Bienvenille (sp?) can’t you just send out a memo saying you won’t take part in the secret Santa, telling the person who picked your name, to come to you where you will give that person the name you yourself picked?
That should solve the problem.
Otherwise just buy an DH18"IBJD for your unfortunate pick, that will ensure people will ask in future if you want to participate.
I dunno. If I thought I were going to get a DH18"IBJD from a Secret Santa, I’d want to participate all the time.
Could be just me though.
Ten percent?
Ours was about 55%. Unpressured. Announced on an invitation only once without any verbal encouragement.
Ten percent? Really?
If I read your post correctly, I think your plan was fine. The way I read it, you only need send the form back if you want to participate and not if you dodn’t. So you only keep track of the names of who is in. That’s fine. I wouldn’t feel pressured by that at all.
Also, you’re keeping track of the names yourself. You haven’t delegated it to an over-eager junior associate who thinks he/she can impress the boss by getting a high SS participation percentage (don’t laugh, I see that at my office). So you won’t have someone running around trying to push people into participating.
Finally, you offered a vote up to everyone. I’m not a SS fan but, if the majority of people in my office wanted it, I wouldn’t begrudge them their fun.
Actually the problem has already been solved. bienville’s name was still in the hat, so bienville removed it and placed the original pick back into the hat.
Three times, huh?
Again, my name had already been put in the bowl without my consent.
MOST OF THE NAMES HAD ALREADY BEEN PICKED
NO RECORD WAS KEPT OF WHO PICKED WHAT NAME
If someone had picked my name- which was a very real possibility and at this point a statistical probability- there was NO WAY of knowing who that person was.
That person could have picked my name the day before- my day off- spent the next day buying me a present BEFORE I WAS EVEN AWARE THAT THEY HAD ORGANIZED A SECRET SANTA EXCHANGE. Even if that person didn’t go out the next day to pick out a present: because no record was kept, because everyone’s days off are staggered, because of the size of the staff IT COULD HAVE TAKEN DAYS TO FIND OUT WHO HAD PICKED MY NAME, giving that person more time to buy me a present before being told I was not participating. Thus the only way I could opt out would amount to saying, “Sure, somebody can buy me a gift, but I’m not buying a gift for anyone else.”
I could have either waged a huge battle over it or I could do only what I did do: grudgingly pick a name and go along with it, then at the first opportunity address Management and insist it be done differently next year (which does me no good this year.)
So, you’re right, no one said the words, “bienville, this is mandatory.” But it was presented in a way that (had I not, by simple luck, found my name still in the bowl) I had no option in the matter.
What I did have, however, was the opportunity to vent my frustration by typing “Fuck their miserable fucking faces” on an anonymous Messageboard in a Forum specifically intended for sentiments like “Fuck their miserable fucking faces” rather then direct that frustration at the innocent person who presented me with the bowl, since that person was no more involved in the organization of the Secret Santa than I was- she just happened to be the person whose shift was ending when mine was beginning. Complaining to her would not have helped. Complaining on a Messageboard at least afforded me the opportunity to blow off some steam.
Three times, indeed. If the “Putz!” Smilie wasn’t winking I’d be tempted to use it right about now.
Oh, get the bug out of your shorts. It’s not assholish to point out that you had options and chose not to exercise them. You’re being unnecessarily pettish and obnoxious to Mike. You’re also being unnecessarily pettish and obnoxious about your coworkers. They were just trying to make sure you didn’t feel left out, fercryinoutloud.
You don’t want to participate in Secret Santa, fine. Don’t participate. It’s not any skin off anyone’s ass, really. Even if whoever had gotten your name had already bought you a gift, it’s not like it would have been so special and personalized that they couldn’t have given it to someone else. As you’ve pointed out, these people barely know you. But have the testicles to actually say, “no thanks, I’d rather not.” Don’t expect them to read your mind and know that although you smile and nod, you’re secretly seething with anger and resentment about the whole thing and plan to send a secret email to management detailing your mistreatment. That two-faced shit is for weasels.
. . . uh? Two-faced how?
It’s the management staff that’s responsible for organizing and sanctioning the activity in question- I’d be taking my complaint directly to the responsible party.
It would somehow be more appropriate to complain to the random person who just happened to be there at that shift-change who was instructed to hand me the bowl? How is it more appropriate in your estimation to bitch to co-workers about a management issue rather than go directly to management?
Christ, CCL. Relax.
Bienville’s beef is that s/he was included not only without his/her consent, but before s/he was even aware that there was an exchange, thereby negating any possibility of gracefully getting out of the exchange. If his/her name had already been picked, s/he would’ve felt obligated to participate, even if no such actual obligation existed.
Make sense now?
Robin