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Good morning everyone, and welcome back to the Breakroom! Spring is certainly in the air and every day seems to bring us a little bit closer to the end of all the snow for the season. The forecast seems to say there is a chance for at least a little bit more snow but I think the vast majority is behind us. That being said, for those of us who were not on top of cleaning up after our pets over the course of the winter are left to retroactively do it as everything melts. Needless to say, I am not too excited about that. A bit of exciting news, we have officially kicked off renovations at our house! We have what was formally our “tub room” (a carpeted room with a jet tub) being converted into a really cool game room, so cannot wait to have more updates on that in the future!

Moving along, let us talk about what happened at the office this week!

The big topic is that corporate unveiled a new incentive for all the branches and that is a weight loss competition. Whichever branch loses the most weight will be award three extra vacation days, something that nearly any employee would eagerly accept. So a company-wide weight loss challenge, certainly sounds like a fun idea right? It can be a great motivator for people who have been looking for the right inspiration to jumpstart their fitness regime. Not only do they have the chance to earn extra vacation, they should at least lose a bit of weight. Additionally, these types of challenges can be great comradery events to do with your coworkers. So, does this mean your company should hold an event like this?

Well, not everyone agrees that a weight loss challenge is necessarily the best option for the workplace. One of the biggest arguments is that to loss weight is not necessarily indicative of becoming healthier. All people are different and therefore have unique bodily needs. For instance, Angela in accounting said she would be unable to actually lose weight because her physician is insisting she needs to gain weight. So while many of us perhaps are overweight and would benefit to lose some extra pounds, this not the truth for everyone. Additionally, when competition is brought into the workplace it can have disastrous results. We might have people who truly do not care about winning and will not even try, potentially resulting in coworkers being angry with them (Kevin). And then we can have people are go overboard, and put their health at risk while trying to win (Kelly). So what are better alternative? With my company we actually use an app that allows us to log exercises, daily steps, hours slept, water drank, and various other healthy habits. In exchange, the tool gives us points that we can put towards things like gift cards. Not only is this a gain for every employee, the rewards come from healthy habits and not simply losing weight. Promoting things like eating more vegetables, getting in more steps or getting your water each day are much healthier options than simply losing weight, and a bit more universal¹.

It is important to point out that if you want to lose weight, you should be doing it for the right reason and you should especially do it healthy. If at a loss, speak to your healthcare provider about what options are available or you can consider speaking with someone like a nutritionist or fitness instructor. I know there are also all sorts of drugs like Ozempic that can help you lose weight, and it is getting easier than ever to get ahold of them. Do not take such drugs without doing the necessary research, and definitely speak to your healthcare provider to ensure it is okay to take them.

As I wasn’t in charge of this initiative, I’m simply going to try to have a bit of fun with it, but I can confirm that people are really taking it seriously. Stanley has started taking the stairs instead of the elevator while Holly has begun leading some of us in yoga sessions here in the office. Dwight’s big idea was to clear out all of the junk food from the vending machines, but decided to replace it with fruits and vegetables. Just going to point out that without refrigeration, they will go bad pretty fast. Then there is Kelly who is potentially taking this competition more seriously than anyone else. She began with a master cleanse, which is the controversial process of only consuming a mixture of lemon juice, water, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper for about a week and then slowly working in fluids like broth. I remember this being made famous by several celebrities who did it to lose some quick weight, but I’m sure no medical provider would sign off on this. When I thought she couldn’t do anything worse, she decided to knowingly ingest a tape worm from Creed to lose the weight. Now I do not know what it was he gave her, but he told me it wasn’t actually a tape worm. For the record, no one should ever ingest a tape worm to lose weight as this is incredibly dangerous and can do severe damage to your body, even including death.

It is important to point out that not everyone is taking part in this contest because not everyone is here at the moment. Pam got that spot at the Pratt School of Design in New York, so she will be gone for a couple of months while attending school there to perfect her art. Naturally, Jim begins to get a little stir crazy to have to go so long without seeing his girlfriend.

