Bribery schmibery. Make them pay for their stupidity

When I worked IT, our honeywell rep used to swing by at random and bring the entire building doughnuts. And I'm not talking gas station doughnuts, I'm talking doughnuts from the best bakery in the state (which happened to be local). Perhaps, not surprisingly we used a lot of honeywell stuff. It isn't hard to bribe IT guys.

Honeywell's consumer products are trash
- Honestly, their comercial ones are getting that way too. Like who the hell needs a touchscreen on an industrial thermal printer; thats just one more thing to easily break in an industrial environment. And god forbid you want a replacement touch screen because a new one is half the cost of a new printer.
- a lot of it is just using the name via licensing.. not made by them.
- And there is a lot of fake stuff when looking for their products as well.
  
  Took me multiple tries to get some genuine? ptm7950, or at least one that actually works.
- That's why they need the donut bribe.
Took way too long for me to remember that they did more than make thermostats when reading your comment.

Like, I know they do, but I pass my Honeywell thermostat multiple times daily so my brain immediately got confused as to why an IT team needed to regularly buy thermostats to the point a salesman was involved.
Colleague messages me: I need your help with something, are you available?

Me: What is it? I'll fit it in somewhere

Colleague: I've got choclate cookies

Me: I'll be right over
An anti-virus company's rep comes by every couple of months, always bringing stuff that we distribute randomly.

I have a water bottle, bag, notebook (paper, not computer kind), and backpack already :)
My HP rep would buy me lunch every now and then and me and him would always talk about how bad their printers are.

Takes the bribe, chooses a different bid because of the bribe.

Thats my kind if person.

It's pretty annoying that I have to go through training every year at work telling me I'm not allowed to bribe politicians considering that

A. That's pretty fucking common sense

B. I have no interest in bribing anyone

C. I never encounter politicians or anyone at work except for my immediate team

I get the same training even as a low level grunt.

I kinda get it though, easier to just say 'everyone take this' than try and determine who does and doesn't work with people outside the company (and in some contacts I've had with my same job title, I did send and receive messages to other companies via bug reports)
When I worked for the federal government, we had to take yearly training on how not to accept bribes/gifts.

Like...if anyone was serious about bribing my agency to get their way...and they decided that I, of all people, was the one to bribe...well they deserve to lose the value of the bribe just based on utter stupidity alone.
That kind of thing lets naive people continue with the belief that antisocial behavior comes from a lack of empathy/understanding.
- What? How is your comment related to mine?

The Supreme Court said it's totally cool to take bribes, they do it all the time!

Man, I've seen so many people fired for taking bribes and kickbacks from vendors. Not even large amounts, just more than the limit and then not disclosing it to the ethics and compliance board. Such a stupid way to sabotage your own career.

bribe

limits

Uhh.... whut

E: sorry Steve but we pride ourselves on only taking a little bit of bribery, and your level this year was 'moderate'. We can't have people going around here like that, we have to stay on the down-low.
- Kind of, yeah. Like a vendor can buy you lunch as long as the total amount per annum is less than a certain amount and if it goes over that you just have to disclose it so E&C can make sure that this doesn't impact decision-making. There is an allowance for a certain level of glad-handing so I don't get fired because Cisco came by and gave me a branded t-shirt.
- I think of it like:
  
  I can buy you a beer or company branded swag, like I might for any friend
  
  I can probably buy you lunch but not dinner
  
  giving you anything of value is right out
  
  buying you a top of the line RV or giving you a ride on a private jet to an island private resort is instantly to jail. Yes, this means you, Clarence
- They're probably referring to minor gifts random people might offer you out of gratitude sometime, say if you do customer service and went out of your way for them. A bottle of normal priced wine, some chocolates perhaps, a gift card for a lunch at xyz. Some giveaway merch they have tons of.
- It's okay to have a little bribery. As a treat.
- I know that for FDA or BSI we can't offer anything at all. We can't even let them use our building water to drink, they must bring there own water.
  
  One time we worked with the FDA to help expose some new auditors to a real audit(we were not really being audited but told to treat it like a real audit). One of the new auditors didn't bring anything to drink, assuming there would be water provided. Nope, the senior auditor made them sit there all morning being thirsty and when we broke for lunch the new auditor went across the street to CVS and bought a bottle of water. I felt kind of bad for them. But every other day they arrived with a big bottle of water :-D

I work in government and we're not allowed to accept gifts over $50, but I really prefer no one give me anything. Any time someone has, it's been a thank you for work that's already done, but I don't want there to ever be any question about it. Plus, when you're a younger woman (so not so much these days, but early career), people question if the gifter was angling for something else, which is awkward.

loudly proclaiming "I'm lesbian, Brian. Penises are icky. Get your head out of the gutter, ugh."

Make them awkward once, and they won't make you awkward ever again.
- Even that wouldn't always work. This woman found out I was working on my birthday (I always do, but I guess that's s big deal to some), so she came back with cake, a bottle of prosecco, and flowers. My mom was like, "Was she trying to date you??" That woman was one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in real life, I fucking WISH she was trying to date me. I am not that lucky. It's only the men my dad's age that are trying to hook up.

I got a solarwinds ~~cumrag~~ shirt that way once