Plan B: A gift deployment

To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift.

- Steve Prefontaine -

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I'm one of those people who feels a little awkward receiving gifts, that doesn't mean I don't accept them, I just feel a little odd about it is all. I accept graciously though, as I know that a lot of the time a person feels good about giving gifts and I'm not about to destroy that feeling by refusing, and am careful to let the gift-giver know that I really appreciate the gesture.

I like to give gifts though and not just physical ones; sometimes the nicest gifts are a kind word, gesture or simply just giving of one's time for another...but sometimes physical gifts are required and that takes thought.

This is the first Christmas with my new company and I didn't know whether they do Christmas gifts in the office. I didn't want to ask either, I was afraid they might think I want to and that could spark a domino effect, so I stayed silent, observed, kept my ears open and...nothing, not a single clue about whether it was the done thing or not. Fuckers.

Plan B

I had to revert to plan B.

This meant I had to come up with plan B.

After looking at the situation from all angles, I decided that I'd need to have emergency gifts prepared just in case I arrived at work one day before Christmas and they all pulled out Christmas gifts. Plan B was born.

I decided my emergency gifts would be one-ounce silver coins which I took from my safe, wrapped and secreted away in my office ready to deploy if those fuckers colleagues started giving gifts. I even wrote out those little Christmas cards with each person's name and sticky-taped it to the wrapped coins. Clearly, I like to be prepared huh?

Deployment

It happened.

I arrived in the office and was dismayed happy to discover that Christmas gifts were indeed a thing in my office. Fuckers. Such lovely colleagues huh? They probably thought they'd make me look bad.

You have to get up way early in the morning to outwit the old G-dog though and before long I'd whipped out my emergency gifts and deployed them without a hint of mercy. Oh what a joyous occasion bloody awkward occasion it was!

It wasn't actually that bad at all, the State Manager bought lunch for everyone, which happens every Friday anyway, and a few gifts were swapped between us all. There was no ceremony thankfully, no one preyed to Jesus...just a few nice words here and there and the tearing of badly wrapped Christmas paper.

My emergency gifts were well-received; it's fun watching people who don't stack metals hefting silver coins. I think at first there was some, what the fuck has G-dog wrapped up, but there were smiles later. I could almost seeing them turn into pirates before my very eyes.

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I like gifting silver as it feels like a valuable gift and one that is most likely to appreciate in value. I've done it several times and a few of those who have received them have gone on to take an active interest in stacking metals which I think is really cool. I also like how it seems like such a thoughtful gift, but takes little thought to actually do, and doesn't require a trip to the shopping mall thankfully.

What about you? Do you have to do Christmas gifts at work or does no one bother? What's the best thing you ever got, or the worst, and have you ever seen someone turn up without anything to give? Feel free to comment below if you like.