Penny Foolish, Pound Wise and Gift Card Idiotic

My employer, bless its flinty corporate heart, has instituted a program of employee health awareness. We are all lured by the promise of a $25 gift card to make an appointment at the site health clinic for some sort of health evaluation. We then get another $25 gift card if we finish the program, whatever it is, that they have us do later, I forget, blah de blah. Point is, free gift card. I made an appointment.

This morning, after a twelve-hour fast (and a short night’s sleep, dropping a son off for swim practice at 5:45, and thirty minutes to stare uncomprehendingly at a list of unopened emails at my desk), I went down to the nurse’s office. I filled out forms (writing the date European-style, just to mess them up), got weighed and measured, had my body fat computed by squeezing the handles of what looked like a game console controller, and followed a very tired, very bored phlebotomist into the back office to get poked and squeezed. Only my arm got squeezed, and my other arm got poked. Blood test results will come back in a week. Blood pressure was surprisingly high.

So high, in fact, she wanted me to check it every day for a week, and call my doctor if it doesn’t go down. WTF? I thought my BP would be low, being as I eat well and exercise and don’t really worry about anything. Well, but I do. Maybe it’s all suppressed and my BP reflects some massive state of denial. What do I know?

What’s this all about, you ask? You don’t? You should. My company tends towards the leading edge of trends, so what they do, others might do too. If they’re willing to pay for all this for tens of thousands of people, there must be a reason. Something in it for them, and by extension, something in it for your employer too. Provided your employer is a massive corporation that looks at every little thing as an opportunity to save money.

Cause that’s what it must be about. Why else would they spend money except to save more? I figure their strategy is to get the employee base to be more health-aware. This will result in a) a healthier workforce hence lower healthcare and insurance costs, or b) an opportunity for the legal team to assert the old we-told-you-so we-covered-our-ass routine when they start trimming benefits to lower healthcare and insurance costs. Either way, they win. If we choose to be healthy and have a little luck, we win too. The poor sods who have health issues that these little blood pressure and blood test bandaids can’t address are another issue. Down the hall, second door. Yeah, the one with an emergency bar on it.

So they spend a little to save a lot. Yay for them! And yay for me! I got a gift card! Useable lots of places. I figured, hey, I got a couple for Best Buy from Christmas. Maybe I can combine them all and get me something neat. So I spent part of my lunch hour over at Best Buy.

Walked through the place.

Lots of TVs and MP3 players and cell phones and DVDs.

Nothing I wanted or needed. Nothing at all.

What is it with gift cards? What is it with only seeing things you want or need when you don’t have any money? These sun-za-beaches will still be in my wallet at the end of summer. They will.

I wonder if I’ll still have high blood pressure too. But nah, not if I don’t worry about it. Right?