Ok, so we had a Christmas party at work that included a gift exchange. The instructions were to bring roughly a $20 item, either "white elephant" or a regular "good" gift. It was totally voluntary so if you didn't want to bring a gift, you didn't have to. I have so little time these days that it was the morning of, and I still didn't have anything. Thank goodness for Target at the last minute! I swung in on my way work work and figured if i'm going to spend $20 on something, it may as well be useful. I loaded a target card with $10 and then proceeded to buy an assortment of chapstick {my favorite winter accessory}. I know it's kind of a dorky gift but I got the GOOD quality chapstick! I wrapped it up all pretty and when the party came later that afternoon, I plopped my gift down on the table with all the other gifts.
We all drew numbers and got to open a "mystery gift". Most of the gifts were alright...a GIANT dog bone {which actually worked out well because the person who got it has a big dog}, a lava lamp, starbucks coffee, you get the idea. When it came time for me to open, someone suggested I open a long tube looking thing because it "felt cold"....I shouldn't have taken the bait because guess what it was?
A CAN OF BUD LIGHT CHELADA.
If you've never heard of this beer, it's kind of a V-8/bloody mary type mixture with the beer taste and lime. Pretty gross.
You know what else is special about this beer? It retails for about $2.
I definitely wasn't expecting anything out of this gift exchange but was pretty offended that a group of Microsoft attorneys would contribute something like that when it wasn't even CLOSE to the dollar range. These people make loads more money than I do and here I am, trying to follow directions and be a "team player" by participating and rather than just deciding not to get a gift, someone gets a can of beer????
I'm pretty sure this will be the last time I ever participate in a gift exchange at work.