The Worst Office Holiday Gift Ever
Still fuming about the stale fruitcake, the corporate-logo key chain or the cheap alarm clock?
We're going to go out on a limb here and say that when it comes to the worst office holiday gift, Rebecca Keaty has you beat.
Keaty, 32, of Chicago, describes an ordeal that took place approximately eight years ago, when, returning from an early morning meeting, she found a frozen chicken on her desk.
"I thought it was a practical joke or something," says Keaty. She quickly learned otherwise. While she was away, her boss had rolled in a cooler and dispensed frozen chickens to everyone in the office. The instant messages flew ("Is this for real?") and then the reality settled in: the birds would spoil if someone didn't take action. Keaty's co-workers scrambled for refrigerator space, which was inadequate, and were forced to make some painful decisions: "We had to decide whose chickens had to be sacrificed."
Office Hours has heard about some pretty lousy holiday gifts in recent days, including a reindeer antlers with bells (Thanks for the motivation, boss!) and homemade fruitcake. (How to put this? People. Do. Not. Like. Fruitcake.) "The worst gift that I personally know of is a boss at Time Warner -- who was a complete control freak -- gave all his people cheap alarm clocks on Christmas [to] 'help' them in their careers so they would be on time to work," Randall Hansen, wrote in an e-mail exchange. That's impressive, all right, but for sheer awkwardness, cheapness, waste and good old-fashioned thoughtlessness, it's hard to beat Keaty's chicken.
Consider the context: Keaty's job at the time (she has since moved on) was not, by any stretch of the imagination, poultry-related. "The irony is that we worked at [a major Chicago-area shopping mall] in the corporate marketing department. I mean, it's a shopping mall, he could have gotten us a gift card -- or anything," Keaty says. To make matters more, well, interesting, the giver came from a prominent egg-farming family, and the lack of standard packaging strongly suggested his chickens did as well.
The likely scenario, quickly picked up by office wags, was that the chickens in question had been slaughtered when they stopped laying enough eggs. (Nothing says "we value our employees" like the frozen carcass of a bird that can no longer meet its productivity targets!) Since its dramatic debut, Keaty's chicken has resurfaced in some interesting places, including a job-application cover letter she wrote featuring her more colorful workplace adventures. ("I won't even quit if you give me a frozen chicken for a holiday bonus!") "People call me because of that [chicken]," she says.
Ah, the gift that keeps on giving.
Email: sales@SourceEC.com.my
Website: SourceEC.com.my
原文見： The Worst Office Holiday Gift Ever | SourceEC - Corporate Gifts Malaysia | Promotional Gifts | Door Gifts Blog
We're going to go out on a limb here and say that when it comes to the worst office holiday gift, Rebecca Keaty has you beat.
Keaty, 32, of Chicago, describes an ordeal that took place approximately eight years ago, when, returning from an early morning meeting, she found a frozen chicken on her desk.
"I thought it was a practical joke or something," says Keaty. She quickly learned otherwise. While she was away, her boss had rolled in a cooler and dispensed frozen chickens to everyone in the office. The instant messages flew ("Is this for real?") and then the reality settled in: the birds would spoil if someone didn't take action. Keaty's co-workers scrambled for refrigerator space, which was inadequate, and were forced to make some painful decisions: "We had to decide whose chickens had to be sacrificed."
Office Hours has heard about some pretty lousy holiday gifts in recent days, including a reindeer antlers with bells (Thanks for the motivation, boss!) and homemade fruitcake. (How to put this? People. Do. Not. Like. Fruitcake.) "The worst gift that I personally know of is a boss at Time Warner -- who was a complete control freak -- gave all his people cheap alarm clocks on Christmas [to] 'help' them in their careers so they would be on time to work," Randall Hansen, wrote in an e-mail exchange. That's impressive, all right, but for sheer awkwardness, cheapness, waste and good old-fashioned thoughtlessness, it's hard to beat Keaty's chicken.
Consider the context: Keaty's job at the time (she has since moved on) was not, by any stretch of the imagination, poultry-related. "The irony is that we worked at [a major Chicago-area shopping mall] in the corporate marketing department. I mean, it's a shopping mall, he could have gotten us a gift card -- or anything," Keaty says. To make matters more, well, interesting, the giver came from a prominent egg-farming family, and the lack of standard packaging strongly suggested his chickens did as well.
The likely scenario, quickly picked up by office wags, was that the chickens in question had been slaughtered when they stopped laying enough eggs. (Nothing says "we value our employees" like the frozen carcass of a bird that can no longer meet its productivity targets!) Since its dramatic debut, Keaty's chicken has resurfaced in some interesting places, including a job-application cover letter she wrote featuring her more colorful workplace adventures. ("I won't even quit if you give me a frozen chicken for a holiday bonus!") "People call me because of that [chicken]," she says.
Ah, the gift that keeps on giving.
Email: sales@SourceEC.com.my
Website: SourceEC.com.my
原文見： The Worst Office Holiday Gift Ever | SourceEC - Corporate Gifts Malaysia | Promotional Gifts | Door Gifts Blog
The Worst Office Holiday Gift Ever
Reviewed by Unknown
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9:30 AM
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Reviewed by Unknown
on
9:30 AM
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