In other news, Angela and Andy are busy planning their wedding after their recent engagement. By that I mean they are trying to plan their wedding. Angela doesn’t seem to like any of Andy’s ideas for wedding venue and he has ran the gambit including scuba wedding, Disney’s Epcot, and a hotel ballroom. She continues to find problems with each option and then just disappears for a period of time. Coincidentally, Dwight seems to disappear at the exact same time and then they both appear later on.

And then we have the big shake up in the Party Planning Committee in which Phyllis has replaced Angela as head of the group. It would seem she set the new standard with Toby’s going away party and really impressed Michael. Her newest assignment was throwing a party for Stanley and it did not go great. The party ended up having depressing music and a sad helping of fruit since we are all watching what we eat. That is, until we went to the super secret birthday party in which Phyllis snuck in some cheesecake. As a big fan of sweets and junk food, it is the healthy eating in moderation which I struggle with. That being said, while on some sort of diet they routinely say it is okay to reward yourself. If you ate well all week, then have some cake or chocolate on the weekend. Having an incentive will often help you do better in the long-term. Michael and Dwight are big believers in the “all or nothing” philosophy so they came in and put a quick end to the party after they discovered us downstairs in the warehouse hosting it.

And that is the current update here at the office, but stay turned as this weight loss contest is not over! I will keep you updated this next week with how this goes.

And you know what, the contest was for eight weeks so let us all try to take the next eight weeks to focus on jumpstarting any sort of healthy regime we have been hoping to do. Rather than focusing on how much weight we can lose, I want to hear from people on the healthy activities you found the motivation to do. Maybe you went for a walk in the afternoon, included vegetables with your dinner, replaced soda with water for a day. Every little activity that sounds incredibly small, adds up and should not be discounted.

Let us check in over the next eight weeks and talk about our small victories and support each other.

Until then, I’ll see you around the Breakroom.

1. Spence, S. (2022, August 29). Why Weight-Loss Challenges Have No Business in the Workplace. Self. Retrieved March 13, 2025, from https://www.self.com/story/workplace-weight-loss-challenges ↩︎

Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! Officially the final day of February and we are certainly feeling an early spring. Snow and ice is melting, my yard is filling with water, and it even smells like spring. But I wonder if we are in for more snow; I have seen some small snow showers in the forecast but there are rumors of a major snowfall so perhaps we shouldn’t put away those shovels just yet!

In other news, Apple became one of the most recent major companies who was pushed to evaluate their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives with a vote from the shareholders. Similar to Costco, they voted overwhelming in favor of keeping their policies in tact to show that not every company is prepared to backdown from politicians in opposition to diversity¹.

In a further attempt for citizens to show their solidarity in opposition to how conservative politicians are allowing the federal government to be ran, there are calls for an “economic blackout” for today, February 28, 2025 by the People’s Union. They are calling to do no purchases other than for anything considered essential (food, medicine, emergency supplies). And for those purchases, we should try to keep them to in cash and at small, local businesses. There are those who point out that a single day protest may do little in the long run, but the hope is that it will showcase the power that people have when they come together². Is anyone here taking part in the boycott in this blackout? Feel free to comment and let us know if you are standing with the People’s Union and others.

With those updates out of the way, let us get into the big news that has happened at the office this week!

Now, no day would be complete without a classic “Jim Prank” and naturally, it was directed at Dwight. I cannot tell how ingenious this was, but Jim started intercepting Dwight’s phones calls because he synced up his headset to Dwight’s cell phone. Calls would come in, and Jim would answer them from his Bluetooth and took over the call. Dwight thought he had him when he simply forwarded his mobile to his desk phone. Unfortunately, Jim had thought ahead and forwarded his desk phone to his own meaning he had all of his calls coming to him. Personally I feel like it wasn’t super creative, and could actually be very unprofessional for Jim to be answering calls that were meant for Dwight. As far as pranks go this was not one of the best, Jim.

The real news of the day is that today is the last day of our Human Resources representative, Toby Flenderson. You will recall that weeks ago he announced he was going to be leaving and moving down to Costa Rica and it is all officially happening. Michael was so excited about the big event that he could barely sleep the night before, he had gotten to work early, and was even setting the alarm on his watch so he could truly celebrate the moment. It has been no secret that Michael loathed Toby, so we really should not be surprised that he is seeing today as a happy occasion.

