I Give You The Gift Of Good Timekeeping

(Our company is entirely Internet based, meaning it doesn’t much matter where any of us live. Many take advantage of this, and move around a lot, often internationally. Each year, as we are a rather small and tight knit staff, we have a winter gift exchange, which I and a coworker run. Due to the distances located between all of us, we start planning insanely early: the official call for participants goes out at the end of July, registration ends on the first of October, and we distribute recipients by October 15th. No matter what we do, I invariably receive at least one variation of the following message around October 18th:)

Coworker: “Hey, so, I totally goofed and missed the deadline for the gift exchange. Is there any way you can fit me in? I’d be really bummed if I couldn’t do it. Thanks!”

(No matter how easy we make the process, how long registration is open, or how much we publicize, it happens every. Freaking. Year.)