received any sort of employer-branded merchandise that wouldn't have rather had the cash. It has a knock on effect to: every time a manager says there isn't budget for upgrades, training etc, someone will mutter "huh, they had the money for those stupid t-shirts."
One company I worked for we got t-shirts, hooded sweaters, mousemats, rubber bouncy balls, magic 8-balls, juggling balls, yoyos, record bags, you name it.
Needless to say, since it's peak in 2000 about 90% of their staff have been laid off...
Isn't it obvious? (Score:1)
Pick their poison and buy a pint of the high quality brand.
A couple of things I would like (Score:1)
* USB key drive
Keychain LEDs (Score:3, Interesting)
That was a perfect office gift; cheap, slightly geeky and useful.
Re:Keychain LEDs (Score:2)
Re:Keychain LEDs (Score:1)
Never underestimate the power of food (Score:2)
When I worked as a government employee, the four in our little unit were friends and I got gifts from everyone far more fortunate than my broke GS-4 self.
And last year the company I was working for sent me smoked fish in one of those freezer shipment packs - which was very nice because the person doing all the client and employee gift-giving noted that I liked smoked fish on my bagels.
Which does illustrate my point: I remember that gift better than any other probably because it was food (except for the extra-expensive sweater my ex-boss/good friend Jim Banks gave me that was a SMALL - but for big and tall men so it swallowed my tiny 19yo frame and fits very well and comfortably now *chuckle* He won't read this but he knows that thing has kept me alive in the freezing cold a few dozen times).
Something no one except a bulemic could complain about is gathering everyone up and feeding them at whatever the local favorite is - it doesn't have to be expensive but it could be more memorable than Applebee's or the like. You've avoided any cliches and not given someone something they will discard in the future. Add a Christmas card or Thank You note for good measure.
Ooo!OOO! (Score:2)
Forget a gift in the traditional sense (Score:1)
Give everyone a nice lunch or gift certs to his or her favorite restaurant (suggested by moc.tfosorcimgllib) or a day off.
These may not be "super-cool" but they are gender non-specific and relatively inexpensive considering that employees will just be goofing off anyway. Seriously, do I really need something with the company logo?
My company: We get US$20 in grocery store gift certs, a potluck lunch (yes, I live in the Midwest), and a nice lunch (on a different day, of course) at the local country club. It's not a lot, but it at the end of the day I don't have a gift just sitting around the house.
And, by the way, I prefer cash. It is a very valid gift! You cannot go wrong with cash!
Money (Score:1)
I work for a company that doesn't do Christmas bonuses, so I'd much prefer to get money.
Or take them all out to see LoTR:TTT.
Company Gift = Time (Score:2)
Other than that, I'd recommend gift certificates. I realize that isn't a cool techy thing to give, but at least then everyone gets what they want - not what you guessed they'd want.
The Human Fund! (Score:1)
Some ideas (Score:2)
I'm a big fan of yo-yos. Letter openers (the plastic kind with a little razor safely hidden) are really useful. If you're going more high-end I'd recommend one of the nice messenger style bags. They seem to be appreciated.
I've received a couple of watches and never used any of them. Also, I am so sick of getting men's shirts I could scream. Luckily one of the founders here is a woman. She went out of her way to have some women's shirts embroidered with our logo for the females here. Finally, logo gear I can really use!
Sarah
paper Palm PDA from Computer Gear (Score:2)
- adam
P.S. WARNING: This company is in Redmond, thus any money you spend there might wind up getting funnelled through a business tax and eventually pay for a roadway lane painting that might be used to get an employee to Microsoft -- so use your best judgement.
Best gift I ever got from a company... (Score:2)
Granted this was back during the boom period, but it wasn't that expensive. I think, in the quantity that they ordered, they were on the order of $50/ea.
Re:Best gift I ever got from a company... (Score:2)
Yes, I do hypenate analretentive.
But seriously, if the employees are on the younger side, or have a kid, a gamboy and a game could be a great idea.
But the best idea would be to ask the employees what they want. Narrow it down first, though. I mean, questions like "what author do you want to read but never have?" or "do you have a favorite bar you go to after a hard day at work?" would give an idea what the employees want (books, gift certificate to a particular resturant, etc). But, and this is a big but, if it's a small company, the boss or middle management should already know these things, asking the questions too close to Christmas may seem tacky to some. Particularly if managment is usually aloof.
