Employee Asks If It Would Be Wrong To Drop Out Of Work Holiday Gift Exchange After Learning The Minimum Spend Is $50
Placing a MINIMUM on an office gift exchange? In this economy?
shironosov | Getty Images | Canva Pro Can we do away with workplace gift exchanges? The more time goes on, the more awkward they seem to become. Between how tight everyone's finances are and how stressful the holiday season already is, it just seems to add so much needless stress.
Then there are the often ludicrous expectations these gift exchanges have, as one restaurant worker on Reddit detailed. The expected level of gift-giving would be absurd even at a big-money workplace, but for a restaurant, it's absolutely absurd.
The employee asked if it would be wrong to drop out of the work holiday gift exchange after learning the minimum spend is $50.
Right off the bat, I'm out — the mere notion of being held to a MINIMUM spending requirement for a co-worker is a level of audacity I simply refuse to even entertain. This worker, however, doesn't want to be the office jerk, which is understandable. But she's been left gasping at her co-worker's expectations.
For starters, she works in a restaurant, of all places.
"I serve, I host, and I do typical restaurant things and make whatever hourly wage is attached to the position I’m scheduled to work for," she wrote. Translation: She's not exactly pulling down six figures in the high-flying world of international finance or something!
So when she was approached by a colleague to join the workplace holiday gift exchange, she figured it would be a relatively easy-going affair. "I agreed without giving much thought into asking any questions," she admitted. "I just expected the price would be like $20." How wrong she was.
Her co-workers' gift exchange requests included 'insane' items like video game consoles and other expensive presents.
"Yesterday, I noticed my co-workers were writing wish lists for things and some of the items they wanted were INSANE," the worker explained. Whatever items you're imagining likely don't hold a candle to the audacious requests her co-workers are making.
One person, for example, asked for a Sony PlayStation 5 gaming console — which retails for about $500. Others asked for expensive colognes and perfumes, which are often hundreds of dollars as well. Obviously, these are utterly deranged expectations for a workplace gift exchange, so much so that the worker "thought it was a joke" at first.
But when she asked, she was informed of the $50 minimum — which she again was sure was a mistake.
"I was shocked and asked if I heard her right," she wrote, thinking that maybe her coworker had said $15 rather than $50. "She looked at me with a look of confusion and annoyance while saying 'You can’t buy a good gift for that little money.'"
But wait, it gets worse! The person she was assigned for the gift exchange is not only a supervisor who is senior to her but is also new to the company, and they haven't even met yet! "Definitely not someone I’d feel generous enough to spend $50 or more on," she said.
Many workers hate office gift exchanges and wish the tradition would end.
A 2019 study by U.K. career site Jobsite looked into workers' feelings about workplace holiday traditions like "Secret Santa" and got results that likely won't be surprising to many. In short, people are over it — and that was five years ago, before the ludicrous economy we now live in got underway.
Jobsite's survey focused on Millennial workers and found a pretty sobering picture: 26% said they'd had to dip into savings to participate in the office gift exchange, 73% said they contributed more than they could afford, and 17% said they felt judged by their colleagues in the process.
It's basically every element of this young woman's experience wrapped up into one survey — and presumably, none of those who Jobsite spoke to had ever faced such absurd expectations as being asked to buy a colleague a $500 video game console.
Yet these stressful workplace gift exchanges don't seem to be going anywhere and even seem to be getting more ridiculous. No wonder 35% of Jobsite's respondents called for a very simple solution: Saying "bah humbug" to office gift exchanges and scrapping the tradition altogether. Who needs the added stress?
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.