good or interesting corporate gifts

magicbastarder · 07-07-2023 1:08pm #1

in light of the car fuss, what interesting or memorable gifts have you received in the course of your work?

i got a phone call from a woman in microsoft many years ago, asking did i want to attend the official launch of office 2007, exchange 2007 and vista in croke park. i don't know how interested i sounded, but she then dangled a free lunch provided by fitzers too, so i thought, 'sod it, that sounds like i'll do that'.

and then almost as an afterthought she asked, 'oh, and would you like to meet neil armstrong too while you're there?'

when i was in college, a friend used to give away massive femidom beach towels femidom were sending to her mother. she didn't get too many takers.

Riddle101 · 07-07-2023 2:20pm

Years ago when I was in college I was doing work experience with a PR company. It was just a ten day thing and I wasn't being paid but near the end of my work placement they gave me a brand new copy of The Godfather 2 video game. The game had just been released in Ireland and they were promoting it here so they had some copies and I received one. In my younger years I thought that was pretty cool of them.

Sleepy · 07-07-2023 2:26pm

Aside from the usual pens / keyrings / sweets / tickets etc. I think the best I've received have been a couple of nice little power banks.

Allinall · 07-07-2023 2:28pm

Free set of tyres for my car.

Alkers · 07-07-2023 2:29pm

One of my friends workplaces used to offer extra annual leave as prizes, thought that was good.

corner of hells · 07-07-2023 6:22pm

An uncle of mine used get sun holidays from his employer every three years or so , granted he was in the army and it was always the Lebanon.

gameoverdude · 07-07-2023 6:25pm

Does riding the foxy boss count? I would certainly count that as a corporate gift at 23.

Baba Yaga · 07-07-2023 6:28pm

got a fleece one time...no flip-flops though unfortunately...

SuperBowserWorld · 07-07-2023 8:00pm

A nexus 7 tablet.

Was lovely.

Then Google updated the OS less than 12 months later and it ran like ****.

Google, masters of land fill.

pat_sconce · 07-07-2023 8:16pm

I got an original piece of art by an artist a US company I worked with sponsored.

His pieces sell for over $5k currently, but Americans do overpay for stuff like this.

Archeron · 07-07-2023 8:24pm

A usb hub shaped like a little robot. You plug his head into the usb port and his arms and legs give four new ports.

gameoverdude · 07-07-2023 8:32pm

Make sure you let your compliance team know.

freshpopcorn · 07-07-2023 8:37pm

Flip-Flops!

CPTM · 07-07-2023 8:40pm

A seasoned department head used to buy chocolate advent calendars for everyone's kids. It was a pretty big department with very little turnover at that time when she was in charge. Some people were there for decades and she continued to buy the calenders forever. Last time I was there she handed one of the older mothers a couple of advent calendars and said it was for the kids - "I know they're 19 and 17 but it just feels too weird to stop now".

L1011 · 07-07-2023 8:43pm

At the time of the Windows XP launch we ended up 3x copies of XP Pro, each with a cack webcam (I think I sold the two spares on here actually) couriered out to the gaff due to my Dad's job. I also went to a pre-Vista launch event with a decent lunch and a swag bag including a reasonably large USB key - probably €60 or so worth at the time on its own

Microsoft would often spend decent amounts of launches back then.

Strumms · 07-07-2023 9:27pm

Cross pen… worth about 85 euros im seeing, found it recently during a clear out . Not working though …might get it refilled…

a black fleece… very comfy and stylish and real good quality but it had the small company logo on it, so didn’t want to wear it out, gave it to my Dad who still has it… he wears it in the garage in the winter. Can’t remember the label but it was quite stylish, warm and very comfy, only the damn logo… 🙈

A voucher for the company’s corporate travel agent who’d just started doing personal travel too….was reasonably generous, we thought but the non corporate rates on the site for personal travel were absurdly astronomical….bonkers…got one night in Langtons out of it…

the best… years ago (20 plus) an Ericsson T10 (?) flip ready to go mobile phone with 30 pounds ( yep that long ago ) worth of credit… one day an Eircell rep just came in with a big hold all and plonked the phones beside us as we worked for them….I was on a call so missed the little spiel and presumed it was a demo but was made up going home with it…was my first mobile, was around 1999 or 2000, still have it in a drawer somewhere..