As with every major, and minor, event we decided to bring in the Party Planning Committee (PPC) to arrange the festivities. So important was this day, that Michael made it a point to sit down with the team to ensure everything was top notch. Angela, head of the PPC, arranged for there to be a buttercream cake along with a slideshow of Toby, consisting of two slides taken seconds apart. This was unacceptable to Michael and really wanted us to up the wow factor. He first thought of doing a New Orleans funeral party, where the celebration actually goes into the streets with music and dancing. His next idea was building off of the concept of what sort of party would you do if the devil were to explode, and evil was erased from the world. Evidently “beach theme” was the best he could come up with. Angela, clearly annoyed, tried to explain there was simply no more money in the budget. This was all Michael needed to proceed to take off his shoe and pull out a wad of cash that he had put in there for safekeeping. Evidently his grandma normally sends him $50 each year for his birthday, and she has begun to do it nine or ten times each year as her memory starts to go. Michael feels he has the problem resolved since he is going to bankroll the remainder of the party, but Angela simply refuses the extra work, not to mention the foot money. I personally think that this shows Angela really isn’t as amazing in her role as she likes to think she is. What is Michael’s solution? He offers the job to Phyllis, and she accepts without a second thought.

And like that, Phyllis is officially in charge of Toby’s party. One of her first trials is attempting to track down an antigravity machine, which Michael insists he has seen in a movie before. I assumed everyone knew this was not a real machine but with how much time Phyllis spent on trying to track it down, I am pretty sure she thought it was true. Now putting together a big party like this the day of can be a lot of work, so Phyllis did try to extend an olive branch to Angela and hoped she would share her list of vendors she normally works with. True to form, Angela chose to shred her contacts. It was quite obvious she chose to be petty because Phyllis usurped her role as head of the Party Planning Committee. But she didn’t allow herself to be defeated, and she marched off back to the conference room to get back to work. Well, after knocking Angela’s things off of her desk out of spite. I don’t really know what all Phyllis was lining up, but she seemed very busy and I completely have faith in her. More than anything, the overwhelming desire of rubbing your success in someone else’s face is a great motivator. While I don’t know what she was planning, but I did overhear Jim talking to her at one point. He was offering to help sponsor fireworks for the party because he really wanted to give Toby a great farewell. That is certainly generous of him, and while he didn’t hate Toby like Michael did I didn’t think he liked him that much.

With Toby leaving, you might be wondering if someone would be replacing him, and you would be right. Perhaps Toby chose to not warn Michael about it ahead of time, but we were all in for a surprise at the arrival of Holly Flax. Brought in to replace him, she was allotted one day of training alongside Toby to prepare her for the job. I didn’t get too much time to talk to her but I’m pretty sure she was already part of Dunder Mifflin but has now come here. She should be familiar with the company so it is this particular office she is being trained in on. I still think she should have been given more than one day but that is certainly not my call to make on how the company should be ran. Despite this being her first day, everyone here in Scranton is very quick to make judgements about other people so it makes sense everyone already has their own opinion of her.

Michael was immediately off her, comparing her to Toby, and described the relationship between him and her as an epic struggle where he wants to make the office fun, she wants to make it lame, and he will ultimately defeat her. Cut to Holly agreeing with Michael at how boring Toby is and she implies that is not her style at all. With that, you can immediately tell that Michael is smitten with her to the point that you can tell he has a full on crush on her. Dwight, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have received this message. He was still going by Michael’s last opinion that they need to mess with her, so he was going to make it happen. He decided it was important to haze her because as he puts it, “Hazing is a fun way to show someone that they are not welcome or liked.” For the record, hazing is seriously not okay and I have zero respect for anyone who does it. Whether it is a new colleague at work or a college student trying to join a frat, hazing is seriously not fun and not fair to them so don’t do it. In this case, Dwight seems to not be alone because Meredith expressed some incredible dislike for Holly. They seemed to be hitting it off but for some reason, Meredith just abhors the poor woman. Creed was also annoyed with her too, but that was more to do with the fact she wanted to know what he did. Creed seems to think that Human Resources should mind their own business rather than wanting to know what he does for a job. Oddly enough, Holly and Kevin seemed to have it off because she was paying extra attention to him. Naturally, Kevin was all into it and was starting to get a little gross because he assumed they were going to hook up.

