Glen squinted at the scrolling lines on his monitor, scanning for the model numbers he was certain should have been somewhere in this section of the spec sheet. They were the last remaining items to fill on the order form before he could send it to billing and let the client know his new shipment of rack-mount servers would arrive in three business days. But for some reason the prefix and accompanying string of digits eluded him.
A dull thud on the desk next to his mouse caught his attention. He looked up to find Bryan from the neighboring pod standing beside him, a glass of bourbon held between his fingers for Glen to take.
"Work's done for the day," he announced. "It's party time."
Glen smiled. He straightened up in his chair and took the drink from the younger man. "Thanks," he replied. "I'm just going to finish filling out this purchase order and then...."
Bryan shook his head. "Nope, that can wait for tomorrow. Christmas party supersedes customer service. Company policy."
"Is it," Glen laughed.
"Oh yeah, it's in the handbook. Page 34, paragraph who-gives-a-shit. Come on, Secret Santa waits for no one."
Glen was skeptical of Bryan's logic. But he was the new guy, and Bryan had been there 4 years, so who was he to argue with seniority. He scooped up the glass and rose from the chair, following Bryan out into the lounge.
The culture here was so different from his last job. There he wore a suit and tie and made telephone calls and kept records on paper. Here he wore a half-zip, texted clients and stored everything online. Certainly not the career change he'd planned on making at 50, but car sales weren't quite what they used to be, and after the divorce he figured a clean break might do him some good. That clean break landed him here, selling IT hardware at a trendy, fast growing upstart.
He liked the job. The company was well run, the people were great, and the benefits package dwarfed what he earned at his previous employer. The difficult thing was how young they all were. Many of the reps were fresh out of college and not one was over 40. But they never treated him like the old guy. He was just one of them. With more gray hair.
He followed Bryan out of the Cubes and into the large double-height collaboration space teaming with laughter and flowing with alcohol. In the center of the space stood a long glass conference table with cups and bottles spread out over the near end, and several small packages wrapped in plain brown paper stacked at the other. They drifted toward the table.
"This your first gift exchange?" Bryan shouted above the music. Glen shook his head.
"First Secret Santa though," he replied. "Honestly, I still don't understand how it works here."
Bryan laughed. "Ah, a Secret Santa virgin, huh. Well, instead of everyone being Secret Santa for everyone else, there's only one. Remember that $25 you dropped off at accounting two weeks ago? Everyone else did the same thing. Then, one person gets selected at random and in secret, and he or she takes the money and buys gifts for everyone."
He waived his hand toward the pile of gifts. "At the end of the party, once everyone has opened their presents, everybody writes down who they think the Secret Santa is and we put the list in the vault. At next year's party, this year's Secret Santa is revealed and the person who guessed correctly wins $200."
Glen nodded. "So it's a gift exchange and a whodoneit. Sounds like fun."
"It is! You're at a bit of a disadvantage," Bryan added. "You don't know everyone's preferences or sense of humor yet. But you never know, you might get lucky!"
He led Glen to the far end of the table. Seated there with her legs crossed in a comfortable office chair, was a beautiful buxom blonde in a checkered blue button-down shirt and fuzzy grey knee-length skirt. Her blue velvet heels dangled playfully from her toes, her shoulders swayed gently to the music. As they approached, she looked up, her face gently tanned, eyes blue as the sky, golden curls twisted into a knot behind her head and locked with a pencil. Glen's heartrate ticked up as she smiled at them.
"Hey Glen," Abbie chirped. She was always so bright and cheery. He doubted the company could have found a better person to greet clients and work the front desk. He nodded, acknowledging her. If only he were 20 years younger. Bryan frowned playfully.
"Hey Glen?" he said. "What, I get nothing?"
"You've been roaming around here bugging me all day," she laughed. "This is the first time I've seen Glen. So he gets a hey, and you get nothing." She lifted a tall glass of red wine from the table and polished off the contents, eyeing Glen over the rim.
"Okay fine," Bryan conceded. "We're here for our presents," he declared. "And it's Glen's first Secret Santa party so make sure he gets something good. No lame old man stuff."
Abbie reached for the clip board and pen next to the stack. "I have no control over what he gets," she reminded Bryan, "that's the point of the Secret Santa. However, everybody likes Glen, so I'm sure he has nothing to worry about.
You
on the other hand...."
She adjusted her glasses. Scanning the spreadsheet, she scratched out two lines and scanned the numbers scribbled on the plain brown paper wrappers. She plucked two of the flatter packages from the dwindling pile.
"Number 16 for Bryan," she said, extending the packages, "and lucky number 7 for Glen."
Glen turned the box over in his hand, feeling the weight, shaking it a little. "You don't have to guess man, "Bryan laughed, "just open it."
He peeled the tape from the paper, carefully unwrapping first one end, then the other. By the time he got the wrapping off Bryan had already snapped the fitness tracker he pulled from his box around his wrist and was examining the readout.
Glen held up a finely sanded rectangular poplar box with a glossy white label, wrapped in a printed gold foil band. His face twisted into a bewildered smile. "Well," Bryan wondered, "what is it?"
