Bad Manners and Brimstone

Great suggestions, Amara!


Quite a coincidence this topic was brought up again. For some reason (I know the reason, but can't tell you ) my company had to get rid of all of the giveaways we had in storage, including the company store inventory.

I was absolutely gobsmacked at the amount and variety there was. Trunk organizers, tote bags (different sizes and designs), back packs, pens (galore!), pen-type toolkits, visors & hats, sun glasses, hard covered note pads (different sizes), zippered notebook binders with pockets, travel mugs, thermoses, stuffed animals, cute toys, flashlights, ear buds, T-shirts, etc., etc., etc.

It's a good thing that Event Planner (EP) and I live in a large room. We had 4 huge carts (6' tall, 8' wide 3-4 shelves) packed with boxes along with 3 tables stacked 3 boxes high. It was like an obstacle course to get through the room.

It took more than a week for EP and her volunteers to clean out the storage rooms, sort through the stuff, separate the items into equal parts for an employee giveaway which took place in various locations within the building during lunch hours. It wasn't advertised at all.

The first giveaway event took place after an annual ceremony (maybe 300 employees). EP saw people taking 10+ items and she thought "No, no, no. We have 3,000 employees. Everybody gets to take something."

So at the lunchtime event where all employees were involved she posted signs and coached her volunteers to say "One or two items only."

Almost everything was gone within 45 minutes. EP told me that she saw several people who work at the other end of the building (where a giveaway stand was set up) come to this side of the building, trying to get more swag.

Freebies? Oh.my.goodness. People went crazy.