Do people still do Secret Santa at work or has it changed?

The real shift is that people care way more about setting a budget cap now than they used to. I've seen workplaces go from doing $20-30 exchanges to either bumping it up to like $50 or actually being strict about a lower limit because nobody wants the awkwardness of someone spending $5 while someone else drops $100. The whole thing is less of a surprise lately too - most offices now do a poll asking if people even want to participate instead of just assuming everyone's into it. With remote work being so common, some places have switched to group gift exchanges or even charity donations in someone's name instead of individual gifts, which honestly seems to work better when half your team is distributed across different states.

What hasn't really changed is the general vibe - people still participate enthusiastically at most places. The main difference is there's less mystery and more logistics involved. You'll often see a Slack poll or email asking who's in, what the budget is, and if there are any specific preferences or restrictions. Some workplaces use apps to manage it all now instead of drawing names from a hat, which takes out the whole "accidentally picking yourself" situation that used to happen. I've been part of a few office exchanges over the years and the ones that work best are when management stays out of it completely and lets employees decide whether they even want to do it.

The awkwardness hasn't gone away though - there's always that one person who forgets to participate or shows up empty handed, and Secret Santa can still get weird if someone gets a gift they genuinely hate. But yeah, it's definitely more intentional and structured than it used to be, with people actually opting in rather than it just being expected.