Christmas gifts for the guys

[Shimmy1]

Looking for good ideas for gifts for my guys. Obviously I'm not going to buy them new pickups, or send them to the Caribbean, but want to get them something that they will appreciate. Not really setting a dollar amount, planning on doing better than a $50 cheese plate or $100 Texas Roadhouse gift card.

 

[cfherrman]

Don't get booze

Boots, coats, and hoodies are always nice.

Gift card to a meat market

 

[Shimmy1]

Don't get booze

Boots, coats, and hoodies are always nice.

Gift card to a meat market

Coat and hoodies are already planned. We are having a Christmas party with a good meal, and they are getting actual bonuses, I'm not talking $500.

I'm just looking for ideas on gifts, something that shows we put a little more effort into it than picking up a pen and writing a check, or throwing down the credit card for another piece of plastic.

 

[Columbo]

I don’t know how many employees you have but a nice personalized knife might be an idea? I have a personalized knife from a wedding that I carry every day.

 

[OzDozer]

Small tool sets of good quality always make appreciated gifts. A man can never have enough tools.

I bought a bulk lot of tools at auction about 20 years ago, in the form of ring wrench sets from Taiwan, about 8 or 10 wrenches in a set, in a pouch. Some of them were set and ring sets.

I made good money out of selling them on eBay and Gumtree over a number of years, and one local farmer buyer kept coming back.
I eventually asked him why he kept buying the sets, thinking he was a pretty careless operator who lost a lot of tools regularly!

But he simply explained he was buying them as gifts for employees at the end of seeding or harvest, where the employees had done good work, or gone beyond expectations. I'll wager he had some loyal employees.

 

[Keith Merrell]

Ammo

 

[Spud_Monkey]

Flashlights of quality

 

[Welder Dave]

Thru-night TN12 rechargeable pen light. Recharges by USB and lasts a long time on a charge. Has different settings for brightness, strobe light etc. I got one from my sister's fiance. It is super handy to have and incredibly bright on the highest setting, I think 1900 lumens. It's not a cheap pen light. I almost lost it off the dump truck but thankfully it rolled off the step on the fuel tank and got caught in the gap between the stap and thd tank. I can't say the same thing about the hammer and pair of pliers I accidently left on the step. I think they're buried under one of about a dozen loads of dirt.

 

[treemuncher]

The one tool that I carry every day is a Gerber Center Drive Multi-Tool. Lifetime warranty and I use it just about every day. I've carried one for well over 10 years and had about 2-3 warranty claims that give me a brand new unit. Its' better than any other multi-tool that I've ever tried. I would see that as a great, useful gift that would last a long time and show a good investment in your employees. Not a huge $ item but a useful one for someone that works with their hands. It will last longer than most pieces of clothing or other types of swag.

 

[Columbo]

@Shimmy1 what did you pick for the guys?

 

[Tags]

Place I work for got us Yeti mugs/cups with the company name in em’. Use it every morning, keeps coffee hot a long time.

 

[Vetech63]

Get them all a nice huge room for the night and you supply all the alcohol. Make sure there is a strip club next door.

 

[cfherrman]

As an employer never supply or buy alcohol

 

[Shimmy1]

@Shimmy1 what did you pick for the guys?

Haven't decided yet.

 

[Shimmy1]

As an employer never supply or buy alcohol

We always have beer at the shop.

I have heard numerous reasons for this, curious what yours is?

 

[Columbo]

Man, it’s like waiting for Christmas over here! Keep us posted lol

 

[Welder Dave]

We always have beer at the shop.

I have heard numerous reasons for this, curious what yours is?

You're in serious trouble if somewhere were to drive drunk and got in an accident. I worked at a place someone killed a person, in a company truck no less, and the company and was fined $50,000 I believe. It was after a Christmas party. New policy was no alcohol on site, ever! It made no difference it was a company truck. It came down to the company not being responsible. One way around it is to provide cabs for everyone to get home.

 

[OzDozer]

It's called "duty of care" in the legal world today. The same kind of "duty of care" responsibility applies to bartenders here, who continue to serve alcohol to patrons who are very obviously drunk.
Our liquor laws state that liquor licence holders and their employees are not to serve alcohol to patrons who are drunk, or underage.

It's called "responsible service of alcohol", and servers of alcohol who get people drunk, who then go out and kill someone, can be held jointly responsible for damages claims.

As someone whose brother was killed at age 25 in the prime of his life by a drunk driving a truck who steered over to his side of the road and collided with his vehicle head-on, I fully agree with the current laws and the responsibility associated with serving alcohol.

As it was, my brother was killed in 1964 and the laws were extremely lax back then, and the drunk in the truck didn't even get a fine, let alone a jail term for manslaughter.

 

[Welder Dave]

Bartenders aren't supposed to over serve here too but the actual fact is they do all the time. They will claim they couldn't tell or the person didn't seem impaired etc. or maybe they had been drinking before they came to that bar and the bartender had no idea?? It's one of those things that has a bunch of loopholes.

Just in the news a couple days ago a very related issue came up and sadly resulted in fatalities but not from drunk driving. There were 2 seperate incidents at the same bar but a year apart. Obviously drunk patrons were escorted out of the bar. They exited without incident but it was during the winter and both passed away from hypothermia. There needs to be something better. Bars shouldn't be able to just kick people out in the cold. Maybe they should have a seperate area for impaired patrons to stay until a cab, bus, friend or even the police came to take them home. Even getting thrown in the drunk tank would be better than freezing to death. Pretty sad because of some poor decisions and then no concern for their safety after you're the bar that was over serving them. I think they are looking at charges been brought to the bar though. There should be in my opinion.

 

[Norcal wrench530]

I second the Customized knife idea