Corporate life is not about achievement or progress, it’s about survival. Everyone in the office tribe knows this but few will admit it. With a few strokes of the pen, an artist has rendered that common feeling of treading water with feigned composure that all cubicle slaves feel as soon as they enter the dungeon. Remind them that you’re all in on the game with this humorous and poignant paper pad.
We all have that one friend. The one who can never seem to find that steady relationship. The one with a cat or two. And then three. And four. The one who starts to show up to parties, on the rare occasions she does show up, increasingly covered in cat hair. This book. This book is for her.
Like the commissioned public statues of old, the most revered among us are now immortalized in bobblehead form. In fact, being commemorated with a bobblehead is one of the highest honors that a modern man or woman can aspire to. Surely you know someone who is worthy of such a gift, whose contributions to society and their fellow travelers makes this an appropriate gesture of respect and admiration. Go ahead, place them among the great figures of history. They’ve earned it.
For the ultimate clock watcher, this stylish desk accessory is a fantastic way to count down the minutes left at work, hours left in the day, days left in the year, and years left before the sweet release of retirement, and that new life in the Bahamas. Or days spent pottering around the local garden center and shouting indignantly at daytime television.
The burden of constant decision making has been found to be the leading cause of workplace violence. Help forestall a catastrophe by moving the burden onto this ever patient, always reliable aluminum spinner. You may just be saving a life.
For the coffee and donut addicts of the world, it’s hard to believe that anything could improve this heavenly pairing. But that will make it all the more mind-blowing when they realize you have indeed given them something that will take the experience to another level. This truly ingenious piece of kitchen/office-ware provides the perfect platform on which the two elements meet to create the true breakfast of champions. Because if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right.
Explaining to people why they suck gets very, very tiring. Luckily, two inspired authors did all the work for us. All the reader has to do is tear out the pages and deliver them to the appropriate assholes. If only all justice was this easy.
Back in the old days you were really rolling the dice when you chose a hotel. Either you called blindly after skimming the phone book or simply drove all night and hoped you saw a vacancy sign before you ran out of gas and got murdered by a vagrant. A hotels.com gift card is not just a way of picking up the tab for a night’s stay; it’s also the priceless gift of peace of mind.
Do you have a coworker who is greedy and smells bad? Help them solve one of those problems by gifting them this wonderful scented soap with real money inside. Also great for your teenage kids who want their allowance but won’t get in the shower without some extra incentive.
Everyone needs a little encouragement now and then to find the pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel. However, standard advice in this regard is often corny enough to make you puke. Sometimes you’re better off with a bit of no-nonsense wisdom that gets right to the point. Appropriately, this heavy pewter paperweight is solid enough to hit someone over the head with, and for some people this is the only way to absorb wisdom. Not that we’re recommending you do so. We’re just saying.
Everyone has that coworker whose desk is as barren as their donut-pummeled, fluorescent-bleached soul. You can try to add a little life to their surroundings with this concrete desktop planter. Its modern, spare, utilitarian design allows it to fit in just about any environment.
At first glance, you might think this is how Salvador Dalí would have typed if he had lived to see the modern laptop. But this is something even the great surrealist never would have dreamed up. This soft silicone keyboard rolls into an ultra compact, portable size, so it’s a perfect gift for people who are on the go.
Ostriches can be terrifying beasts, especially when tired – and who can blame them, wouldn’t you be bad-tempered if you had wings but couldn’t fly? For your friend who really shouldn't miss their nap, this light and sound cancelling pillow will make sure they emerge fresh and amiable, unlike the ill-tempered ostrich they were 20 minutes earlier.
Share the gift of inner peace (and maybe prevent a premature coronary) with that twitchy intern or the overworked lifer three doors down who seems to give one too many of these just about every time. A solid laugh and a useful piece – but maybe, just maybe, not the perfect gift for your uptight boss.
Bunster’s Shit the Bed Hot Sauce is a mix of super-hot chilies and healthy superfoods (like goji berries and apple cider vinegar). It’s also a crowdfunding phenomenon and a painfully delicious gift for any health-conscious masochist you might know. There are lots of gourmet hot sauces out there, but this one is unique and strange in a way that true hot sauce connoisseurs find irresistible. Their mouth is bound to have a love-hate relationship with this stuff.
