Reply #5: I realize that you're putting up a strawman here, but I can answer you. [View All]

[ArbustoBuster]

I bet you didn't expect anyone to answer, did you?

Yes, you can sometimes be required to report those. I once worked for a company that required me to report the receipt of things like that from vendors we did business with. It was reported en masse, as something like "received bag of random stress-ball desk toys from Vendor X, toys were handed out to the sales team since I didn't want any of them". This was done because one of the higher-ups was absolutely nuts. But, nevertheless, it's possible to require reporting of those kinds of things and to actually do the reporting as required.

If, however, you can't tell the difference between a reasonable demand for complete transparency in fiscal relationships between researchers and industry and your strawman argument about requiring you to report the receipt of an individual pen, then you really need to work on your English skills.