Worker Says 'If My Christmas Bonus Isn't Money, Shove It' After Job Gives Him An $11 Jar Of Truffle Mayonnaise
If you MUST opt for an object as a Christmas bonus you can do far better than truffle mayonnaise.
imaginima | Getty Images Signature | Peopleimages.com | YuriArcurs | Canva Pro It's the Christmas season, and that means one thing: Terrible corporate holiday gifts. Has there ever been a good one? In the entire history of the working world?
Maybe, if you're in the upper echelons, but for most of the rest of us, they tend to be… well, a bit disappointing. For one worker on Reddit, his corporate holiday gift was so lackluster it ended up being downright offensive — especially when all anyone wants in the first place is money anyway!
The worker said that all Christmas bonuses should be money — and many workers agree.
The office pizza party in lieu of a raise — or even a liveable wage in the first place — has become a long-running joke among workers at this point, but lately, employers seem to be taking that whole idea to an extreme, especially around the holidays.
"I'm sick and tired of these 'your work sent you a gift' emails every year around Christmas," the Redditor wrote in their post. "I can't imagine how sad your life has to be to say, 'Oh boy, I can't wait to get my gift of clearance garbage that I will never use.'"
Ungrateful? Maybe. But it's hard to argue with him. Unless you're a hoarder, the usual kind of dreck you get as a work Christmas gift isn't usually good for much besides tossing it into the garbage or sending it to the local thrift shop — where it will likely just sit on a shelf until the end of time!
This year, the worker ended up with the dumbest corporate holiday gift of all: An $11 jar of truffle mayonnaise.
This particular employee seems to work at a place that gives you one of those dreaded catalogs from which you get to choose your "gift," which is perhaps a better option than just being handed some pen with the company logo on it. But not by much.
"Most of the time I would just pick whatever food item they had on there and be done," the worker wrote in his post. And this Christmas? That was the worst of all possible options. "This year that option is an $11 jar of truffle mayonnaise."
First of all, truffles are disgusting and smell like rotting flesh. Even chefs hate them, like Gordon Ramsay, who famously said they were basically a dumb person's idea of fancy food. They stink, literally, and when I am dictator, they will be outlawed. I will die on this hill!
But adding insult to that injury is the fact that an $11 jar of truffle mayonnaise — or any other similarly dumb gift — carries no meaning whatsoever, let alone any kind of acknowledgment of a job well done.
As this Redditor put it, "You aren't showing 'gratitude' or 'appreciation' to someone by giving them something you paid $2 for and can't use."
Even worse, workers often have to pay tax on corporate holiday gifts.
What's far more galling than the lack of care and thought so many employers put into these holiday gifts is the fact that workers are often charged tax on them out of their paychecks. Yes — they end up essentially paying for their own gift.
Perfectly underlining this absurdity, the Redditor wrote that his first job at a movie theater came with a $50 bonus check each Christmas season. "But I as an adult with bills to pay and groceries to buy would definitely rather have some Chinese essential oil diffuser which is still taxed from my paycheck," they wrote sarcastically.
Oftentimes these taxes aren't even required by law. The IRS has rules — very clearly stated on their own website — about workplace gestures they consider de minimis, or too trivial to bother taxing.
"Holiday gifts" are on the list, as are other frequent workplace perks like celebratory meals and the occasional donuts that show up in the break room. Even fancier perks like concert tickets are on the de minimis list.
In the end, all this stuff is just a way for employers to be even more miserly during the holidays than they are the rest of the year while making it LOOK like they're generous.
This worker is right: Give your employees money or don't give them anything at all. Everything else is just a waste of people's time — especially if it's the degenerate abomination known as truffle mayonnaise.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.