Uh… thanks?

Thanks.com Gift Certificate

I ran into your site while looking for a way to sell a useless gift: a $50 certificate to Thanks.com. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s this evil thing that companies use to say “thanks” to employees after a project is done. Instead, it wastes the employee’s time looking for something to spend it on - there’s nothing in their catalog worth $50, and not much anyone would want or need.

For example, I could buy the Hamilton Beach Icy Treats Maker with my $50 certificate, or go to Amazon.com and get it for $29.99

Or perhaps I should get a HoMedics 5-Motor Back Massager with Heat? Oh wait, instead of my $50 thanks.com certificate, I could get it for $24.99 at Circuit City.com

Or how about Harry Potter book 7? Surely that’s worth $50, right? Oh wait, you can get it for $19.94 at overstock.com.

See their catalog of crap here.

Last project, they gave us $50 Visa cards. Unfortunately, if you don’t spend them within 90 days, the money starts disappearing with non-usage fees. The company also had to pay a $5 activation fee for each card, so they spent $55 to give us each $50. That seemed pretty stupid, but thanks.com is much worse. The company pays $50 to give us an average of $25 worth of stuff we don’t need.

I’d be so much happier to receive an envelope with cash in it. Is anyone ever disappointed to receive cash? Why do corporations insist on doing this stuff?

May 30th, 2008 Posted in Office | 1 Comment

Rubberband Ball

I work in a small office where it is traditional to give a small $5 to $10 dollar gift to each of our coworkers. (There are five of us.) One of my coworkers is gone for the week so she left my gift on my desk in a can with a small note saying Warning!! Homemade Present! (Pictured above). I opened the can and found inside something that perhaps may be the worst christmas gift ever given in recorded history. A Rubberband Ball???!!????

Am I missing something here? Since when did taking office supplies and fashioning them into some geometric shape become something that you can pass off to a fellow coworker as a gift? To me it seems like she is saying, “I hate you so much that I am just going to give you a lump of rubber.” Am I off on this?

January 4th, 2008 Posted in Christmas, Office | 7 Comments