From the Money segment of 

Excerpted from Michelle Goodman's article:

Company Morale Events Gone Bad

2.4.10

From a 'Borat' Screening to Awards for Laid-Off Employees, See How Some Firms Tried to Boost Morale and Failed

When Good Managers Have Bad Ideas

Even good managers aren't immune to mishandling morale boosters. When Tim McHeffey was a retail manager in Patchogue, N.Y., he made this flub:

"We had a program in which we rewarded [employees who got] good customer comments with $10 gift certificates. Brilliant me comes up with a way to save my employer money by giving a rose in a vase to each employee who received a nice customer letter. I sent out my assistant to purchase the cheapest vases she could find. We gave away lots of them. Until one day I overheard two employees laugh how they were going to get another one of those 'urinals.' When I looked closer, [I realized that] these ugly plastic vases resembled the kind of urinals used in hospitals. I quietly changed the policy to go back to giving out gift certificates."

Read the full article here.