Put Him On The Naughty List For Next Year

One of my coworkers is kind enough to set up a Secret Santa… with a £5 limit. Although it’s blind, everyone’s pretty good at figuring out who everyone has; nobody is in at the same time so the names are drawn and left in envelopes on the staff room noticeboard. One manager — already notoriously a flake — keeps leaving his slip behind. When pressured to take it, he gets angry, insisting that he’s “no longer taking part.” That goes down about as well as can be expected.

The next time I’m in, the slip is gone; one of the other colleagues checked it, however, and everyone knew who it was. A few days after the presents are due to come in, a box appears, addressed to the recipient. Most of us think nothing of it until the recipient comes in. I am in the middle of sorting out stock when their shift starts; they pull me aside and just tell me to go look at the box.

Inside the box — about the size of an average shoebox — is a single supermarket value gingerbread man, roughly valued at 50p. Every single person in the secret Santa put a huge amount of work into choosing good gifts for their recipient, so understandably, every other member of staff is furious. 

Unfortunately, as he’s second in command of the store, there’s very little anyone can actually do. But I have a feeling he’s going to be excluded from any more Secret Santas in our shop!