Conversely...if you're a boss, do you expect one?

After years of buying Christmas presents for various bosses, a former boss told me, "Don't gift up. Your manager is supposed to thank you."

But I always feel bad not gifting someone who's gifted me. My boss gave each of us a small present this morning. Now, what do I do? Do I look like a suck-up if I get him something?

No way. My boss gets a gift from me every day that I show up for work on time and get my work (plus the 2 other people's worth of work, plus the slack from my incompetent co-workers) done. When I worked at museums we never really got bonuses or gifts, either. Maybe a department lunch paid for by the department head, but when I worked for the govement museum they even expected us to pay for that ourselves.

Last year I got a gift card, this year I don't know if we'll get anything and I really don't care. I did send a holiday card to my supervisor at the museum where I volunteer, but no gift. When I was a supervisor, I absolutely did not expect the people I oversaw to give me gifts; I did send each handwritten notes and small gifts however.

I don't have a boss anymore--although, as a freelancer, I guess I have a lot of them instead of just one--but back in my corporate days, I gave gifts to my employees but not to my boss. And I didn't expect my employees to give me anything, for the reason you cite: Gift down, not up.

In the case of a department, though, especially if the boss is well-liked, I think it would be cool if everybody went together and got some small thing, like a gift certificate or whatever. I don't think it's needed, though; it would just be a nice thing.

My "boss" I also consider to be a friend.

I ususally get him a bottle of Chilean wine (he's from Chile).

I have a horrible boss. She's unprofessional of the highest order. However, we have a crew of kiss ups who manage to rangle up a collection for her for her birthday, bosses day, christmas...etc.

If you left it up to me, nada.

I never have, and I have felt bad because she has gotten me gifts.

But I read about not gifting-up and it makes sense. There is something odd about expecting a lower-paid employee to buy a gift for a higher paid employee

Nope. Fuck that.

Last time I bought my boss a Christmas present was in the 90's. Why did he re-gift it to me the following Christmas???

Absolutely NOT.

Yes, this year for Christmas, I gave my boss the gift of giving.
He got a certificate stating that a donation had been made in his name to some bullshit foundation.

Visionnaire said:

Yes, this year for Christmas, I gave my boss the gift of giving.
He got a certificate stating that a donation had been made in his name to some bullshit foundation.

The Human fund, right?

No. I used to but I had to start cutting a few people out of my present rotation awhile back and one of the first was my boss. I simply can't afford it anymore.

I think if you feel like you need or want to return their gesture, a tasteful card and some sort of candy or maybe an ornament would be nice without breaking the budget.