Emblematic · 07-07-2023 9:30pm

@Strumms 9:27pm Cross pen… worth about 85 euros im seeing, found it recently during a clear out . Not working though …might get it refilled…

Slightly off topic but a company I worked for once sent out fake Cross pens to prospective customers. Unfortunately one of the recipients was the Cross pen company, makers of the genuine pens. Much hilarity at the time. Needless to say the recipients were indeed cross.

Strumms · 07-07-2023 9:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120820260#Comment_120820260

😂 classic, the writing was on the wall for you after that I’d say. Kicked up a right ink.

chrisd2019 · 07-07-2023 10:07pm

Ones that come to mind: Box of Cadbury roses!, a leather pocket wallet, Tickets to All ireland Final, Power bank, christmas hamper, a golf bag, a few bottles of nice French wine from a private vinyard. Some fleeces & various other pieces of clothing and of course numerous emails and cards referring to charity donations in place of gifts :)

magicbastarder · 07-07-2023 10:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058304086/good-or-interesting-corporate-gifts

me and neil.

Bridget Clarke · 07-07-2023 11:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120820552#Comment_120820552

Thats really cool. I’m impressed.

Motivator · 08-07-2023 12:13am

We used to get mad gifts from our company. There were 5 departments with 6-10 people on each department. Every few months there’d be a draw in the canteen and whatever department came out of the hat would get a meal out, tickets to concerts or matches etc. the only stipulation was that you had to go with your team. No partners or you couldn’t offload them to a mate. It was a very good way of building up a good bond between the staff and the best thing about it was every department would get something over the course of the year. Once you came out of the hat, you were out until all departments came out. The buzz when you came out waiting to find out what you won was brilliant.

Recession came, huge number of redundancies and headcount was stripped right back to the bare minimum. The company kept afloat and got the numbers back up a bit over time but the draws are a thing of the past now unfortunately. It was a great company to work for back in the good old days. We didn’t know how good we had it at the time.

Collie D · 08-07-2023 8:02am

Pair of tickets to a supplier’s corporate box in Croke Park for international soccer game when they played there during Lansdowne development.

Nice meal and free booze and a couple of gifts like polo shirts, etc. but very few of the roughly 15 attendees actually watched the game. Nice to try once but not for me. Maybe if I had been with a gang of friends who were fans of the team.

Collie D · 08-07-2023 8:09am

Also got a ton of booze in that role at Christmas from various suppliers and shared them around the small team.

All pre-recession and before our anti-bribery regs. Not that it mattered. I was just the contact point who placed the orders with these selected suppliers. No input from me as to who we actually bought from so if they were an attempt to gain favour they got the wrong person drunk.

magicbastarder · 08-07-2023 9:27am

the only other notable bit of largesse i experienced was when one of two colleagues couldn't make it to a dinner that ironport (who'd just been bought by cisco) had invited them to. so i ended up in shanahans sitting beside an american chap called scott; nice guy but complete overdose of personality, it was almost exhausting talking to him. he paid; €1997 for ten of us, i do remember seeing the bill.

on the bus on the way home, the other colleague of mine texted me to let me know he'd just found out that was scott weiss, who along with his business partner had sold ironport to cisco for over $800m. the two lads had taken $400m each, and gave the rest to the staff IIRC.

mikemac2 · 08-07-2023 7:54pm

Got an iPod Nano (remember them?) with our company's name printed on the back

I loved that Nano. It was the Version 2 as I remember. Around 2008. Was the best corporate gift I ever received. Hah later that year the recession started and there were redundancies, that was the last of that

I still have an iPod Nano and it's the last version, 7 I think and it still goes strong.

Gregor Samsa · 09-07-2023 9:01am

Got a huge crate of Lucozade and a branded beach towel (Lara Croft) from GlaxoSmithKline many years ago, when I built their Irish website. Still have the towel.

In my current company, we used to get employee discounts of about 40% from some clients (including Canon, Logitech, Microsoft, Lenovo), but that seems to have mostly dried up.

About 15 years ago, some of my co-workers were on a project for a particular client. At the end, they were told they were getting an “mp3 player” as a token of thanks. They were very excited, and the rest of us were very jealous. When it arrived, it turned out that it was pre-loaded with 5 cringy corporate songs of the client company, and you couldn’t remove them or load any of your own music.