Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by allenu on Thursday November 03, 2022 @02:14AM (#33447654)

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, which they'd then have to fill out expense forms to get "for free".

Yes, we're privileged to get a free coffee, but relative to our paycheck, it's a pointless gift and just smacks of being out of touch with employee sentiment at the time.

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by thaumasiotes on Thursday November 03, 2022 @02:43AM (#33447822)

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.

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by thrtythreeforty on Thursday November 03, 2022 @02:59AM (#33447908)

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.

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by murphyslab on Thursday November 03, 2022 @03:12AM (#33447970)

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!

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by account42 on Thursday November 03, 2022 @07:08AM (#33449377)

As a customer I don't want Amazon employees to have free Prime membership so that hopefully at least some of them get annoying by the constant Prime-pushing that they make normal users go trough.

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by shepherdjerred on Thursday November 03, 2022 @03:11AM (#33447962)

Frugality!

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by joe-collins on Thursday November 03, 2022 @03:15AM (#33447978)

See also: the stereotypical pizza party.

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by rippercushions on Thursday November 03, 2022 @04:15AM (#33448313)

I'd still take pizza over having to expense a coffee.

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by function_seven on Thursday November 03, 2022 @02:26PM (#33455255)

Severance (AppleTV+) does a fantastic job mocking these morale boosters.

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by crisp on Thursday November 03, 2022 @05:40AM (#33448857)

Reminds me of how some nurses in Finland were gifted with an ice cream voucher for their hard work during corona times. [1] The picture translates roughly as:

[The upper text]

"As a small thank you for your effort during the corona year, we'd like to offer you an ice cream during the hot weather in summer."

[The lower text on yellow background]

"The voucher is valid for the selected ice creams in this [kiosk]. You're welcome!"

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Suomi/comments/o9g934/%C3%A4itini_t...

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by mcv on Thursday November 03, 2022 @06:03AM (#33448996)

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.

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by allenu on Thursday November 03, 2022 @12:13PM (#33453256)

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.)

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by mcv on Thursday November 03, 2022 @12:38PM (#33453637)

Yeah, that's pointless. I would expect most coffee drinkers to already have the best coffee at home. I guess it was a really poor attempt to translate the nice gesture to an environment where it doesn't really work.

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Re:Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad by friendlyHornet on Thursday November 03, 2022 @04:15PM (#33456850)

Lol, as revenge I would have gone to the fanciest roaster in town and bought their $10 250g of coffee beans

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