With this all going on, the other big news was actually something good going on in Pam’s life. Weeks ago she had applied to the Pratt School of Design, and she has officially been accepting into their graphic design program. Super exciting for her because she is taking a chance and trying to follow her dreams in a career in art. Unfortunately, it is a three month long program and it will be in New York City so she is going to have spend most of the next few months out of Scranton. While a college degree, or any sort of advancement in a specific field or skill, is no guarantee I truly believe it is important to follow your goals, aspirations, and dreams. Has my college degree led to a new job yet? No, but it certainly can. And I try to find other aspects that I can use what I have learned to put it to use, such as writing a blog dedicated to working in an office and other business aspects.

With that being said, you should consider the rest of this event to be continued. With so much going on with Toby’s last day, I am going to need to break this up between two parts. Will Phyllis throw an amazing party? Will we find out why Jim was so eager to have fireworks? Will Toby have any major moments at his last day? Tune in next week to find out. And until then, I’ll see you around the Breakroom.

1. Nellis, S. (2025, February 26). Apple shareholders vote to keep its diversity policies. Reuters. Retrieved February 27, 2025, from https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-investors-reject-proposal-against-dei-policies-2025-02-25/ ↩︎
2. Danziger, P. (2025, February 25). People’s Union USA Calls For National Boycott In A ‘Feb 28 Economic Blackout’. Forbes. Retrieved February 27, 2025, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2025/02/25/peoples-union-usa-calls-for-national-boycott-in-a-feb-28-economic-blackout/ ↩︎

Good morning and welcome back to the Breakroom! I am taking today off but wanted to stop in to not deprive everyone of their Breakdown. It happens to be my birthday this coming Sunday so I decided to treat myself to a nice three day weekend! My goal is to relax and take it easy, maybe get around to a few things around the house I have been putting off. And of course, I get to spend my birthday with family and friends do our rescheduled dungeons and dragons session for the week. And no, I will not be watching the Super Bowl as I am not a sports person but I certainly hope the rest of you enjoy it.

Even with all of that excitement going on, I do just want to remind everyone ready to stay vigilant and on top of what is currently happening here in the United States. Every day we see the rights our citizens under attack, in particular our trans friends and family members have been targeted. In addition, we have Elon Musk overstepping his authority and accessing the private information of all citizens. Remember to reach out to your respective members of Congress and urge them to stand up against these atrocities. We cannot standby as these “leaders” line their pockets and recreate Nazi Germany here in our own backyard.

Having hopefully inspired you, let us move to this week’s Breakdown!

This morning we got to a rocky start because Michael doesn’t even make into the office before he ends up with gum in his hair. How did that happen? Evidently he saw something shiny below Stanley’s car and thought it might’ve been a quarter. But when he went down to grab it, he ended up with gum in his hair. Plus, it was only a piece of aluminum foil. So for the next hour Michael was trying to work the gum out of his hair with Dwight’s help by applying peanut butter to his hair. Now I did reach out to my husband, who is a hair stylist, to get his opinion on the use of peanut butter to get out gum. Now this really is one of the best tools to work it out. The key is about getting the section of hair with gum to be covered and worked through with an oil-based food. Peanut butter works because it is one of those staples that you can find in most homes and even offices. Cooking oils could certainly be another alternative, but most offices are more likely to have peanut butter rather than coconut oil. But once the gum is coated in oil, it cannot hold onto the hair as easily and can be combed out. The downside of having this happen first thing in the morning at the office is you end up smelling like peanut butter the rest of the day so I hope you love that nutty scent.

The gum was only salt in the wound for poor Michael who has been struggling as he tries to get back into the dating field. If all of his struggles last week weren’t bad enough, he has gone on more dates since then and just cannot find anyone good enough. In his own words, their personalities have been fine but he has been hoping to find someone more like Cindy Crawford. He means they haven’t been as attractive as he thinks he deserves so I think most of us can only feel a certain level of sympathy for him.