Don’t let mother nature’s inability to harness her own electrons cramp your style. Now you can stay connected even when far from civilization. Give this at the next company gift exchange and make your coworker the most popular person on the block when the zombie apocalypse comes.
Fed up of hearing from your colleague that they’re definitely going to the gym after work today, for reals this time? Give them the gift of an under-desk work-out machine and let them mindlessly pedal their way to fitness – with the added hilarity that they’ll look like a duck treading water, with their feet pedaling frantically under the surface.
Ah, the go-to command of frustrated and frazzled office workers everywhere! For the colleague who’s always saying he wishes he could terminate his tasks, shut-down, and reboot on a beach somewhere far, far away, provide next-to-no comfort with a cup of tepid coffee, served in one of these quirky cups.
Back in the day, carrying power with you meant having a pocket full of batteries. But sometimes 9-volt batteries would get short-circuited by your pocket change and heat up or explode on your leg, so you had to add potential medical bills to the cost of ownership. Or maybe that was just an urban legend. Either way, a mobile power bank will charge all your electronic devices, and you definitely don’t have to worry about meltdowns. Just way better all around.
These days, you can’t really say you have a cutting-edge anything if it doesn’t have the words “smartphone charging” in the title. Which is bound to lead to some strange home furnishings, like the smartphone charging toilet plunger, or the i-crowave. But considering that we now live through our smartphones more than we live through our brains, maybe we’ll soon welcome those things into our lives as well. For now, let’s just start with a wireless smartphone charging mouse pad, which isn’t weird at all.
Everyone has something to say that deserves to be lit up on a marquee for all the world to see. Or, at least they think they do. So maybe let them indulge that vanity on a smaller scale with a desktop light box and see how that goes first. It could be that all they have to offer are fart jokes and lame dad puns. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But this might be a more appropriate audience level.
Like a big brother (or sister) helping them through life one handy trick at a time, the Life Hacks desk calendar is here to let them in on all the little secrets that they wish someone would have told them years ago. Well, maybe not all of them, like where to find that pirate treasure they’ve been looking for since they were 8 years old. But really, it’s time they gave up on that and moved on anyway. This is where the real intel is.
For the co-worker who sacrificed their promising sports career to join your company, ping them over this fun gift and help them to realize their true potential. Did you know Table Tennis is an Olympic sport? They could soon be on that podium, eyes glistening, thanking you for believing in them when no one else would…
Do you ever feel like you’re buying pens for the whole damn block? People will think twice about pocketing these when they see the bizarre and embarrassing messages printed on them. Just make sure not to bust them out at a job interview.
You don’t need to be an expert in the Theory of Relativity to realize that any of your coworkers would love this genius desk accessory.Also, perfect if you can never find a paperclip when you need one – now you can just head over to Bob’s desk, and pretend you’re adjusting Albie’s hairstyle for him!
A great gift for your more anxious colleague, these quirky cubes will come in handy when they have to make that phone call they’ve been dreading, or go and ask the boss for a raise, or tell their partner about that thing that happened at the Christmas party with Linda from HR… yeah, it might wear out pretty quick.
We all do it, and yet we all have to pretend we don’t – this book will help you get away with it. The perfect gift for your bathroom-phobic colleague who always ‘pops home’ at lunch, this hilarious book is toilet humor at its best, and is sure to be (secretly) very well-received.
These might look like strange sea creatures or spindly metal spiders, but these spine-tingling scalp massagers will be adored by even your most arachnophobic friend. The perfect gift to take the stress out of their day – and hilarious to watch them use.
The necktie is the unsung, often mistreated hero of the sartorial world. While shirts, pants, and jackets all get their own specialized travel bags to keep them clean, dry, and unwrinkled, neckties just get folded up and stuffed in the suitcase. But there is a price to be paid for this kind of disregard — and that price is a cranky, crinkly, abused-looking necktie that makes even the most dapper man look like he has been reduced to a stowaway sleeping in his work clothes in the undercarriage of a Greyhound bus. The necktie travel case is here to rescue that man’s dignity.
