No one will hold you to a bottle, and to cover yourself send an email thanking them and say you’ll be donating it to X.

Is a bottle of plonk to say thanks considered bribery these days?

Pretty much at our place. Any ‘gift’ has to be reported now. Inc stationary/cheap tat promo stuff 🙄

Jeez it all gets taken a bit seriously doesn’t it. It’s Christmas ffs

I don’t agree with it, but that’s the way it is. It’s even more important at our office as we do a lot of expert witness work through solicitors.

I got a bottle of jack daniels from a guy who works for me, but then again it was to say good bye as the company had given me a P45 after 14 years graft.
Never got anything from customers, although when I first started the company I had a namesake who received a top of the range M&S hamper from a recruitment agency. Sadly for him they sent it to my address not his!

Nope. The old days of hampers, bottles / cases of wine, scotch etc sitting under everyone’s desk on the festive run-in are long gone. Our sales team even used to run an all-expenses ski weekend for the best clients.

Now, if anything turns up we have to send it back. Apparently there was a tear in the eye of our office manager when she was packaging up the case of champagne to be sent back to one of the brokers…

I got one, which I think is a record low. One year when I was still in the bank I ended up doing trips to the car, that lasted me years 😆 Chocolates and cheap wine, the wages of sin.