Besides having to listen to Michael’s grumbling, we have been complaining ourselves with new mandates coming from Ryan at corporate. He is mandating we all come in on Saturday to do more work by entering in all of our sales through Dunder Mifflin Infinity, his fancy website for the company. It is pretty insulting considering he is only requiring us to do this to make it appear like the website is more successful and legitimate than it is. Besides the fact that sales haven’t been increasing as much as he’d like, the website’s social media feature was recently used by sexual predators to harass people, plus customers are calling the sales team to assist with using it. Overall, Ryan is banking his career on the success of the website and is trying to market is as the key to the future of the company. Truthfully, I believe Ryan doesn’t really care about paper or the the company. He is idolizing the young and powerful tech moguls and sees this as his chance to be the next Zuckerberg (no one should want to idolize that). On his way out (he literally came to Scranton to explain why we needed to work this weekend) he bragged to Michael about all of the girls he is meeting and said he should feel free to head on by anytime.

I think we all know what proceeded to happen from there. Michael decided to call it a day and convinced Dwight that they should head up to New York and hit the town to meet ladies. And off they went, finally resulting in some quiet around the office. Near the end of the day, Jim came around with a big idea. He realized that if we all stayed a few hours late we could get the information entered and not need to head into the office over the weekend. Naturally, we loved the idea and we got to work to try to power through it all given that we did not have Michael and Dwight to distract us. Everything was going according to plan, we got the work done early and called it a night, ready to enjoy our weekend. And when we got to the parking lot, we realized the gate into the park were closed and locked, meaning we were trapped. It seems that while Jim thought ahead to speak to all of us, he failed to notify Hank from security to let him know that we’d be staying late. Although why he didn’t think to question why the vehicles for a dozen people were in the parking lot, I’ll never know. But if you’ve met Hank, he is very much the “not my problem” type of mentality. Just a piece of advice to those like that, although it might not be “your problem” there is always the chance it will come back and be an issue that you have to fix, so sometimes it is easier to pay attention.

While we were dealing with everything at the office, Michael and Dwight had gone to some bar in the city to surprise Ryan and his friend Trevor. Oddly enough, they were ecstatic to see the pair and quickly got them drinks and into the spirit of the evening. Michael did his best to find a special lady but kept striking out, evidently that particular bar had a pretty low age group. Some girl had never even heard of the movie Back to the Future which I do not know how that is possible. She obviously had poor choice in films, so Michael is better off without her. They moved to another bar and were able to make their way through the doors by being paired with some female basketball players they met. It was actually Dwight who had the idea that they could get in when they attractive girls like that, or Amazons as he called them. I have no idea how but Dwight was evidently killing it that night because of the girls even ended up making out with him. I know this because Michael took a photo and sent it to all of us to ensure we knew that they were having a good time. But in the end, their club adventures came to a crashing halt when Ryan got caught up in some sort of argument and was escorted out of the club by security. Being good friends, Dwight and Michael escorted him back to his apartment so he could sleep off what appeared to be he drank too much. His friend Troy bugged out and left them, although he pleaded that they do anything but call the cops. In the end they just crashed at Ryan’s place; Michael didn’t meet anyone but said that just companionship with the guys was all he needed.

In contrast, we were still stranded back outside the office. Pam had locked the office itself on our way out so we had to wait in the downstairs lobby. Despite her position, Pam does not have an emergency key because Dwight has both backup copies. When asked “what if you die Dwight, what then?” He responded back with “If I am dead, then you have all been dead for weeks.” And that, everyone, is why none of us having additional keys that we could have used to get into the office. Jim was able to get in touch with Hank and he said he’d be right over, but after over an hour we begin to doubt if he was even coming to help us. If that wasn’t bad enough, we had a very awkward moment where Toby places his hand on Pam’s leg after telling a joke. And this was a pretty intimate style of touching her and we all clocked this right away. Most of us knew that Toby had a crush on Pam but this was the most he has ever done to express those feelings. It must have suddenly dawned on him what he did because he simply announced that he has decided to move to Costa Rica, and proceeded to run across the parking lot, scale 15 to 20 foot fence and run home. If I had not see this happen, I would never have believed that he could possibly do all that, but there he did.

