Darn! Being a contractor, I don't qualify for a mince pie! Then again, being a contractor is probably what keeps me (relatively) sane here.

Some of us got boxes of chocolates too! Who said working for CSC has no perks? All the staff i work with are really excited about the bonus, it's the best they've had in years!

.......oh god, someone please get me out of here................

AC'd so that i don't get fired for christmas.

I thought that only CSC staff who were at a CSC office were getting the mince pies - if you happen to be working at a client site (therefore generating wads of revenue) you got nothing.... still, nice to be nice eh?

whooo hoooo, I too got a box of chocs! They should have sent the money they used to do this to a charity instead, we're not quite charity cases yet!

I worked for CSC for a couple of years. We had loads of perks, the ones I remember were free water, and as many paperclips as you wanted.

Ha Im a contractor and I got a mince pie....mind you, standing between me and free mince pies would be foolhardy in the extreme...

I got my mince pie! Although, technically it was from a customer and not a CSC bod. Better to be a contracter than a permie. When you get made permenant you get another free perk, a P45.

P.H. used just to show i'm the AC from earlier.

Wonderful I got 36 of them!

But no one likes em.......

Now looking forward to a redundancy card

ho ho ho

Grrrrr... any jobs going at CSC? Here at EDS we have received nothing at all, just the satisfaction of a job well done.

Trust me, you don't want to work there. I did. Now I don't.

Never saw a bonus either.

Did someone send a SIGKILL to the barber daemon?

Working for CSC sounds just like working for Manpower on the IBM contract.

Manpowers were paid considerably less than permies, and never got a bonus either. We were the second class slave pool. Sacking them was a glorious moment.

I have had several mince pies, coffee and, through the post, a Christmas card with a box of chocolates. Makes me think I'm appreciated .................. (voice off - Niurse time for more of his medication ! )

As an ex-employee of CSC for many years I'm not sure that just one mince pie would be enough for the fat boys upstairs in Manor Offices - food used to get hoovered up in that place!! Surely CSC could have stretched to 2 or maybe even 3 box fulls to keep their staff alert over the festive period?

Don't confuse the chocolate "gift" with the "come and have a mince pie", they are totally different things... the former was mailed out to employees the latter was available in offices to come and collect.

Oh and ask your manager if they got the chocolates too....

Look on the back of the mince pie boxes - I bet they were made in India - I heard that CSC outsourced the manufacture of them to India - they had Mr Kipling (apparently a lowely paid under pressure IT techie) doing 'Knowledge Transfer' earlier this year.

Script is here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A663626

......Also now everytime a batch of mince pies is needed, someone in india phones the UK to get a UK person to talk them through the process of making mince pies - as the person that had the knowledge in India left and due to staff turnover the script keeps getting lost apparently.

....Rumour has it that despite handing over the knowledge, Mr Kipling is as busy as ever still carrying out the same work.......

I've heard they are currently flying in 3000 of the guys from India to the UK to collect their mince pies as (in CSCs eyes), this is more cost effective than sending the mince pies to India.

Whilst in the UK, these Indian employees will be visiting the aforementioned Mr Kipling's "Mince Pie Disaster Recovery Facility" at a hidden location, so that next year's mince pie production can be outsourced.

You've heard wrong about flying them in.. what's actually happened thus far is that Elves that normally make the mince pies have been made redundant and 20,000 height challenged indians wearing xmas turbans have been employed to help administer the mince pie 'distribution logistics'.. What's happened so far is that about 1000 various employee information spreadsheets have been gathered together, analysed and 'manipulated' in Microsoft Access 1992 version and the results have been given back to 'Head Office'.. this may explain why people in Fiji, Timbuktu and Saturns 3rd moon have all received a surprise box of mince pies and CSC staff are all getting excited for nothing...

All is not lost tho.. as the xmas indians have been backing up the distribution lists for next year so save the exercise being repeated.... so not to worry... as backing up data is what they do best.....

or do they...

hmmmm

It's quite fitting that CSC chose mince pies this year as not only do their staff have to battle endless red tape but once through that they have endless mincers to deal with throughout the company!

Rumour has it these mince pies were actually due to be delivered last year but in typical Tier 1 fashion they were delayed until this year.

Some of us take great offence at being called fat! Anyway the one known as "The Pieman" left last year.

The Fat postmen in chesterfield are balloting for strike action as they all got two mince pies last year and the merger of the Leeds office means these have been shared. The Fat postmen are not happy, more pies please

I left CSC and never even got EVR. Now I find out they are handing out free mince pies....Gutted. Wish I'd stayed

Has any one checked the sell by date?

Do you mean the mince pies/chocolates or CSC itself?

Well, I was shagging the missis, when the doorbell rang, bugger.

Went downstairs and the postwoman gave me this red jiffy bag. I know I should have realised where it was from but it didn't register at first.

So I opened it and it was a bloody carton of lindt chocolates and a birthday card from one of the managers, can't remember who it was, there are bloody loads of em.

I thought, that's a nice personal touch, NOT.

Why could't they just hand em out at work.

Mind you, I must say they were very nice :)

well i didn't get a mince pie or a box of chocolates.....but i did get a crate of becks, obviously i'm more important than the rest of you :-)

Hmmmmm

The NHS:

Well we got nothing, most of us are working over the festive period too, but wait!

I got free skin disease from all the cleaning and chemical/cheap latex gloves and terminated my career this year and no chance of compensation!

Huzzah !!!

God bless us one and all

(Tiny Tim)

and now a bottle of champers....sensing a disturbing theme. Combined with the grow your own venus fly trap kit I got as well i'm thinking xmas may be interesting in my office

..... that's right.... we got nothing..... except the glorious "Hey, at least you didn't lose your job!" manager comments.

It's only 4 months since I left and already they are handing out gifts to staff >:-(

Never mind, I shall console myself with the 10's of thousands of pounds they gave me to piss off :-)