Every year the 4 or 5 people in the department gather their funds and jointly purchase a gift for their supervisor. Said supervisor is a car guy, he subscribes to all the magazines and can converse fluently in everything from family sedans to exotics. The past few years his minions have bought him car related items, because there is always something to choose from in their price range. Plus from lunch, break or pre-meeting conversations during the year, a gift idea is sure to present itself.
Since 1998 the supervisor has owned a Miata. Seeing as one of the supervisees also owned a Miata it was easy to gather good gift ideas for Christmas giving. For a little over a year this supervisor has been contemplating what most would consider a move up the sports car ladder and buying a 1998 Porsche Boxster. In spite of his misgivings about the car, it was black, it had a plastic rear window and the cost of repairs, he went ahead and bought the car this last August. The deal was too good to pass up, even though the car is 6 years old, it only has 11,000 miles on it, so for all practical purposes it is new.
Seeing as one of the supervisor’s main concerns was the care and feeding of the plastic window in the convertible top, this year’s group gift idea was born. They would purchase a window protection blanket sold by a dealer of all things Porsche for him to use during extended top down periods and when he puts the hard top on over the winter. The week of Thanksgiving the order was placed and the Friday after Turkey Day the gift was in hand.
The week after Thanksgiving our supervisor is printing out web pages and circling items for his wish list to be distributed to family members. He has printed out the pages from the same place the gift window protector came from, but it is not circled. When questioned why not, his response is he is not too sure it is really needed and if it is, he will just get a cheap piece of felt or something. Uh-oh, should our givers return the protector and rethink this year’s gift? Nah, figuring he is still going to use it if he gets it for free.
The first weekend in December the supervisor puts on the hard top. Monday morning he is explaining to the troops that he watched the back window fold up closely and it folds in such a way that the plastic is not touching itself or anything else when stowed. His concerns about scratching the plastic window are gone. Unfortunately, this causes concerns for our gift givers. Should they return the window protector now and get their money back, although the sum will be reduced by the return postage and restocking fees? Or should they stay the course, because their cause is true and he probably will use the thing because it cost him nothing?
