Friday 21 November 2014

Gift ideas for the five people who work in everyone’s office

I work in an office now. I am an office worker. I’m not sure how it happened, but the other day I found myself annoyed at someone for hoarding staples and it dawned on me then, as she counted out fourteen staples and handed them to me, that I work in an office now. I am an office worker.

Whip-rounds are an integral part of working in an office, I have noticed. They happen all of the fucking time and even though Sue says not to worry about how much you put in and that obviously, she’ll put in a bit more because she’s close with Sally but that it really doesn’t matter how much everyone else puts in and that a bit of change is fine, the rest of your life in that office will be determined based on how you deal with that big blue envelope being placed on your desk. In general, I’ve found that the only change you should use is pound coins and fifty pence pieces. Twenties at a push. If you put in a fiver, Sue will remember and your present when you age/get married/have a baby/still work there at Christmas/leave will be good.

Of course, the annoying thing about a whip-round is that no one but Sue has a say in what the present is, so it’s always rubbish.

Well, Sue, you can fucking do one.

I’ve spent forty minutes coming up with a list of possible presents for the five people that work in every office ever and each gift is from Ali Baba, so it’s guaranteed to be much more fun, high quality and down-right useful than the set of decorative measuring spoons that you bought from TK Maxx on your lunch break. It is as follows-

For the colleague who’s busier than you
By taking a job in an office, you are automatically entering yourself into a competition with the rather catchy title of ‘Who’s the most busy’. I did not know this. I was like Harry Potter in the Goblet of Fire when his name gets spat out by that cup (also known at the Goblet of Fire, I believe), except with better hair and, you know, not a smug little prick. I naively assumed that there would be weeks when I would be busy and weeks when I wouldn’t be that busy and that would be ok, but it’s not – it’s not ok at all. Now, I have weeks when I’m busy and weeks when I have to pretend to be busy and am constantly shown up by this colleague.

They’ll ask you what you did last night, just so that they can respond with “Oh, I’d love to go to the cinema/go to Jamie’s Italian/read a book/have a bath, but I don’t have the time, I’m too busy.”

Next time they reach a milestone in their working life, throw this inflatable laptop float at their head, but wrapped, so that it’s a bit like a present and not a weapon.

Now they can have a bath and be busy. They’ll either get the company laptop wet (they don’t have the time to get their own fixed) and have to explain themselves to the boss or, alternatively, they’ll electrocute themselves. 


For the colleague who ruins every group meal
I’m not going to go into detail here, because we all know who I’m talking about. They’re the person who snaps at the bill like a hungry fucking hippo and says “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got a calculator on my phone!” like that hasn’t been a basic function on a mobile phone since 199-bloody-8.

Get them an A3 sized red calculator. Not the weirdest gift, sure, and you definitely don’t have to buy it from Ali Baba, but if this doesn’t make them realise how ridiculous they’re being by trying to work out the individual price of a sharing platter (“Well, I only had a couple of olives, so that’s like, what? £1.20? Didn’t you have one of the mozzarella sticks, though?”) then nothing will. Nothing.

For the colleague who likes expensive stuff
This week I heard The Colleague Who Likes Expensive Stuff in my office say, when asked what the time was, “Well, this Rolex says it’s 11:40”, rolling his arm up from under the table and holding it firmly beneath his nose like he was in a Steps video.


The only scenario that permits a person to say “This Rolex says” is if they’re doing a Leonardo Dicaprio in those fucking Tag Hueur ads and are actually wearing two Rolexes at once, and need to specify which Rolex they’re looking at.

The thing with The Colleague Who Likes Expensive Stuff is, the stuff is never as expensive as it should be. The sunglasses are always Giovanni Almalfi, or whatever, and the Rolex makes the same noise as a cartoon bomb.

So, buy them an iWatch from Ali Baba. Yes, the iWatch isn’t out yet, but they won’t know that.

For the colleague who’s not funny
They send round Buzzfeed articles about offices on a group email, oblivious to the fact that everyone else just Whatsapps each other because you all exchanged numbers ages ago. They make you crowd around their computer to watch a 3 minute clip of a goat on a see-saw and make jokes about self-service checkouts.

It’s hard to buy a ‘joke’ present for this person, because your idea of a joke is not their idea of a joke. You have to go basic, and what’s more basic than a little figurine (think those Power Pod Micro Star things from the nineties) depicting the act of defecation? A caganer, as they are known within Catalonian culture, is that; it’s the shitting figurine thing, and there are, er, a shit tonne of them on Ali Baba.

Pretty much all political figures are covered, so if your colleague knows who Angela Merkel is, which they won’t, then they can have a figure of her shitting sitting on their desk. There’s also one of Spiderman, although the figure implies that the spidey-suit is a two piece, when I’ve always been under the impression that it was an all-in-one; a body-stocking, if you will. I’d always taken comfort in the fact that, after gettin’ the bad guys, Peter Parker had to peel the whole thing off, right down to the knee, to go to the loo, sitting their shivering a bit in the cold, like girls do every single time we wear a sodding playsuit.

There’s also one of David Guetta.

For Julie
Julie brings an insipid looking salad everyday in a Tupperware box, but you found half eaten Curly Wurly’s  in her top desk drawer when you were looking for staples.


Julie brings her Tupperware into work in a Little Brown Bag from Macy’s, or one of those bag shops that pops up in your local shopping center and is gone by the end of the week.

Julie ‘s glasses case is leopard print, with little handles, so that it looks like a handbag.

Julie’s had a go at nail art.

Julie wants to have a nail art night at her house – girls only!

Julie‘s Swarovski covered phone sits in a little Samsung-sized deck chair on her desk and plays Fergie’s Big Girls Don’t Cry whenever anyone rings her.

What. To get. Julie.

How about a little car for the Muller Light that she brings in for breakfast every morning?