Thursday, September 11, 2008

Mandatory Gift Giving

The one thing that has continually pissed me off while working my office job here in Korea (besides the fact that probably less than 30% of the males in my company wash their hands after they use the facilities) is the stupid mandatory gift giving that goes on so often.

Essentially we have a group of about 30 people who constitute my larger team. If its someone's birthday we all have to pool money to pick up the person a gift which varies in price depending on the level of the person. What happens is we get one of the interns or new people to the group to handle collection of the funds which, once again, is set based on the person's position. So in the end, I end up plunking out about 40-70,000 won per month ($40-$70) on this kind of stuff. In the end I'm spending close to a grand a year on this mandatory "show of gratitude" and it gets on my nerves.

I think the reason it pisses me off so much is because its mandatory. I also have the snot-nosed little interns chasing me around and nickel and diming me to death whenever its time to ante up. It probably wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't just a huge charade.

Damn cockgobblers.

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