Secret Santa Exposed!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Now's the time to squelch the idea of having a Secret Santa exchange in your office.

Miss Manners understands that the workplace adoption of this custom is meant to warm office relationships with an infusion of holiday cheer. That does not prevent it from being a perfectly dreadful idea.

She has ample testimony from her Gentle Readers about what a disaster it so often is. Apparently, the warmth arising after such exchanges is produced by human seething. On office time.

This is an activity that promises to bring out the worst in everyone.

Well, nearly everyone. There is always the well-meaning person who is determined to make everybody happy, and runs around the office blithely leaving cookies for dieters and diabetics, Christmas ornaments for non-Christians and turkeys for vegetarians. It is apt to be the same person who has organized the Secret Santa exchange, in addition to cajoling everyone to donate money to buy a handsome present for the boss.

As for the others, they are counting heavily on the secret part, regardless of their long knowledge that nothing has ever successfully remained a secret in that office. They all know who is seeing whom on the sly, how much others earn and who calls in sick but isn't.

So some find it an opportunity to unload objects that are used, obvious freebies or stuff that just comes close to being universally undesirable. Merchandise that first appeared in the office when an employee's child was assigned to sell it for school is a popular choice, Miss Manners is told.

Others take special care to target the specific colleagues they have drawn. The shy young lady at her first job is given a sweater several sizes too small. A gentleman known to be in a happy gay partnership is given lewd female underwear.

Although she tends to hear from those who were embarrassed or disappointed, Miss Manners knows that there are also generous people who go out of their way to find pleasantly suitable presents for their co-workers in these exchanges.

Unfortunately, they are apt to be paired with the cheesier Secret Santas.

But even if the system works, it creates undue pressure to spend time, money and thought pretending that these are social situations, where people come together through affection rather than chance.

Everyone commonly complains about how hard they find it to select presents to please their spouses and their parents. These are people they know intimately, with whom they have lived, whose possessions are as familiar to them as their own.

Now they are asked to buy presents for other employees, whose habits and private lives are none of their business.

Miss Manners can think of better ways for management to encourage office cheer. In order of cost, they are: Bonuses. Time off. Praise.

Dear Miss Manners:

I am a 45-year-old mother of three, and about five years ago, I decided to start coloring my hair to cover up the gray. My color of choice is blond.

The three hours I spend at the hairdresser every six weeks is my only luxury. When I come out, I feel relaxed, young and beautiful. I get plenty of compliments. However, there are people who will point out that "that's not your real color." Usually, I laugh and say it's part of my midlife crisis, but I don't think I need to justify why I chose to go blond, nor should these people be able to go away thinking they were right in insulting a person.

Do you have any suggestions for polite, yet assertive responses that would gently yet firmly put these people in their place?

Would it be of any comfort to know that these busybodies are every bit as active advising those of us who do not color our hair to do so?

No, and it shouldn't be. Having other people pick over one's hair is revolting.

Miss Manners does not advise you to taunt a person who has just been proven to be rude. Your answer should be a soft, "Why, that's very kind of you to point that out."

The phrasing prompts the other person to say an automatic "thank you" that is choked off with the realization that gratitude is neither meant nor deserved.

Feeling incorrect? E-mail your etiquette questions to Miss Manners (who is distraught that she cannot reply personally) atMissManners@unitedmedia.comor mail to United Media, 200 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016.

2007Judith Martin