Company Swag - Topic of the day 1/18/25
What do you think of company swag? Every company gives it out. Do you ever rep your company or is it all just fodder?
63 Replies
O it's my topic
Beat company branded af1s
i give my mom all my YMCA merch š„
All I got as company swag was a polyester safety vest :linkAngry:
Tbh it was from an agency...
Pit trader jacket goes crazy (derogatory)
Crew jacket from redacted television show thatās the perfect shade of carhartt brown
for the most part itās all fodder. I have a bin in my basement filled with zip hoodies that I hope will one day be worth dozens of dollars
great source of workout shirts and stuff i dont really care about beating up or sweating in
I have a few crew jackets and hoodies, none of them get much wear but neat to have
most of my work swag is the usual fleece junk but two years ago they actually gave us a very comfortable carhartt zip hoodie that I'm wearing right now š
I pretty much never wear it outside of the house though because I dread meeting customers in the real world
I don't accept it anymore since I know I'll just get rid of it
ive got a company tshirt that says snowflake on it, i get some questionable interactions in the midwest but š¤·
Have literally never gotten work swag I actually wanted. Best case is it becomes a weekend slopping around the house fit. Most gets donated.
worked at whole foods for many years and got a bunch of clothing stuff in the process. got rid of everything but the apron lol
Conference totes are the worst as they are usually cheap crap and I'd probably have 50+ at this point if I kept any. I once got a lunch box my team now uses to transport urine samples?
Admittedly this is all academia. Perhaps if I worked for institutions that had more money, the swag would be betterš¤£
I think my favorite company swag was a blanket, for the holidays.
yeah this year they gave us this kind of online print-on-demand gift card thing where you could pick from a bunch of different items, I got a blanket
Seconding workout gear. Never had a company give me swag I would actually wear outside of a work event.
Iāve gotten some decent stuff from my workplace that I mostly wear lounging at home (namely some sweatshirts and fleeces, a great knitted blanket) but I once got this company branded hat that had āLatinXā in huge bright orange lettering that never stood a chance to be worn by me
Itās like Iām shouting from the rooftops: āIām LatinX and Iām a proud employee of [Company]!!!!!ā
Work swag are my pjs
I love free pjs
....was being LatinX somehow relevant to the event/company? Without any context that just seems....incredibly messed up? Like, did everyone get a LatinX cap? Did you get one assigned based on race/ethnicity and then have a race war? Genuinely curious wtf was going on thereš¤£
@ginsoul did u literally submit this so you could talk about your af1s
my friend (straightest man ever) had some pride swag that he got that he just wore all the time anyway lol
One of my uncles does that š
60 something Chinese guy who doesn't quite get using people's correct pronouns wearing a progress pride hat
Lol, so itās not like a Michael Scott on Diversity Day type hate crime, I think it was given to attendees of a work event sponsored by our LatinX resource group which I couldnāt make because I had to do something, but they sent it to me in the mail anyways because of my ethnicity
I asked around to see if my coworkers who are in the Asian, LGBT, Black, or Middle Eastern/North African resource groups got something similar at their respective events but it looks like no, it was just us
I can see why you wouldn't wear that, but that is the least disturbing response I could have hoped for. Michael Scott on diversity day is exactly the sort of thing I was imagining š¤£
I keep on getting tempted by company swag fleeces and the like at the thrift store... :Dia_eyes:
I guess for example my thrifted Northwest Airlines hat https://discord.com/channels/1116793467654381685/1135916565183856660/1251294963619074108 likely was swag and I have my USFWS shirts ?
most used swag are the insulated steel tumblers. i've got way too many tumblers and water bottles but ill take more if they are free to me. agreed on the company shirts. i use them at company volunteer events or random stuff around the house.