Nothing has the power to ruin your working day like a disappointing lunch, whether it’s a soggy sandwich you’ve thrown together the night before, or an over-priced salad from the local deli. Spare them this pain by gifting them this awesome portable oven, and they’ll soon be enjoying delicious (and envy-inducing) hot meals every day!
One of the hidden curses of modern life is the enormous mental anguish and psychological torment that is caused every day by tangled earbud wires. It’s a secret killer of mental health, a final straw landing on the back of the camel of sanity. Some thought the answer would be wireless earbuds, but we’ve found that a lack of wires just makes them easier to lose. As usual, the real answer is simple: having a case to put them in, instead of crumpling them up and cramming them into the nearest available pocket. Here is that case.
Move over shampoo; this is the new bath time essential. The perfect practical gift for any of your coworkers who often feel the need to drown their sorrows whilst surrounded in bubbles (which is most probably all of them). Also, this useful holder leaves your hands periodically free for eating pizza and browsing Netflix. Bliss!
The best (or worst!) gift for hypochondriacs everywhere! For that co-worker who’s always off sick (every workplace has one, and if you think yours doesn’t, it’s probably you), this book is a great gift to fuel their hysteria. It’ll also help them to diagnose much more interesting diseases for the rest of you to hear about. All. Day. Long.
Admittedly, this is kind of a niche gift. But somehow, inexplicably, this has become a giant niche. Fans of the animated sitcom - as well as the associated blog, comic book, and soundtrack album - will have a great time geeking out to these real life, chef-tested recipes for the outlandishly-named burgers the show is famous for.
For the colleague who needs to lighten up a bit, buy them a crazy Christmas jumper – you could even get one that lights up! Whether it’s a naughty snowman, rude reindeer or cheeky elf, these ugly sweaters will make even the most serious crack a smile. Not just for Christmas, they also make a great gift in June.
Technically speaking, this is a rubber stamp, but colloquially speaking, using it is the opposite of rubber stamping. It allows the owner to send useless, insulting, and otherwise subpar documents back where they came from with the appropriate level of contempt. Slamming this thing face first into each page in a stack of shitty documents may be the highlight of your coworker’s day.
Everyone loves a drinking game, especially at 11am on a Wednesday after that presentation from hell… just kidding. However, giving your colleague this fun, boozy gift is probably the only thing that will make the work Christmas party bearable. Pre-gaming at Karen’s anyone? We’ll be there in a shot, or 6.
Looking to convince your boss she should pay for the free bar at the Christmas party? Mike from Sales that he wants you as team leader on that project? I.T. Jane that she should take a chance on your dinner invitation? These customized fortune cookies are the perfect mutually beneficial coworker gift.
Written by James Bond himself (or, you know, an actual real-life spy), this eye-opening book is packed full of genuine, practical tips for self-protection, and is a great present for any colleague or friend. Guaranteed to come in handy during a kidnapping, mugging or zombie apocalypse, you might just save their life one day.
Help your coworkers escape the stressors of the real world by venturing into the virtual land of, well, whatever some demented programmer came up with. Virtual reality applications are expanding all the time into areas no one ever thought of, and pretty soon everyone is going to want one of these. These VR headsets have come down in price a lot since they were introduced, making them an affordable gift that's out of this world.
A literal investment in your co-worker’s future, these stock gift cards will finally afford your downbeat colleague a glimmer of hope. Maybe, if they play this card right, they could one day be the new owner of Google, with a private jet and island to go with… That’s how you sell it to them, anyway.
Unless you have a relative by the name of Richard Branson, your colleagues are unlikely to believe this is real for more than a few seconds. But, in that moment, you’ll see the flash of pure joy as their dreams are realized - before it all comes crashing down and they hate you more than ever.
If you’ve got the kind of chilled out boss who lets you play games at work (or they’ve just given up on life and no longer care what you do), this quirky chess set is a clever gift for your colleague, as it’s something you’ll both enjoy - providing you’re their (check)mate of choice, of course!
