Employee appreciation gifts with a personal touch

Employee appreciation during Covid has become kind of a big thing. Which makes sense. Just being a human through this pandemic has been hard enough. But being a human who’s employed too? Thanks a lot, Adversity!

However, I’m talking about “employee appreciation” in two senses here: gifts for employees working at home, yes, but also appreciation from employees for everything their bosses have gone through. Our boss certainly not least of all. She’s done as well as she could during lockdown, keeping the momentum going, handling a remote workforce, maintaining her managerial poise through everything the pandemic tossed our way. Not easy. And especially for someone who isn’t the most technology-forward.

Especially for someone who’s been unable to turn off the potato filter on her Microsoft Teams.

You know the potato filter on Microsoft Teams, don’t you? If not, here’s a quick crash course: instead of being onscreen as your normal self during a Microsoft Teams video chat, you are a sentient potato, buried in soil. That is, your eyes and mouth are superimposed onto a potato in a creepily anthropomorphic manner.

You’re probably thinking, “Now, that’s not a very professional filter at all.” Congratulations, you’re not alone. One of the many others who see it your way is my boss, the woman who has been potato’d for an entire year now (yes, a year). Despite all her valiant efforts, she’s been stuck as a potato through hundreds of hours of video interaction. But it’s not for lack of trying. She just hasn’t been able to hash this problem out. See what I did there.

But one thing I must say our boss has is perseverance. In the face of such relentless, zany subversion, she hasn’t complained. She’s tolerated every potato-based pun in the book and taken it all in stride. She continues to perform and execute her vocation as if she wasn’t a cartoon root vegetable. And whether it’s organizing stimulating group exercises, buying gift bags for employees appreciation, or brainstorming employee appreciation day ideas during Covid-19, she has looked out for us. Through the eyes of a potato, yes, but it still counts as looking.

I remember the first day she popped into our meeting as the potato. Many of us were still new to the job and our boss, but it was a really disarming moment. Especially during a time when we were right at the start of an uncertain, unsettling quarantine period. This filter faux pas was a welcome bout of levity. Even more so when we all realized she didn’t know how to shut it off. Further mirth. Good times. But then the next day came. And the next. And so on. There she was, still a potato. The laughs became less hearty, more sporadic, until they died down into smirks and pursed lips. Then, like anything, it became routine. We got used to it (sort of) and got on with work.

But it’s funny what happens when a filter becomes permanent. On a psychological level. This false, lampooning visage always representing you. Like something Nietszchean.

See, over time, something weird started happening to our boss. As crazy as this may sound, she started acting like a potato. What does that even mean, you ask? Difficult to explain, really. All we know is that it was happening right before our eyes. 

There was one time in particular that sticks out. It was during Christmas, and we were all discussing good bulk gifts under $5 - you know, for the people in your life that aren’t exactly family, aren’t exactly close friends, but are more than acquaintances (coworkers, for example). Typical water cooler banter, right?

Well, all of a sudden, our boss says, “You know what I think would be a creative employee appreciation gifts, especially gift ideas for employees on a budget: cool, well-drained, loose soil. I know that’s what I would want.” We all kind of looked at each other. Which, granted, we were doing anyway, being on a video chat and all. But you know what I mean.

That’s when we all realized. She was no longer filtered through a potato. She was the potato. We began texting each other like mad, discussing the matter without her knowing. Some of it was out of concern. Some of it was out of straight-up LMFAO. Okay, most of it.

And yes, Covid is never a laughing matter. At least not the topic itself. It’s not funny and never will be. But some of the side results of this terrible virus have been great. Employee gifts during Covid, for one. Absurdly funny occurrences another. “Collateral hilarity” I like to call it. Our boss becoming a potato for over a year is part of that collateral hilarity.

It’s at the point where all of us, all her employees on the other side of the video chat, are dying to meet her in person. If it will even be a “person” that we meet. Maybe we’ll be meeting a Kafkaesque metamorphosized being. A walking, talking starch. I don’t even know if we all can be around her, if that’s the case. Some of us are on strict keto diets.

And bless her, she has tried again and again to distract us from the “potato problem” (as she calls it) by repeatedly buying employee gifts. Most of them are small things like gourmet foods. But some, not so small. One time she got me an espresso maker because I mentioned I like cappuccinos. It was the most genuine personal thank you I ever gave a vegetable in my life. By a long way. The only other time that came close was when I used a carrot to shoo away a bee.

With all this said, the last thing I’d want anyone to think is that we don’t have a soft spot for her. The whole situation is crazy. What must she see when she looks in the mirror everyday? A wife and mother? A respected administrator? A member of the Solanum tuberosum vegetable family?

I think, at least for a while there, she was trying to motivate who or whatever she was looking at in the mirror. That’s because there was a period when she was buying inexpensive motivational gifts for employees. Then there was a period she was buying very personalized gifts for employees - which indicated she was trying to connect with us on a deeper level. Probably because, being a potato, her natural habitat is to be deep underground.

So, even is she hasn’t physically transformed into a potato, she is being imbued with the instincts of a potato. Her quote-unquote fun recognition gifts for employees included vegetable peelers. Which I would’ve thought she’d be frightened by. Still, it’s a potato mindset being shown.

Needless to say, anything potato-related is never far from our work meetings. Even if the focus is on accounting, compliance, scheduling, whatever. Just the other day even, there was this totally weird moment with her. Kind of awkward too.

The night before I had gone out to a restaurant for the first time in months (yay, restaurants!), so I was excited to discuss any and every aspect of my meal, whether anyone wanted to hear it or not. (They all did, salivating - I thought of the food descriptions as my own cheap staff appreciation gifts.)

As I was going through my meal course-by-course, I started talking about this potato hash that came with my skirt steak. It was so good I was getting all poetic about it. So much so, I completely forgot about the longstanding potato situation we’ve all been experiencing. My coworkers had growing smirks on their faces as I was totally oblivious. Finally, as I’m extolling the garlic balance of the dish, I stop. I look at my boss, the potato, and suddenly get that feeling you get when you’re talking about someone you thought wasn’t there? To break the awkwardness, I just started complimenting her small gift ideas for employee appreciation. She took the bait and we moved on. Phew.

But truthfully, all throughout this ordeal, she’s been amazing to us. Just constantly sending us gifts on Amazon to show her gratitude. I’m talking that Amazon swag too. Speaking of Amazon, I wonder what they would do for their employees in this kind of situation. Is there an Amazon employee recognition program for those dealing with forever-filtered managers? Wouldn’t surprise me.

And with all the fun we’ve had at our boss’s expense, we really do want to help her figure out how to finally, finally, fix her filter and return to a sense of normalcy - just like we’re trying to do in society as a whole. It’s enough already. Time to get vaccinated, take off the masks, open the world up again, and do away with potato filters.

We came to a conclusion as to why our boss cannot get rid of the potato filter: her kids must be messing with her. That’s the case in ninety-five percent of these situations.

Could we have come to that conclusion many months ago and avoided this entire, vexing issue? Probably. Would it have saved our boss from a year of humiliation and a troubling, spud-centric identity crisis? Certainly. But would we have been robbed of a hysterical work memory that could last a lifetime? Most definitely.