December 22, 2003
SECRET SANTA
This is one of those reasons women were only allowed to milk goats or trim their husband's bunions once upon a time instead of earn a real living. Once you let women introduce something like Secret Santa into the workplace it becomes Tradition within a single, solitary year, and then the Diversity Council picks up on it and memorializes it in a newsletter, and the next thing you know you're screwed. Because if you don't play the game (and it is a game; a stupid, effeminate, kindergarten game, designed to allow women to fuck off instead of work) you instantly become a Suspect Individual, possibly even a Chauvinist, ready for the Scrap Pile of Corporate Refuse. Or at least a Curmudgeon. Same outcome. You're toast.
I don't know why they call it right-sizing. Politically it's left-sizing. But that's another story.
So to recap: each person picks somebody's name, and you fill out a list of things you like, like My Little Pony, and you get 5 presents over 5 days! Wee! And you don't know who your Secret Santa is! Golly gosh!
I played the Secret Santa about five years ago. I was a field operator, in from the cold, I didn't know, it seemed the safe bet. So I drew a fellow's name. Decent chap. Straight up. His wish list had nothing on it. So I purloined 5 photos of my boss, the nice 5 X 7 media glossies, and on each day I wrote a mash note on the back and left it for this guy. Day one was shock. Day two was bemusement. Day three was concern. Day four was panic. Day five was bug-eyed pants-shitting alarm.
I was done with Secret Santa after that.
One sidenote: I'd put on my form I liked peanuts and Wild Turkey. Just a joke, you know. But this poor girl left me three jars of Planter's finest, and two half-pints of Wild Turkey that week. She was left-sized two weeks later, but I'll always remember her.