I am a swag hater. Alex is a swag lover and cannot stomach donating all 10 boxes of his t-shirts, sweatshirts, coats, bags and other various crap he has acquired over the many years in the tech industry. I work in Finance. I have acquired very little over the past many years.
You can imagine how elated I was to enter the office on day one after our recent acquisition to find a small collection of corporate crap laying on my desk. A bag, a smelly pleather padfolio, a weird buzz filled marketing thing and a corporate logo-stamped rubber band (yep, you heard me).
Assuming 5,000 employees received $20 worth of swag, the company wasted $100K on stuff no one really needs. I wonder why companies do this. Doesn't it make more sense giving it away? I would love to know what the annual budget is for this stuff. How much of it is necessary and how much can we forgo for the greater good?
What if we could opt-out? I would like to add the amount they spend on me for stuff I really don't want to my annual match.
