Revenge secret Santa for the office b£#@!

[Surewhyknot]

I'm looking for the worst, most subtle insulting secret Santa gift for the office stirrer.. limit is £10 and we're opening them in person.

I'm torn between a pair of secondhand socks or a homemade loo roll cozy al la your grandma!

What are the worst you've had? Can I cast insult without being too overt??

Poo Pourri. Even if it's over £10, worth every penny 😈

I suggest you read all the wonderful suggestions. Choose your favourite, keep it firmly in your head and then do the sensible, kind grown up thing and buy a box of chocolates or similar.

NHS staff treat difficult patients

Yes, being 'difficult' is often the only way to get treated at the moment, sad but true.

:-( We don't know what's going on in other peoples lives.

I've seen this happen twice now and it's cruel beyond belief.

Yes, so it needs to be something with a subtle message (didn't the OP say that?) and not humiliating. If this person really is a stirrer, something subtle but deserved is, well, deserved, because constantly stirring is cruel.

I’ve seen people get very upset over nasty “subtle insulting” or “funny” secret Santa gifts before.
Don’t do it, OP. No matter how bad this person is, it’s only going to make you look like a nasty bully.

Just get her a random bland generic gift. There’s loads of that sort of thing in the shops at this time of year.

Just to add...sometimes a person will have become demonised in a workplace as a result of cliquey behaviour and bullying by their colleagues over many years. It's not hard to imagine how resentful and isolated that individual might feel, resulting in distrustful and negative behaviour on their own part. Be the glimpse of sunshine for this person - it might be all they've been looking for.

I'd like to think it was someone with your approach @encantorerun rather than a 'take that ya WeeDonkey'!

I do a good job of looking happy at whatever I open so if it was intended as an insult the giver would not have got the reaction they might have hoped for.

We don't know what's going on in other peoples lives.

Okay yes of course, but what exactly in someone's life would make them be that person who stirs things up in the office all the time? There's a lot of whataboutery on this thread when fact is, there are people who just love to stir, get their own selfish entertainment from it, and need to be taken down a small peg from time to time, without undue harm being done to them.

In our work secret Santa, in case you can’t bear to buy for whoever you pick, the person organising it always asks you if you’re happy with who you’ve drawn,when you pick a name out of the box. Also we don’t reveal to each other who we’ve got, it’s meant to be secret!

Oh I’d go for a mindfulness journal. The more woo looking the better.

TBH I can’t think why SS is still a thing

I agree.

I did one years back with a gift I'd put a lot of thought into only to have the recipient throw an enraged strop over it. Swore I'd never do one again only to cave at a new job where I worked afternoons.

I brought my gift in on the day as there was nowhere to leave them beforehand only to find they'd held it in the morning so my recipient not only didn't get a gift when everyone else did but also knew exactly who had bought her the chocs and candle.

Fuck SS and the sleigh he rides in 😜

Look on marketplace for ' homemade xmas gifts /ornaments'

If you’re going out of your way to humiliate someone with a gift, I’m not sure the office bitch is who you think it is.

Another person very glad to be a self-employed sole trader here!

Buy them a nice gift you would like within the budget

Don't stoop to a low
Unless the office is one full of friends and everyone gets on and has a joke you must not give a passive aggressive or humiliating gift

Lots of people are totally over stretched atm and a ss they can't afford to join in means a direct sacrifice for them and their family

Make sure you join in in good spirit or don't participate at all

I couldn't stomach the notion I would embarrass or hurt someone never mind in front of others

I know it's not what you asked but it's my opinion

Secret Santa is a thing because it avoids having to buy gifts for several people, and avoids awkwardness when somebody has bought you a gift but you didn’t think you were buying one for them, and vice versa. I do it with one of my friendship groups for that reason. One present to buy instead of five, and you know who likes what.

Or, you do it for a good humoured bit of a laugh at work, as a focus for a Christmas event. There’s no room for spite in Secret Santa.

I'm wondering if they thought you might get into colours and patterns if you were given some? Im like you prefer plain, and theres a colour I dont like, everyone knows this but at xmas or birthday someone always gives me a pattern object like a vase or mug in this colour. They seem to think Ill change my mind, its not malicious just annoying. Last time I lost it and said no more, if I get stuff like this again its straight to charity shop - so far so good for birthday, waiting to see what happens at xmas!

Without undue harm ? How would you know that? Grow the fuck up and say something face to face , secret public humiliation is cowardly and childish
If you want to challenge them then own it

Name changing as very outing (I told this story whenever I decline to join in SS).

I was new to a team and sat with another colleague in a small side room outside the main team so only really met the main team at the door/ladies/the kettle point - but all pleasant hellos when I did. Joined the SS as a team event and fortunately was out of the office the day it was actually held because I got a blow-up man doll. I was embarrassed and puzzled even opening it alone afterwards - I just didn't understand what the message was, like I say I was new and didn't know anyone well enough for it to be an 'in' joke. I just put in a carrier bag and left in the office bin but it played on my mind for some time. Even typing this, 20 years later, I just don't get it or why someone would buy something so crass and useless for a colleague they barely knew.

I was a single parent (perhaps that was the dig behind a blow-up man, but they didn't know why I was a single parent) and money tight at the time so I regretted joining and spending a tenner on the gift I bought that could have been spent on an extra at home at the time.

This was 20 years ago but still an uncomfortable memory and I haven't joined SS since apart from an occasion when my name was included in my absence and giving me no choice.

Don't do it OP!

I have had some incredibly thoughtful gifts from lovely colleagues in the past but agree it is hit and miss and potentially pretty wasteful.

When I worked for a big charity my team agreed £5 and that things from charity shop were fine. It actually worked well. Super virtuous

I agree that there are nasty articles in the work place.

Taking them down a peg or two in public by humiliating them is a twat move and makes the person orchestrating it just as bad.

We do this.
Last year got someone I cannot stand, it went straight back in the bag. Picked someone I like, got them a lovely gift

I’ve had generic secret Santa presents along the lines of Bayliss & Harding sets before, and I’ve always assumed that the giver has been thinking along the same lines as encantorerun - that they don’t know me well enough to know what I like, so they’ve chosen to play it safe.

Which is absolutely fine by me, and preferable to some of the more out of the box things mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
Generic gift sets like that usually come in useful even if I wouldn’t have chosen to buy them for myself.

When I am caring for patients who are not particularly nice, I am extra polite but there is less warmth. I don't chat so much. I don't treat them more 'kindly' than my other patients. Except if I think their behaviour is due to them being scared / in pain which can lead to unintentional rudeness.

Why not just confront her next time she upsets you so much that you are planning weeks in advance (and recruiting strangers to help you) how to send a message to her via a Christmas gift?