Actually offensive Secret Santa Gift?

[BewilderedPiskie]

I have always avoided Secret Santa arrangements where possible due in no small part to threads on here. This year we had some new members to the small team I work in, in a professional environment, who suggested we arrange one amongst ourselves and to avoid looking curmudgeonly I agreed.
I have been gifted an adult colouring book and some felt tips. I must admit I found this disappointing in itself as I never got swept up in this craze and am a little disappointed that one of my colleagues has concluded I am an adult colourer but that's by the by.
My real issue is that it's the 'Go F*ck Yourself I'm Coloring' 50 swear words to color your anger away, adult coloring book. Which should be fine, I like a robust swear and I have a job that can very much cause stress but I finally looked at it properly today and a lot of the words to colour are not swear words per se but really, really unpleasant misogynistic, sexual slurs and terms that I associate with pornography not swearing. I have actually found myself quite offended that someone thought this was an appropriate gift for a fifty year old female colleague in a professional environment. My quandary is whether I should say something to the group or just hide it in the recycling and forget about it? I think I have attached an image so you can see the kind of thing I'm referencing.

@karmakameleon

This is absolutely one to take to HR. I’m a senior manager in a professional organisation and if one of my team gave this to a colleague I’d absolutely want to know and they’d probably be facing disciplinary action for sexual harassment. “I didn’t check” wouldn’t be an excuse.

Oh for God's sake and she will be the person who they snigger about a year from now recalling this , the one they won't include in any future events , the one they will be scared to talk to in case she is offended and the one they despise for causing a disciplinary for a colleague . Great working life 🙄

PS there's nothing wrong with adult colouring books as such! It's not really my thing, but a lot of people find them relaxing, and I wouldn't be offended at receiving one. It's this particular one that's yuck.

I would definitely not copy the picture to any work group chats.

& apologies for invoking thoughts of Secret Santa 2022

I actually thought at first that this was perhaps an attempt at humour as a lot of people do like the colouring to destress thing and if it was swear words like for example fucks sake or something that would be one thing. But cum dumpster ???!!!!! That has really shocked me that's vile and actually made me feel a bit upset for you op. However i don't think the giver noticed those particular phrases ? I think it was in poor taste but they just tried to get a secret Santa that they thought was universal and not the more well done box of chocolates or smellies?! I get the feeling though op that part of why this has unsettled you is because you don't know who has actually given it to you and you want to know . I think though that this gift is no reflection on yourself at all. X

Send an email to the group and tell them that you assume your santa didn't look closely enough at what they were buying but that it isn't appropriate for a work colleague and any further repeats and you will escalate to HR

I've only taken part in one secret Santa and that was with my religious group. All bath bombs and candles.

@JohnSmithDrive

As a young woman in a male dominated "professional" environment I once got a dot to dot book of sexual positions.

I just laughed awkwardly. I wouldn't if someone did that to a young colleague now.

I had similar. Also younger in a mostly male environment. I got a 'kama sutra' game, complete with full colour explicit pornographic photos of each position. I did the same. I was very uncomfortable but didn't feel confident enough to complain. I would now.

That said, I think the OPs present was completely inappropriate but probably from someone who thought it was just a bit of a sweary joke and didn't realise how misogynistic it was.

Oh for God's sake and she will be the person who they snigger about a year from now recalling this , the one they won't include in any future events , the one they will be scared to talk to in case she is offended and the one they despise for causing a disciplinary for a colleague . Great working life

Generally people prefer their working lives when they are not subjected to sexual harassment and bullying. Honestly if people cannot buy a generic non offensive secret Santa gift, their probably don’t have the common sense or judgement to be working in a professional capacity.

Just bin it if you don't like it. I agree it was meant as a funny gift, I wouldn't have checked every page either. Not something I would buy but can see how someone might. I very much doubt it was meant to be offensive to you.

This is absolutely one to take to HR. I’m a senior manager in a professional organisation and if one of my team gave this to a colleague I’d absolutely want to know and they’d probably be facing disciplinary action for sexual harassment. “I didn’t check” wouldn’t be an excuse.

