Leaving Gifts for a Colleague You Will Actually Miss

The standard leaving present is a card everyone signed badly and a voucher for a shop nobody chose. It is fine. Nobody remembers it by March.

The thing a leaving colleague is about to have is a new desk with nothing on it, which is a better gift target than another mug.

Something for the next desk

A hand-signed 21 x 21 cm print at 35 euro fits on a shelf or a partition and does not need permission from a facilities manager. It comes signed and embossed, so it reads as a real object rather than office decoration.

If the team is chipping in, this is the price point where four people each putting in ten euro gets something genuinely good.

When the whole floor collects

An original painting between 320 and 520 euro is what a large collection can actually buy, and it is the only version of the gift they will still have in twenty years. There is exactly one of each piece, which is a nicer thing to say in a leaving speech than the amount on a voucher.

Pick it for the running joke

Every team has one. Weird Pigeon for the person who fed the birds outside. Plastic Memories for the one with the desk toy collection. Save Point 11:59 for the one who always left at exactly the same minute.

A piece chosen for a specific shared joke beats an expensive generic one every time.

If they are moving abroad

Do not give them anything heavy. They are about to pack a life into a suitcase. A printable download at 9,90 euro crosses any border weightlessly and gets printed once they have a wall again.

Small additions to the card

Stickers at 3,90 euro for the new laptop. Free phone wallpapers if the budget genuinely ran out.