I work in government and we're not allowed to accept gifts over $50, but I really prefer no one give me anything. Any time someone has, it's been a thank you for work that's already done, but I don't want there to ever be any question about it. Plus, when you're a younger woman (so not so much these days, but early career), people question if the gifter was angling for something else, which is awkward.
Even that wouldn't always work. This woman found out I was working on my birthday (I always do, but I guess that's s big deal to some), so she came back with cake, a bottle of prosecco, and flowers. My mom was like, "Was she trying to date you??" That woman was one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in real life, I fucking WISH she was trying to date me. I am not that lucky. It's only the men my dad's age that are trying to hook up.
Sadly, no. She was just a really nice person. It's ok though, it's probably better to not date people that make you feel like a bridge troll in comparison.
I get the same training even as a low level grunt.
I kinda get it though, easier to just say 'everyone take this' than try and determine who does and doesn't work with people outside the company (and in some contacts I've had with my same job title, I did send and receive messages to other companies via bug reports)
When I worked for the federal government, we had to take yearly training on how not to accept bribes/gifts.
Like...if anyone was serious about bribing my agency to get their way...and they decided that I, of all people, was the one to bribe...well they deserve to lose the value of the bribe just based on utter stupidity alone.
Man, I've seen so many people fired for taking bribes and kickbacks from vendors. Not even large amounts, just more than the limit and then not disclosing it to the ethics and compliance board.
Such a stupid way to sabotage your own career.
E: sorry Steve but we pride ourselves on only taking a little bit of bribery, and your level this year was 'moderate'. We can't have people going around here like that, we have to stay on the down-low.
They're probably referring to minor gifts random people might offer you out of gratitude sometime, say if you do customer service and went out of your way for them. A bottle of normal priced wine, some chocolates perhaps, a gift card for a lunch at xyz. Some giveaway merch they have tons of.
Even then, it'd need to be a token wedding gift or something similarly eventful. A birthday isn't enough. For those things, even within the limits, I'd want pretty justifiable context. At least if you're working for/in US government.
A $15 box of chocolates from my new contractor who just won the bid just isn't worth dealing with as an issue.
Kind of, yeah. Like a vendor can buy you lunch as long as the total amount per annum is less than a certain amount and if it goes over that you just have to disclose it so E&C can make sure that this doesn't impact decision-making. There is an allowance for a certain level of glad-handing so I don't get fired because Cisco came by and gave me a branded t-shirt.
The limit is relatively low so that you don't have to flood HR with reports because a supplier gave you a branded pen or a contractor paid for a burger while you were out fixing stuff.
When I worked IT, our honeywell rep used to swing by at random and bring the entire building doughnuts. And I'm not talking gas station doughnuts, I'm talking doughnuts from the best bakery in the state (which happened to be local). Perhaps, not surprisingly we used a lot of honeywell stuff. It isn't hard to bribe IT guys.
Honestly, their comercial ones are getting that way too. Like who the hell needs a touchscreen on an industrial thermal printer; thats just one more thing to easily break in an industrial environment. And god forbid you want a replacement touch screen because a new one is half the cost of a new printer.
it's because implementing an existing touch screen module and then telling a bunch of code monkeys in a 3rd world country to write a barely functional UI for it is actively cheaper than engineering, sourcing, assembling and testing keypads with physical buttons or even a membrane keyboard these days
using a touch screen also means they can put the same mass produced PCB into 40 different products instead of needing a custom button pattern for each. just tell the code monkeys to update the UI. there's a lot of economic arguments for the use of touch screens, but it sure doesn't make the field worker's lives any easier.
Took way too long for me to remember that they did more than make thermostats when reading your comment.
Like, I know they do, but I pass my Honeywell thermostat multiple times daily so my brain immediately got confused as to why an IT team needed to regularly buy thermostats to the point a salesman was involved.