Re:Best gift I ever got from a company... (Score:2)
I didn't realize that. Aparently dictionary.com [reference.com] didn't either:
(quoting from link)
on the order of
1. Of a kind or fashion similar to; like: a house on the order of a mountain lodge.
2. Approximately; about: equipment costing on the order of a million dollars.
(end quote)
Yes, I do hypenate analretentive.
It would appear that you forgot in this case
Re:Best gift I ever got from a company... (Score:1)
Need I remind you... (Score:1)
how about giving the planet a break? (Score:2)
And not consuming useless crap? AdBusters [adbusters.org]
You want a great gift: add a vacation day, or a half day if that's too much.
Re:how about giving the planet a break? (Score:2)
A generic gift like an extra vacation day could send the exact opposite idea: you're not as welcome here as you could be.
keychain usb drives (Score:4, Interesting)
Great for taking home work, files you download in the office etc..
Re:keychain usb drives (Score:1)
OK, well in addition to £100 cash(!!!) i got... (Score:1)
A nice night out on the town. All four of us from our branch [in my last job, timber yard foreman] went on the piss for the night. Drinking, live band who were damn good, some pool, bowling, a kebab, and a few fat spliffs.
Yes, that's right, our manager got us a bag of some nice smelly weed and we all had a smoke session! With company money! That said, we could smoke up the yard so long as we didn't get paralytic. Ah the good old days...
If it wasn't for my fscked up back, I'd still be there. :( My current job is shite.
Ali
Family Friendly Gifts (Score:2)
Anyone else have suggestions for gifts in this mode?
A card with a little poem (Score:2)
Roses are red, violets are blue.
The economy is dead, so
There's nothing for you.(except this card.)
Happy Holidaze anyway.
The really cool geek gift, that no one really has. (Score:2)
They are these litte cast steel scroll volume deals that you can alias out to anything. They have a slick ass breathing like glow under them that will make everyone that walks by stop and say "What the hell is that thing?!".
I got 5 of these things for my friends for x-mas and everyone loves them. They work on pretty much everything as far as I can tell. They have drivers for every flavor of windows, osx, and os9 on the mac. I did not see any linux drivers but I am sure they are out there somewhere if you can get it to run on osX. You can give the spin a key to send when you use it, say "send left-arrow" when you spin it to the right, right-arrow to the left...send alt-cntrl-del when you click it. One of the guys uses it to scroll web pages and the click to switch tab in pheonix...the perfect porn browser...err game site...whatever..
Anyway check em out.
Past gifts (Score:1)
Last year each of the tech staff got a Victorinox SwissTool X. They must have liked them, you see them on every tech's belt and are the first tool grabbed when cutting a cable, tightening a nut, stripping a wire or slicing a bagel.
Past gifts that the staff didn't like were: jewelery (some people don't wear it or have no one to give it to), logo merchandise from the company catalog (usually so cheaply made it isn't worth the time to throw it away), rounds of golf at a local club and a company logo golf shirt (half the staff didn't play and the shirt was BUTT-UGLY), restaurant gift certificates (people with families got larger value certificates than single people which caused ill feelings and a few people either didn't like or couldn't eat at the chosen restaurant).
Worst one was when they hired a room and a caterer at a fancy hotel to make a "Special Christmas Luncheon of Appreciation" for us, then spent half an hour trying to get us to all sing Christmas carols where the lyrics had been changed to (very bad) lyrics relating to our industry and our jobs. (Don't ask. Some nights I still wake up screaming.)
And THEN, just before they serve the food, they tell us we have to be done eating and back to work in 30 minutes because they only rented the room for an hour. The next year when management suggested they might do it again, no one signed up to participate and it was never mentioned again, except in a context involving Hell freezing over.
Despair, Inc. (Score:1)
Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us
Good stuff!
later,
ajay
How about a USB mem stick??? (Score:1)
What I'd like. (Score:1)
Half a day off (Score:1)
My Choices (Score:1)
Give something useful to your particular culture (Score:1)
As for other items, that is a tough question if you are tying to avoid monotony. You could do the star registry thing, granted some will laugh; but it is a unique idea and a
conversation starter; it is also symbolic, like saying that all your employees are star workers. Another idea, if your company allows music in the workplace AND you can think of enough songs, is to create a compilation CD (professionally, from one of the many websites) of songs that are heard in the workplace a lot, even songs that represent the company's past year.
I think the most important thing is that company logo gifts be items that are quality made and useable at the office and out of the office (whether at home, or even a new job elsewhere). These days, in this economy, usefulness and durability are most important. It's the same when my family asks what I want for Christmas or my b-day; I tell them I want clothes, cause I'll use them and rarely go to the dept. store anyway.