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Our recommended amount is around $10 and most people here are in the 100+ range, a few are closer to 200.
$24 - $40 for secret santa is an extravagant amount - it's not that it's too much the money, it's more that it would make me feel uncomfortable to give a gift worth that much to someone I don't know well.
I'll tell you this much, I am pretty sure that you aren't the only one there thinking this.
Will never participate in secret Santa ever again. I got the person I picked a bottle of booze which they asked for. The person that picked me asked me what I wanted. I said a $12 pack of tube socks would be ok. She got me a pocket p***y! So embarrassing. Even more embarrassing was that I had to take it with me so I wouldn't hurt her feelings. I threw it away in the grocery store trash bin on the way home.
Don't people know how to give decent gifts?
She got you an adult toy for your Secret Santa gift? That's unbelievable. I'm not sure how I would have handled that one.
The total price of our Secret Santa exchange is about the same - $45. Ours is a week long exchange, four days of a gift costing no more than $5 each and then one gift of up to $25 to be given at our "reveal" party on the fifth day. Today, I received a 12oz. sugar free Redbull!
The difference is, our Secret Santa exchange is 100% voluntary, opt-in. No pressure to participate. I send a couple of reminders via email to everyone that if they would like to participate to sign-up by a certain date. Once that date has passed, I create an email group and communicate reminders and enthusiastic/fun emails to only those who chose to participate.
I work with a small group of folks in a call center. All of us are hired through a temporary agency, with the expectation of being permanently hired by the company after 90 days. Not a sure thing, so our jobs theoretically could end early next year. None of us are making more than $11 an hour. One girl from our group decided to start a Secret Santa and randomly passed out little folded slips of paper with co-workers names on them. I asked her what the price range was, and she said she'd get back to me. A few days later she told me it was 25-40 dollars. YIKES!
I don't want to be cheap, but it's not like we are making big bucks, and I have kids and grandkids to buy for this year. Plus, with the name I was given, I'm wondering just what do you get a 22 year old guy? I'm thinking a bottle since I overheard he was going drinking a few weekends ago, but that seems kind of inappropriate.
All the other office jobs I worked at the Secret Santa was $5 - $10. This is just another reason why I hate this extracurricular stuff in the workplace. If it's not the potluck, it's the begging for a donation for someone's birthday, Secret Santa, etc.
Do you think the price range is ridiculously high?? Is this the norm now?
So I make more than $11/hour and requesting gifts over $25 is a lot, IMO. Now if I was making something like $50+/hour, my price range could be adjusted.
I'd opt out. I would just say, "Sorry, I wish I could participate this year. But I just can't afford it."
This is why I don't participate in Secret Santa. $25 minimum at my last clinic. It's more fun for me to try and find something at $15 or less than at $25+. You don't have to participate, either. Don't get yourself in trouble like I do with the reason(s) why you won't participate. Just say no thanks.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Even here where salaries range from $20-100/hour, I would consider that too much for a "Secret Santa" gift, considering that it is almost forced upon people by peer pressure. Thankfully we don't do that and I would flat out refuse to participate, not because of the cost, but because it's a pain to try and buy a suitable gift for someone you may not know very well, and because I hate having an employer make me do anything not related to the job. Another example is the employer that tries to push or even force people to do payroll deductions for United Way or other charities.
Yes, that is too high of an amount for a call center.
I hate "Secret Santa" and decline to participate when I can get away with it.
The last time, it was sort of a morale thing at a down and going job in Ohio.
I refused to participate in s.s., but I gave all of the interns and office assistants a $15 Kroger grocery card (could also be used on gas), which cost me $75, but it paid off handsomely over the next year when I needed things done. My work got done first. (-:
Fortunately, all I have to do this year is bake two pans of brownies. My budget can handle that.
I work with a small group of folks in a call center. All of us are hired through a temporary agency, with the expectation of being permanently hired by the company after 90 days. Not a sure thing, so our jobs theoretically could end early next year. None of us are making more than $11 an hour. One girl from our group decided to start a Secret Santa and randomly passed out little folded slips of paper with co-workers names on them. I asked her what the price range was, and she said she'd get back to me. A few days later she told me it was 25-40 dollars. YIKES!
I don't want to be cheap, but it's not like we are making big bucks, and I have kids and grandkids to buy for this year. Plus, with the name I was given, I'm wondering just what do you get a 22 year old guy? I'm thinking a bottle since I overheard he was going drinking a few weekends ago, but that seems kind of inappropriate.
All the other office jobs I worked at the Secret Santa was $5 - $10. This is just another reason why I hate this extracurricular stuff in the workplace. If it's not the potluck, it's the begging for a donation for someone's birthday, Secret Santa, etc.
Do you think the price range is ridiculously high?? Is this the norm now?
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Just say no thanks.
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