The funny farewell gift
and how to get away with it!
Don't you love giving a funny farewell gift?
There is nothing more wonderful than the look of surprise and laughter when people unwrap a humorous goodbye gift.
Especially when the person giving has had fun thinking up the going away gift ideas.We at the fond-farewell.com team have often used humour to give going away gifts - and sometimes due to lack of time to get something because:
- we were trapped in a mining camp with no way of accessing an appropriate gift in time, or
- the work colleague was only at the company a short time.
In all these cases the send-off was very informal or impromptu, and are the only times desperate/bad gifts are acceptable.
All you need with the goodbye gift is a show of effort, and some sentimental value.
Signatures are a good idea, and if the farewell gift is really weird or random, a presentation must explain why.
A goodbye present that is given with such humour and affection in a really positive
farewell speech
means you can usually get away with it...
For example:
Hey! What's all that junk in the back of that library?
Dust off that weird framed photo of some guy on a cliff, and put signatures all over it and voila! Instant gift!
A group of us at an exploration site did this to Dan, our fieldy, as we felt it was the most appropriate and hilariously unappealing thing.
We wrapped it in old newspaper tied it together with a rubber band as we had no sticky tape but we really wanted it to look budget anyway.
During the farewell speech we made up some story linking the picture to him...and random gift explained!
Hey! What about that pink ceramic cockatoo in the kitchen?
Can we use it to give to Jodie? Sign it and voila!
Instant sentimental present that will remind her of the workplace.
And she can't leave it here or throw it away because it has all of our sentimental signatures on it, everybody wins!
And during the presentation we call it an "award" for being the Only Senior Field Assistant in 2008! Random gift explained!
More ideas:
How about choosing an inappropriate card - like a Grandmother's Day card, or one of those obnoxious singing Christmas cards.
Gather a few smaller items and pepper presenting these during your speech - they are gifts highlighting the various good times that were shared.
For example, one guy we knew liked having his shirt open to the navel, so this was mentioned in the presentation with a gift of a chocolate medallion.
How about a t-shirt made with an alternate job title on it (e.g. Security)? Have people sign it, before presenting it to the person leaving, wishing them luck in their next job.
People love to have a laugh at themselves when they are the centre of sincere affectionate attention.
Funny farewell gifts like this are best given unwrapped or explained as part of a presentation, rather than leaving it for people to try to understand why they got such a weird/terrible present.
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