Just when we were ready to write this night off as a failure, and a weird one, a vehicle suddenly pulled up with the building’s housekeeping staff. Jim and Oscar ran up to greet them, I don’t know how Jim knew they’d only speak Spanish, but he explained everything and they were able to let us out. Finally, we were on our way out and could enjoy the weekend after being there all night. Only later did I think about the fact that Hank supposedly was still coming to let us out, but I’m assuming Jim gave him a call so we are all good. And with writing this, we are on our weekend!

I hope you all enjoyed that Breakdown, not too much business teachings but I will instead point out to Ryan’s whole requiring us to relog all the sales into his website. I have a feeling that this will come back to bite him because although no one else seems to be saying it, this is all sort of shady in my book.

I hope you all have a great weekend, and prepare for more snow that is supposedly in store this weekend. And as always, I’ll see you around the Breakroom.

Good morning everyone, I hope you have all had a great week. For those of us with Monday through Friday schedules, Christmas right in the middle sure can feel a bit awkward. That being said, calls have been few and I will gladly take a nice calm week to get back into the swing of things.

Christmas, or the winter holidays, can be a stressful time for many people for different reasons. Some of us might play host to the holidays, so a great deal of work and planning is used for the dinner and celebration. Some of us might have strained relationships with family and the holidays are not always a cheerful time. And then there are those who feel the financial strains of the holiday and are needlessly stressed out by the expectation of gifts.

I hope that in spite of everything, people were able to find a way to celebrate the holiday that brought them joy. Yes planning an event is stressful, whether it be trying to cook a thousand dishes at once or having family members being passive aggressive over little things. We throw these events because it is with food and a warm hearth that we find a way to express our gratitude and love to those in attendance.

For those with strained relationships, I have learned to put a great deal of focus on my logical family. People I welcome into my life who accept me and bring me joy, not stress and heartache. I hope that those with difficult families were able to spend time with people who do respect and love them since regardless of what sort of holiday or festivity you recognize this month, it should be about spending it with loved ones. Whether they be blood, friends, romantic partners, or your pets.

And for those who find this season stressful from finances, I hope you remember that it really is not about the gifts. We should get together with people not because we expect things, but because we want spend time together. And there are plenty of ways to show how much you care without spending tons of money. I got quite a few homemade gifts this year including crocheted plushes, flavored syrup, decorations, even some granola. It is very hard for a store to show off the same level of care of time that people put into their homemade gifts, and I can assure you that if you can master crocheted animals or cookies, people will be excited.

And with that, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. Whether you are still recovering from over indulging on Tom and Jerrys and wine, or playing with your newest toys, I hope you can enjoy the last few days of this year. I will be back next week as I need some time to still recover from my non-stop Christmas organizing and cooking.

I wish you all a Happy Holidays, and I’ll see you around the Breakroom.

And if you are in the mood for a Breakdown, why not revisit my Benihana Christmas.

Good morning everyone! It is Wednesday and if you are like me, you’re trying to get everything wrapped up before going out on holiday vacation! I have my pumpkin pies already for this week, so now I just need to wrap up work and then I need to keep my eyes watching the incredible Black Friday deals coming out.

Well I am here to give my best recommendations on deals that have currently come out, courtesy of Amazon. I’ve done the in-person shopping for Black Friday and truthfully, it is a tad disappointing. I feel you find significantly better deals and options when shopping online. The exception, of course, is when you’re shopping small businesses, although many towns down Small Business Saturdays these days. While online shopping is primarily the best options for your shopping needs, it is also important to include small businesses in your holiday shopping to support local business owners.

But now for my hot tips for this year; this is an assortment of personal purchases for you, but also some great ideas for those of you who might do office secret Santa but aren’t sure what to get them. So here they are!

