Monday, June 15, 2009

Memory Monday: Corporate Shwag

At my previous position, on my first day, I was presented with a lovely, tan baseball cap with the name of the company on it. The first thing I noticed was that it was ugly. I mean, UGLY: It was the nasty brownish tan that only looks good on a car's leather interior or on someone's couch they got at a tag sale. The lettering was black, and the company's logo was black and yellow. I was working for the ugly bumble bee company. Great. The second thing I noticed was how excited my boss was to give it to me. Apparently, his daughter designed them and they had just come in the week before I started. He was glowing. I took the hat and thanked him, and when I arrived home, I put the hat into the pile of useless shwag that I planned on trying to sell in a tag sale one day. The next day, my boss asked me if I had received a company hat and started to tell me the story about how his daughter designed them and how proud of her he was and how he started this company with his own two hands...it was my first day, so I said no. And that left me with two ridiculous ugly bumble bee hats.

The best corporate shwag I ever got, though, was at a part time job I had during grad school. There was a company picnic to be held that summer, and being a part of the marketing department, I helped order some of the shwag: Beach balls, portable frisbees that fold up, sunscreen packets, t-shirts, beer cozies, stress balls...my God it was ridiculous! And...and...fantastic! I still have that frisbee.

What's the best corporate shwag you've ever received? The worst?

2 comments:

  1. i've NEVER gotten anything free from work, ugly or otherwise...shoot...where have i been? (also where have i been that i'm saying shoot? who am i?)

    hmmm...now i'm wondering if i've really never gotten anything free...could that really be TRUE?

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  2. I definitely worked at one of those huge companies that just gives out random branded stuff to the employees for no apparent reason. I got a pretty nice fleece from them. Also got a stack of stuff (t-shirt, travel mug, regular mug, and pens) for my first day at a TEMP job. I'm thinking they just wanted to get rid of the stuff.

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