Folks Online Share Similar Stories After Guy Tells How He Understood His ‘Cheap’ $15 Company Christmas Gifts Were Actually Bought By Manager

We all need some perspective in life every once in a while. Having your own opinions and understanding is great and all, but seeing things through a different lens is the healthy thing to do.

A Reddit user recently posted some very appropriate perspective regarding sub-par Christmas gifts from companies and how it’s not always the case that corporations are funding this type of employee encouragement, but rather team leads and managers might also have a hand in this. Or the only hand.

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So, Reddit user u/daddy-daddy-cool, with whom Bored Panda got in touch, paid the r/YouShouldKnow subreddit, a part of the website dedicated to all things people ought to know, a visit with a message of receiving.

"Over the past few months, people have been showing the shoddy 'gifts' that their companies have been giving to them, whether it be for the holidays or as a 'thank you' for slaving away during the early months of the pandemic lockdown," explained Daddy Cool why he ended up posting his story in the first place.

"In one post, somebody shared a picture of an orange they received, and when someone commented that it might have been paid out of the manager's own pocket, that triggered a cascade of thoughts and memories which led to me remembering the situation with my own manager 25 years ago."

In particular, he shared a story from 25 years ago. It was Christmas time, he was working what he called his ‘first real job’ after college. His friends were all bragging about all the cool Christmas gifts and benefits they got during that time, and he too was due to get something.

Come Christmas, and his direct manager hands him an envelope. “Here's the fat Christmas bonus I hear everyone talk about,” he thought to himself. So, he eagerly opened it to find a $15 gift card to one of the local retail stores.

He was furious. Was this all his hard work and dedication amounted to? 15 bucks? Not even bucks, a discount of sorts at a very particular venue. He was furious through the day, and even the whole weekend. He even tried to get his girlfriend furious with him. But instead of joining in on the hate, she extinguished the situation with some perspective.

“That was nice of her, spending her own money like that.” And that’s when it hit him—his team was the only one who actually got a gift in the company, so it made sense the manager was funding this.

She gave $15 to each member of her team, of which there were 12, so nearly $200 from her own pockets. That was a pretty significant sacrifice that ought to have been appreciated. And OP did appreciate it once he understood this.

"Personally, I was lead to believe (by TV mostly) that the Christmas bonus was something that all companies did for their employees," elaborated Daddy Cool. "As a young, naive person, you assume that the 'boss' is a 'benevolent king or queen' or at worst, 'benevolent dictator', loaded with cash, spending it frivolously on anything and anyone. Combined with the belief that rewards are guaranteed for those who work hard, I had a strong expectation that I would receive a generous gift."

The post got a fair bit of attention from people online, garnering over 38,600 upvotes and a good handful of Reddit awards. And it got people in the comments talking. And speaking of talking, folks online started sharing their own stories of Christmas bonuses. And while this does happen often that managers fund gifts for their teams, others told stories of how managers fought for bonuses from corporate or how other companies solved this issue.

Unfortunately, Daddy Cool left the company (not because of the Christmas gift, don't fret) later that summer, so he doesn't know if anything really happened the next year—whether the team got together to thank the boss, if she continued funding gifts, or did corporate take over, and whatnot.

"Some commenters jokingly commented that I should post my YSK in the antiwork subreddit as a retort to the anti-corporate message they broadcast," concluded Daddy Cool. "I actually strongly support the current antiwork movement. It provides a very important platform for honest, hard-working people being robbed blind by their employers. People deserve better, and antiwork is helping to open their eyes."

"You can be grateful to your managers and still demand better from corporate. You can still appreciate that your managers spend their own money, while being angry that corporate put them in a position to do so."

You can read the story and see all the comments in full right here. But before you click that link, or click on a different article, tell us your corporate Christmas gift stories in the comment section below!