Massage Gun
These were the hottest item for awhile, and I still see them all over social media as prime tools for working out the stresses of the day, or for recovering after an intense workout. Well, at this moment you can get one for less than $30, so this doesn’t break the bank for you, plus would fall under most Secret Santa price caps.

Second Monitor
This one was actually referred to me by a colleague, she got a portable monitor that can be connected to her laptop, giving her a second screen. She was a at a meeting and several people went ahead bought them right there because of how cool it was. There are several options out there, but she specifically referred me to this one that she got, and coincidentally it is on major discount for Black Friday. Highly recommend!

Reusable Rocketbook Notebook
My husband actually got one of these awhile back and thought it was pretty cool; this acts as a reusable notebook in that you can erase what you write. Where is the benefit? This links to an app where you can load up what you write down so it’s excellent for things like shopping lists, brainstorming lists, book ideas, or those moments in the middle of the night where you wake up an want to jot down your dream.

Jewelry Case
How many people actually have great storage for all of their jewelry, especially for traveling? I have bought plenty of earrings lately but still don’t have designated storage, so I feel this is a very good Stocking Stuff for almost anyone.

The Office Merchandise
Of course there is always the option for giving out merchandise from The Office to someone. My newest obsession is this magnet set that lets you set your mood based on which Michael Scott you are. A close second is the “What do you meme?” Office Edition.

Charcuterie Board
I know plenty of people who love a good charcuterie, but do not have a cute, bamboo board like this one to set their spread on. I have normally used plates or a cutting board separate from the one I am using to cut my cheeses and meats. Great idea for that coworker who loves to host! Or perhaps they like to have snacks for just themselves (guilty!).

Wireless Earbuds
I am sorry, but something like these does not need to cost over a hundred dollars like Apple insists their brand needs to be. They all work the exact same and at $15, they are great as a stocking stuffer or Secret Santa gift that can give you so much major kudos.

Bath Salts
I personally am not a huge fan of baths, like at all. I’m all about the shower, but there are plenty of people who enjoy a relaxing bath, and nothing adds to them like some bathsalts. I know bath bombs are still the “in thing” but the truth is they are really not that exciting, and typically just stain your skin and your tub. Skip the darn bombs and opt for some fancy salts; and if you go for a variety pack, you can opt to split them up as stocking stuffers for more than one person.

Crochet Kit
I have talked about the Woobles before and while they are typically considered the best out there, they unfortunately can be a bit pricy. Woobles are currently out on sale but I did want to call out this cute unicorn (and he has some friends) which are still at about half the price if you are looking for a cool craft to gift someone.

Cool Calendar
Calendars sound silly but they aren’t a bad gift, I’ve had a colleague gift all of us with a different calendar before. And my mom actually got all of us kids calendars at Christmas time, and she had wrote in each birthday and anniversary so we all knew them ahead of time. Now that is pretty impressive and while I cannot believe she took the time to do it, I absolutely loved it. The problem with calendars is that you can literally find a calendar of anything out there, so you have a lot of options. My calendar recommendation is this one of Australian firefighters which has been around for more than thirty years, and whose proceeds go to charity.

Coffee Sampler
If there are two things I love, it is coffee and an assorted sampler and here you have both! We all have a couple of people (friends, family, coworkers) who love their coffee so you can gift this entire thing to one person, or like the bath salts it is often fun to buy these sorts of assortments, knowing they’ll be split up between various people (I do it every year).

Gaming Controller
This is going to be more of a recommendation for you, but have you been meaning to get a new controller? Like this example, PS5 controllers are pretty pricey at $75 so now is a great time to save a bit of money on them. Which I think I better do myself because I know the husband has been wanting to get a new one.

Kindle Unlimited Membership and/or Kindle Device
Been meaning to get back into reading but do not know where to start? Well, with Kindle Unlimited you do this digitally through the Kindle app. You can do this on a phone or existing tablet, but Kindles are also on sale in case you have been meaning to upgrade your current one, or get one all together. Kindles are higher ticket items, but like items like video game controllers, they don’t often go on sale outside of events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday so it is good to jump on them when you can.

I hope my recommendations bore you some good fruit, but please let me and the other readers know if you find anything good this year! And until Friday, I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!