We get marine layer and I immediately donate it
I have a nice dickies jacket but it goes pretty unworn
@goofus is Marine Layer quality bad or just the work swag isn't your thing? They had 1-2 things I like the style of, but had never heard of them before
Got some decent heavy duty winter gear from my company, been wanting to iron on some patches over the company logo so it feels less weird to wear out
wish I got cool useful branded swag like the psychopaths at Palantir š¢
Nice try I'm not telling you where I work
Quality I don't really know how to comment on, seemed comfortable, but it was just that work swag isn't my thing
I think some company branded watches are fun. The Domino's Air King is semi well known, and the Google Dino has a silliness that I like.
missed opportunity for dominos to not do pepsi bezel tbh
what did the psychopaths at palantir get?
just shit like Patagonia before Patagonia changed policies, REI type backpacks
Annoyingly my company actually uses really solid blanks for the merch (Generally north face), but no force on earth can compel me to wear a company gilet
Used to wear company swag. Never again.
Might be willing to wear university swag (wife is a professor)
I don't really wear it myself (as a prof) but university swag somehow feels more widely OK. Company swag I think would depend some on where I worked and how much I believe in the mission vs it just being a way to pay the bills...
Admittedly that is more about philosophy than fashion per sr
The Dominoās rollie is a degree of swag I aspire to have
Mind boggling to think how much company āswagā ends up in landfill worldwide. Just give me the cash equivalent of a shitty T-shirt and tote bag please Mr. CEO Man.
Does this count
Wait this is worse lol
got my fair share of bad corporate items but these 2 I actually like
I have a bright red company windbreaker that I like because of how preposterously ugly it is, and a black hoodie I wear mainly when we have a campfire in the backyard.
I work in academia and get a decent amount of swag but my university is very polarizing athletically and I donāt care enough to invite that kind of heat. So I mostly avoid wearing any of that swag.
Do they have a racist mascot or something?
Itās Duke. Lots of hangers on, lots of annoying fans. Also lots of haters.
I think having a spicy college following/rivalry is pretty normal for America, not necessarily just racist mascots
Yeah, very different world haha. I've heard that people support sports teams of universities they didn't even attend
At my college, it was generally considered a huge faux pas to wear our own university's gear, but it was extremely common to wear clothes with other university's logos. The administration hated it for campus tours.
I went to a crappy university so nobody wore the merch honestly, it just made you a target for locals
It sounds like you are in Europe though? I think my college's unwritten rule not to wear the merch is rarer here in the U.S. It made you look like an unknowing freshman. The only acceptable items to wear socially were the plain crewneck sweatshirt with the college name and dad hat with the mascot stitched in needlepoint.
As a former Duke faculty member, really the only reason to wear Duke merch is when getting together with friends at UNCš¤£ At least that was my approach!
Oh, yeah, UK. The university sports thing in particular is always fascinating to me because I played on my Uni basketball team and honestly nobody cared š
(I understand its because of the spread of major league sports teams being SO far apart in the US compared to here)
Itās also just a cultural thing where school spirit and schoolās involvement in sports/extracurriculars is much higher even at the high school and middle school levels. College culture is also much different here and is more a part of your identity, though the UK is probably the only European country with a similar binge drinking culture for college students from what Iāve observed.
Oh no, UK and Ireland students are MUCH bigger drunks than Americans unfortunately.
But yeah the idea of stuff like school spirit is something that only really exists in the schools rich kids go to. Anyone post university making a big deal of it would be looked at like they got dropped on their head.
Genuinely fascinating how different it is
It is very different. America has many more teetotalers, but I think the house/frat party scene allows for a different type of over-the-top partying that I have never really seen elsewhere. Maybe the infamous Corey Worthington party in Australia? You might drink more on a pub crawl, but it is still somewhat in public.
i love ironically wearing a raytheon hat
and i have a pretty cool suede usc coat
but thatās about it
If the tote fabrics are decent, maybe chop and quilt or use for patches?
I guess I am in the minority here. When I was in an office everyday I loved the company t-shirts because I could dress way down and not feel out of place, not deal with shopping or what was work-nice to wear, PLUS wear the same stuff 2 weeks in a row and not look too lazy. Then after switching companies those all went to the house/yard work pile and still lasted a couple years. Helps when they have the right sizes, decent colors, and decent base (either thin/soft or thick/durable, neither tearable).
Current job though has a lot of grey and black for the base and is remote so I hide the clothes from cat hair and save for in-person I guess? There hasn't been much. Same idea - I figure t shirt or too casual doesn't matter if they gave it, so as long as I don't destroy it then it is work appropriate though boring.