Corporate Christmas

In a prior life, late October was the time for The List. An e-mail would go out to all mid-level and senior management, with an attached spreadsheet of last year's corporate gift recipients. You were supposed to scan the list for your clients/vendors/partners, remove anyone who know longer warranted a gift, declare what level of gift anyone staying on the list should receive and shore up your defenses should anyone challenge your decisions.

Then, The List was sent up to the executive suites to be vetted. Typically, executives of other companies got the top gift - aged scotch. Lesser beings got champagne. Known non-drinkers or mere minions (if any were lucky enough to make it on The List) got a gift basket of assorted edibles. Nothing, however, is black and white or etched in stone (or the powers-that-be wouldn't have needed an entire month to vet The List of any imposters).

Just because someone was a senior-level executive didn't automatically warrant aged scotch. You had to be influential in some way - or a "close, personal friend" (corporate speak for we're going to ask some enormous favor of you or we offended you somehow and this is how we're apologizing) of a senior executive on our end.

Just because you got aged scotch last year did not guarantee the same level of generosity in the present. Perhaps you are no longer a "close, personal friend." Perhaps the buisness of which you are reigning emperor is no longer critical to this business. Perhaps your company contact did not advocate as loudly for you this year. All reasons warranted a drop on "The List."

Wo to those who specifically requested something non-alcoholic. It didn't matter who you were, if you had such nerve (or your company contact had such nerve), you were automatically permanently relegated to the gift basket portion of The List, regardless of stature or status.

It was a throwback to the old world feudal system - with a lord standing at the top of the pile beating down the minions with a club, 'No you impertient soul - you're neither a firstborn, a clergyman or of royal blood - no Christmas gifts for you!'

The whole thing turned a group of mostly Ivy-league-educated senior managers into a group of hysterical, oversized kids as they bartered, begged and sleuthed to make sure their clients/vendors/providers were well taken care of. There was a whole social heirarchy - both in who got The List circulated to them and who really had authority to do anything more than glance, nod and say, "no changes this year." The List was taken very seriously. After all, one didn't want to be in the position of having to admit one of their clients/vendors/partners weren't worthy enough to maintain the same gift status - or remain on the list at all - as last year.

Each year, as The List was circulated (I was important enough to receive the list, but typically not important enough to move anyone up to the next gift level), the senior-level managers frenetically tried to figure out who belonged where. The rest of us mid-level minions tried to remember who typically gave the best gifts (gourmet cheeses and Mrs. Fields gift baskets were the most coveted) and squeaked like little mice, lobbying for better gifts for those who were likely to give us the best gifts, gleefully grabbing an open champagne spot, should someone higher up on the food chain deem his or her contact unworthy of such a low-level offering.

I can't say I missed "The List" frenzy this year. Though I do miss the cheeses and Mrs. Fields coookies.