Employees Share Holiday Bonuses That Make the ‘Jelly of the Month Club’ Look Like Gold

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If we say "Jelly of the Month Club," you probably know exactly what we mean. In the 1989 film National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Clark W. Griswold, played by comedian Chevy Chase, delivered an epic rant about his Christmas bonus and how he felt about his boss, Frank Shirley, after he learned he wouldn't be getting cash for Christmas but jelly.

He calls the offending boss some choice words, and in the years since, it has made millions of people laugh. Sadly, however, that doesn't only happen in the movies.

If you want the good, the bad, and the ugly, look no further than Reddit. People recently shared some of their worst holiday bonuses in the Ask Reddit forum, and honestly, it's a surprise some of them didn't just quit those jobs.

Who needs a bonus when you can have something with the company logo?

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A lot of employers think that their employees would like to think about work even when they aren't there, so they offered them gifts with the company logo on them.

Someone got a simple gift: "A ball point pen and cheap day planner with our corporate logo on it."

Say it with chocolate: "A large custom hershey chocolate bar of the company logo," another person shared.

Then there was this questionable piece of logo wear: "As an intern at the zoo, working with lizards and stuff, the manager got us all sweatshirts that had the zoo logo and a 'nickname' spelled out on the front. It said: The Herpey's. She meant it as short for herpetologist."

And then there was this insulting gift: "I work for a healthcare cooperation that made 7 BILLION dollar profit during the year of the plague. We had to wear the same mask for 7 days at a time before they'd give us a new one. Our 'bonus' at the end of that year? A towel with the company logo."

Employers don't seem to be afraid to insult their employees.

Why not just keep all the company's money in the company?

There was this presumptuous donation: "I got a letter from corporate letting me know that they had made a donation in my name to a charity. Specifically, to themselves (I work for a non-profit)."

One person got this: "Gift certificates at the restaurant I cooked in."

Another Redditor was treated to a nice meal for Christmas.

"I used to work for an airline and had to work on Christmas most years. Usually the managers would provide a decent meal, either catered from somewhere like Famous Dave's or bringing in a ham and everything. The last Christmas before I left the company, the manager decided airplane food would suffice," the person wrote.

"Literally brought in little individual meals from the airplane catering company that consisted of a few shreds of some unknown grey meat, a small lump of mashed potatoes, and half the meal was bland looking steamed vegetables that absolutely stank. After getting a wiff one coworker said 'Only seafood should smell like seafood,'" the commenter continued.

What about getting nothing as a bonus?

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There are a lot of people who've never seen a gift box with a pen, a chocolate bar, or a weird sweatshirt. That's because they get nothing at all.

"What's a Christmas bonus? Never gotten one," someone shared.

"I've worked in restaurants, breweries, military, and IT. Never got a Christmas bonus from any of them," another person agreed.

"My old work started by giving Christmas cards stuffed with cash. Within ten years, the bonus was reduced to nothing. We ended up with a boring holiday party, two drink tickets, and a mashed potato bar," someone else wrote.

But sometimes, it seems worse to get a terrible gift.

Other people would rather just be skipped over than utterly disrespected.

"After busting our a–es to achieve the goal for the year, the boss got a FAT check. Mid 5 figures We got a $5 Starbucks card …..one….cup….of….coffee," one person wrote.

Someone got this: "A butterball turkey branded check for a $10 turkey at the grocery store. Not a gift certificate a check with routing numbers and everything."

"Last year our school gave teachers a plastic bag with: a mini candy [cane], a mini hand sanitizer and a single tea bag ," another person wrote.

Someone commented in response, "It amazes me that the person packing these doesn't have the common sense of how insulting a gift like that is. I'd honestly rather get nothing."

Can we please agree that teachers always deserve better?

No one could top this person.

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Whether it was a bad gift or no gift, nothing is as terrible as having it taken back.

"I was working for a company and was a few months in. In this company, there were full time and contracted workers (they would have people on contract for 3 months before converting them to full time. I was projected to move to full time in the new year). Before the holiday, they gathered ALL of us together on a meeting, gave the updates, and told us they had a special announcement," one person wrote.

"The CEO then said that everybody on the call was getting a $1,200 bonus. Once we got off, they messaged us and said that non full-time employees weren't included. They forgot to take us off of the meeting. So, my worst bonus was a bonus that I had and then didn't have," the person added.