'A white elephant? In THIS economy?': Employee cracks silly Christmas office joke, Karen coworker tries to slam him for it, but HR deems it the 'company's usual permitted shenanigans'

Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor

Nov 17, 2023 10:00 AM EST

The holiday season is upon us and workplaces all over the U.S. are starting to plan their ultimate end of the year shebang! This is the one time of the year that companies' tend to let the budget go over and the wine start flowing. Nobody wants to be a humbug! I mean, it's cold out now and it gets dark super early—we NEED something to celebrate.

However, with society evolving, the holiday season can also be an HR nightmare. You get people taking advantage of the open bar at the work party, which can be a problem. But even before that you get religious people getting offended by whatever x,y, and z. Recently, a redditor posted about how they already had to have a meeting with HR because of some silly little dad joke they pulled. The company was planning a White Elephant exchange—which, if you didn't know, is basically a joke gift exchange where you bring a silly gift and then one person opens it and the next person can choose to steal that opened gift, or open a new mystery gift and so on. It's supposed to be a funny kind of prank gift exchange. But Karens in the office don't like jokes or pranks, especially if they don't understand them. Luckily, this redditor's HR department found his joke perfectly acceptable (and even funny).