FFS this is ridiculous!!

OP has said she swears a lot.
Many adults enjoy colouring.
Therefore a swearing colouring book is a good present.

If OP has an issue with the book of swear words being misogynistic then she could take it up with the manufacturer who would remove those pages in future.
Which would do more good. Instead of getting some innocent person done for sexual harassment.

Some people hate swearing. I wonder if they too should get disciplinary action for OP.

That is vile and a really ignorant thing to do! Whoever bought that should be called out on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought it would be funny and are laughing at it. Similar happened at my work one year (but actually worse) and the offender thought it was hilarious, while the person who received it, and opened it in front of us all was in tears. The offender was spoken to by the Manager!

Personally I would take it back to work and drop it on a table and announce to your colleagues that “whoever bought my Secret Santa gift can have it back, as it is probably more their level than mine”, then I would say that you won’t be taking part in any future Secret Santa’s!

But you should review the book in Amazon so future buyers may be aware.

It's massively inappropriate for a professional environment but I'd take a guess that the buyer thought it was just sweary, from the title, and didn't look through it. I'd just bin it

It's never a good idea to give someone a rude gift unless you've known them for many years and are very close. I agree that cum dumpster is just filth and the giver probably didn't check every page before gifting but you would be better off giving it to someone who enjoys that sort of thing rather than binning it.
The chip on your shoulder about people who enjoy colouring makes you sound a bit nasty tbh.

@BewilderedPiskie - I just looked this up on Amazon out of interest and it has 4 1/2 stars from for around 7800 reviews.

So I think I would take the view that if you are a bit sweary at work, The giver saw this book and thought you would find it funny, as it had loads of really good reviews and they just bought it for a laugh. They really didn't mean it to have any nasty message and went on the very high star rating.

The cover of the book also looks fairly benign and not that it will contain such nasty content.

Agree it is in fact foul though

I would want to know who sent it. I also don’t believe for a second the sender didn’t realise exactly how offensive it was.

The problem is because you don't know who gave it and there are new team members you can't actually judge whether it was a mistake or something more sinister. I'd hang on to it and be a bit watchful, and if any of the new people (and by people I mean, um, men) turn out to be a bit dodge you might need this as evidence of previous.

Is that on the front cover though ?

It's probably bought from Amazon and the giver may not have realised what was written inside.

Hmm having found the specific book in question I’m somewhat revising my opinion as even a cursory glance through it would have shown that a lot of the content is very grim. There’s a few generic swears but most of the content is sexual slurs.

Go F*ck Yourself, I'm Coloring: Adult Coloring Book: 50 Swear Words To Color Your Anger Away www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1521399158/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_JAZ6VETW4PCYGFWYDXVW?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Completely inappropriate for a work environment. I would hold onto it but more so in case anything else happens.

I’ve just looked it up on Amazon and there is no way that the gift giver didn’t know how inappropriate this was. The back cover has all the pages on it and as well as cum dumpster we have whore, bitch, slut, cunt and jizz mopper amongst other misogynist gems.

I also get where you are coming from about the colouring in book issue – I actually enjoy colouring in these kind of things but just never seem to have the time to do it –

but on a similar theme, a friend bought me a "baby animals" calendar for Christmas. I'm just a bit not because there is inherently anything wrong with a baby animals calendar but I am about as far away from a baby animals calendar kind of person as you could meet, and I've known this woman for over 30 years so it just seems really odd she's given it to me.

And so I can see how you might feel how little someone knows you to give you a colouring book if that's not your thing. I actually find them really nice when I've got time to do them as a way of tuning out from all the random rubbish at the moment – but everyone to their own really.

I wouldn't want one saying cum dumpster though 🙄

I'm now wondering if the baby animals calendar was my friend's work do Secret Santa present 🤨

Imagine giving a person of colour a book full of racist insults? I don’t see how this is any different 🙄

That's disgusting and entirely innapproriate. I'd be taking that back in and finding out exactly who sent that, and why they thought it was ok.