Can I turn down a gift from my employer?

By Gregory Giangrande

culled from:http://nypost.com

If your company offers you a gift for your tenure, don't be grouchy or ungrateful about it -- particularly during the holiday season. Photo: Alamy

I’ve worked my ass off for my employer, and this year, the company’s way of saying thank you was to give me a plaque that congratulated me on my 10 years of service — and a catalogue to order some token gift of $200 value. Would it be uncool to politely decline ordering anything, or to ask for the money instead?
Those anniversary rewards for tenure are a thing of the past — yet by most surveys, more than half of major employees still have such a program. This is because, undoubtedly, they are hard to take away — and not because they actually recognize or reward anything that remotely reflects performance or driving the business forward. That said, I wouldn’t be a total curmudgeon about it — particularly during the holiday season — and definitely do not ask for the cash instead. You can simply accept the recognition graciously and not order anything (just don’t hang the plaque in your office, for Pete’s sake!). Or you can pick something you can gift to someone else — assuming you know someone who wants an unbranded alarm clock, boombox or fishing pole. You can also donate the gift to charity, or allow a hardworking junior staffer to pick something that may be of interest to him or her — as a way of saying thanks for their great work.