It can be really frustrating when you’re away on an overseas business trip, soaking up the culture but not being able to order a drink at a bar or buy, well, anything at all really. At least with this handy book they’ll be able to air their frustrations in the local lingo and hopefully alert someone to their need for a helping hand…if they haven’t offended them first.
Everyone likes a nice stiff after-dinner drink, but sometimes you get tired of swearing at strangers and getting in fights with the sheriff. What’s a country boy to do? A great gift for anyone who’s looking to tone it down a notch but can’t give up the taste of that sweet Kentucky nectar. Or anyone who wants an extra special kick to start the day.
Finally, an actual use for modern technology! For your coworker who fancies themselves as a bit of a Carrie from Sex and the City – in that they have too many shoes, a lot of Big problems, and enjoy a Cosmo or seven – this cocktail mixing gift is guaranteed to go down like a, well, Cosmo.
If NASA uses it, it must be astronomically good, right? Ha. Ha. But seriously, for your coworker who’s always complaining about another terrible night’s sleep and giving everyone a courtside view of their tonsils as they yawn, this sleep-promoting gadget is a thoughtful gift that will benefit you all.
Much better than boring workplace handbooks and safety procedures, this hilarious book is perfect for your coworker who’s looking to brush up on some borderline dangerous knowledge he’ll probably never need. Plus, it’s a gift for you too - after all, who knows when you might need someone who knows how to crack a safe?
For your blooming, booming co-worker, why not give them some daffodils made from dollar bills? You’ll probably want to use Monopoly money for this, unless you’re secretly moonlighting as a diamond smuggler. After all, with the salaries your boss pays, it’s probably the most money you and your colleagues have seen in one place, ever, right?
We know what you’re thinking. Think again – rocketing sushi around your office might not prove as fun as it seems at first. Non-rocket sushi is awesome, though, so why not help nourish your coworkers’ addiction? It’ll be easier on their wallets when they start rolling their own (and hopefully they’ll share).
The perfect gift for your co-worker who struggles to leave their fluffy unicorn slippers at home in the morning- cough, um, did we say unicorn? We meant stylish sheepskin moccasins, obviously. Anyway, these cozy shoe liners will make them feel nice and warm and sleepy… oh no, Jeff’s fallen asleep at his desk again.
Because nothing says, ‘Happy Birthday, and I hope you have a super fun day’ to your coworker like the gift of a taser. Could make a good gift for Mia, who keeps being hit on by Sleazeball Sean – there isn’t anyone in the office who wouldn’t secretly love to see him convulsing in pain on the floor, right?
For those (admittedly rare) occasions when their wine rack is empty, and they can’t get to the liquor store, your coworker is sure to appreciate this wine making kit as their last resort. Until, that is, they realize it takes a month to brew, and they collapse in a sobbing, sober heap on the kitchen floor, cursing the day you were born.
For your eternally optimistic (or deluded) co-worker, who still believes they might one day find love and have need to cook spaghetti for more than one person, this handy measuring tool is a great gift idea. And if they never find their soulmate, at least they’ll be able to comfort eat in horse-like proportions.
Och aye the noo! This might just be the most awesome gift anyone has given a colleague, ever. Transform them instantly from lowly office worker sharing a tiny one bed apartment with three other lowly office workers, to a literal king (alright, Laird or Lady) of the castle. They even get their own tartan.
When you’re having a bad day at work, there’s nothing like a ruined lunch to push you over the edge. For your colleague who’s always bringing in leftovers wrapped in aluminum foil, revolutionize their lunchtimes with some fancy food containers. No more soggy sandwiches or limp lettuce – you might just have saved them from a full, standing-on-their-desk-throwing-staplers meltdown.
This fruity little invention is a great way to make your boozy colleague feel healthier, even as they top up the alcohol content in their thick beer-blood. The perfect centerpiece for their summer BBQ, you’re sure to be top of their invite list after this gift – just make sure to bring a melon!
