Gifts from your boss

[hopemax]

DH's company takes particular pride in giving out good Christmas presents. The boss doesn't decide, but he likes to talk about how much of a team everyone is. And it's a "start up" that's now expanded to be more than just a startup. Most of the staff is in their 20's, with the technical crew being late 30's now. The actual task falls to the HR person (they call it "empowerment") and a small team. The first couple years, it was about $50 per person, now it's about $100. They try to do something that's the same for everyone, but personal in some way. They come up with the idea fairly early on, I think, and then pay attention all year to what each person would want. Some years it's been more successful than others. But so far what they've gotten, while DH has been employed is:

Year 1 - gift card (mostly Target)
Year 2 - personalized gift card (each person got a store they were known to personally like)
Year 3 - "gift from your childhood." They secretly surveyed everyone about the toys they loved to get. So DH got a LEGO set, someone got a razor scooter, etc. This was sort of a mixed reaction, depending on how much you still enjoy the toys. DH still loves LEGO, so he thought it was fun
Year 4 - big year for the company, everyone got an iPod Nano (colors were personalized)
Year 5 - Sports Jerseys (some people weren't into the main sports but had some sort of outdoor activity, so got something along those lines)
Year 6 - pretty random gifts, they pulled heavily off of Amazon wish lists
This year - a CD (based on how they answered some "Mad Libs" style questions), and a $100 gift card to Ticketmaster

 

[Shagley]

We each get a jar of jelly. Then again, my group has a tradition of giving our boss a shirt and tie, and I have always thought that is kind of weird. A shirt and tie seems like more of a gift to give a relative rather than a boss - but apparently that is just me because no one else in my group seems to think it is odd.

 

[disneychrista]

We each get a jar of jelly. Then again, my group has a tradition of giving our boss a shirt and tie, and I have always thought that is kind of weird. A shirt and tie seems like more of a gift to give a relative rather than a boss - but apparently that is just me because no one else in my group seems to think it is odd.

Personally I just don't get giving the boss a gift at all. Just seems odd.