Keep Your Corporate-Logo Goodies (Please)

A post I read the other day about lame corporate logo merchandise made me recall, with the barest hint of nostalgia, all the semi-useless swag I've collected during my career.

Tim Sackett, writing on Fistful of Talent, said he believes managers should come up with better ways to reward and recognize performance. I heartily agree, because very few of the tchotchkes I've received from employers or organizations I've worked with have made a difference in my life.

The ones that I did enjoy and/or use included:

San Francisco Chronicle coffee mug
CE Sports duffel bag
Various USTA notebooks and pens
CNET umbrella

The ones that collected dust in my closet for years:

1996 Olympic Games official polo shirt
Los Angeles Times polo shirt
KCBS-TV polo shirt (are we sensing a theme here with polo shirts?)
Roughly six laptop bags
ZDNet-logo'd backpack (with apologies to Stephen H-S: Sorry, dude, but it WAS kind of dorky-looking)

And items that immediately found their way into donation bags:

Huge assortment of trucker-style baseball caps
Cheesy nylon windbreakers
A desk set (who even uses these anymore?)
A plethora of lapel pins
Dozens of stress balls
A multipurpose mouse pad with a built-in calculator

Think of all that wasted money (and motivation).

What's some of the silliest corporate gear you've ever gathered? Share your stories in the comments section.

(image from www.promotemugs.com)

CC Holland

CC Holland is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and a number of national magazines. Online, she was a columnist for AnchorDesk.com and writes regularly for Law.com and BNET. On the other side of the journalism desk, she's been a managing editor for ZDNet, CNet, and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, where she earned an APTRA Best News Web Site award.

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