Has that wonky picture of the two birds behind Brian’s desk always made your left eye twitch? But, it would be weird to go over there just to straighten it, right? Now’s the time to fix that, by giving him this handy picture hanging device. Guaranteed to make even your most laidback colleague display OCD tendencies.
The literal definition of a gift that keeps on giving, no co-worker could complain at receiving this thoughtful gift (seriously, what kind of person would that make them? You got this!) Much better than an iTunes gift card, a charitable donation helps those less fortunate - that’s right, some people can’t even afford an iPhone.
For the gelatinous co-worker who just seems to be drifting along in his own little bubble, but who freaks out when Jenny from accounts accidentally brushes his arm on her way past, make him feel less alone with these mesmerizing friends in a jar!
People get pretty picky about their hot sauces, which probably sounds weird if you’re not a spice-lover yourself. But it’s true – and blending their own would be like Chili Pepper Nirvana. Just be careful at the next office potluck… that’s some next-level sauce and they’re going to promise “oh, it’s not that hot.”
Tired of all the slow popsicle making techniques out there? Finding you’re waiting too long for that frozen refreshment on a balmy day? Aren’t we all. Give your co-worker this speedy popsicle maker, and reap the rewards in as little as 7 minutes. Because they’re bound to leave it at work for you all to use…. aren’t they?!
Finally, some genius has noticed that ‘ginger’ rhymes with ‘ninja’ and transformed the humble gingerbread man into a contortionist Jackie Chan would be proud of. What’s next – Parrot Cake? Chocolate Chip Wookies? Still, a great gift for a ginger-haired colleague, these should certainly ‘spice’ up the office charity bake sale.
For your colleague who can’t be trusted with a real pet (we’ve all heard the story of what happened to Hammy the Hamster back in third grade), give them this gift of a manageable animal, that doubles up as a quirky home decoration. Also, great for owners of balloon dogs (an increasingly rare breed).
A cool gift for a classy coworker – or your resident beer-guzzling buffoon – this bullet-shaped bottle opener is sure to go down, well, like a cool beer on a sunny afternoon. Plus, it looks a bit like a pen, so your colleague can keep it in their desk drawer without arousing suspicion. The six pack of beers on the other hand…
For the 6-year-old child within you, this super-smart paper airplane will provide you and your best work buddy with hours of entertainment. Dive-bombing Dave from Purchasing while pretending to be texting and trying not to catch each other’s eye is a surefire way to ease some of your daily stress.
Because normal water is just so, like, mainstream. For your co-worker who wants to be ‘different’ and ‘alternative’, give them this sparkling water maker, so they can make their own cool carbonated drinks. They’ll be concocting an edgy elderflower and blackcurrant soda, or a hipster avocado and coconut spritz in no time. Yum.
People weren’t joking when they said this coffee is the sh#t. The undeniably rich, full-bodied flavor produced by these rare beans has redefined the food chain and flipped the coffee industry on its head. Perhaps one of the most imaginative adaptations of the farm-to-table movement, this coffee product is redefining waste management.
Does your coworker seem to have far too much time on their hands? Get them this futuristic cooking contraption, that swirls the water as it heats it, or heats it as it cooks it, or something… to be honest, we’re not quite sure what it does (no one is), but foodies and MasterChef fans will love it. Check out our Guide to Sous Vide Cooking to learn more about this underutilized method of cooking.
If you’re struggling to find a gift for your open-mouthed, boggle-eyed coworker – the one that looks a bit like that guy in The Human Centipede 2 (if you haven’t seen it, don’t) – how about a nice fisheye smartphone camera lens, so they can finally take photos that reflect the distorted, screwed-up way they see the world?
Nemo, is that you? You’ve found him! That’s what your co-worker will be gleefully exclaiming when you hand over the gift of this giant flying fish. Perfect for marine biologists and pescatarians, this fun toy will love flying around your workplace – and, you’ve already got next year’s gift in the bag. Dory!
Much less painful to stand on than the real kind if your coworker happens to drop one on the floor, these edible Lego candy blocks make a great gift idea for any overgrown child in your building (every workplace has one, and if you think yours doesn’t, it’s probably you. So, enjoy!)