Good point. It is “receive” I’ll edit!
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Just a note (and I’m sorry if I missed someone else explaining it like this), but a fairly easy way to remember あげるat least is to imagine a social hierarchy. You want to be polite so you’re putting yourself below the other person. Therefore when you’re doing something for them you’re doing it ‘upwards’ to them (which ties in with あげる as ‘to raise’.)
くれる is giving ‘down’ the hierarchy , and as you (being polite) are putting yourself below the other person, this could only mean something being given to you.
And for もらう (to receive), using て - form +もらう leads to you ‘receiving’ the action. It can be thought of the action being gifted to you (i.e. done for you).
Yamitenshi’s answer above is really good but maybe this can help someone remember which way round they go.
edit: Good link for this: Giving and Receiving – Learn Japanese (I’m a massive Tae Kim Stan)
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Be very careful when you use absolutes with Japanese. This statement is incorrect.
Usually this is the case but くれる can certainly mean giving something to something/one else as well. I don’t want to confuse op and other people just learning about this for the first time, but just keep in mind things go a bit deeper and what we’re learning here is not the end all be all.
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Is it really incorrect in the context of “as you (being polite) are putting yourself below the other person”? If so fair enough, but as stated this is with the assumption that you are being polite and putting yourself below someone in terms of status.
Usually this is the case but くれるan certainly mean giving something to something/one else as well.
I’m interested: would you use that if you were addressing your employees or something like that?
Hmm, this could develop into a much more difficult conversation depending on how much of an essay I write here, so I’ll keep it brief since this isn’t meant to be an advanced lesson or anything.
It’s fine to think of kureru as putting the receiver below the giver. In realistic contexts, it’s not really actually nuanced a lot of times, and kureru is just what you would say to an equal, for example. So really, I wouldn’t read too much into it on a politeness level in a majority of cases.
When you, the speaker, give and use kureru for it however, it can actually be putting the other person below you. In fact that’s almost always how it’s used in that case I wanna say. If you’re seeing it as くれてやる I would go as far to say as it may very well ALWAYS be the case.
So yeah, kureru is just to give and can be you giving to someone else or someone else giving to you. You can be the higher one up, they can be, or neither can be. But yes if you’re being polite to them, you wouldn’t use it for you giving them something.
I dunno, I’ve never been around a Japanese speaking employer so I don’t know actually lol. Maybe someone who’s worked at a Japanese company does.
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That’s how I heard it being used in anime often as well.
If I one really wants to put oneself below there is also くださる.
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Right, which is why the initial context might be a bit weird. If you were really being polite and putting yourself down, you probably wouldn’t use kureru in the first place.
Regardless, I don’t want to make this too confusing, but just keep in mind that often times ageru and kureru are pretty neutral and maybe in the back of your head remember kureru can be used both ways. It’s just when you are using kureru to give, it can have a lot more emphasis on the hierarchy. But that’s not as important.
Maybe at most with a 〜てくれてありがとうございます, but I feel like we’re splitting hairs at this point
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And now that you have been hopefully enlightened OP, you, (and everybody else of course) can try to answer this あげる/もらう/くれる puzzle 
What does mean:
もらってあげてくれるか
I read it in an article a while ago, and was completely dumbfounded, but the author claim that for native Japanese speaker there is no confusion in understanding the relationship in the three ellipted arguments.
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Yeah, the meaning is apparent. It’s just asking someone to accept something that someone close to the speaker is most likely trying to give them. The subtleties could change with context, but overall it’s not like it could mean something else.
Maybe it’s cheating but I found this:
So it means “would you mind receiving something [from someone]” I suppose?
もらって - receive
もらってあげて - receive for someone
もらってあげてくれる - receive for someone for me(?)
Constructions like this are the masochistic reason that I like Japanese so much haha, thank you for the puzzle
Cheating! 
The paper didn’t formulate it exactly like that, but I think you are right. It says:
Solution
‘Would (you) receive (it) from (her/him) for (me)?’ That is to say, the act of you receiving it does a favour to her/him, and that event does me a favour
Edit: Just realized that this exact construction is also explained in the article linked by @NicoleIsEnough above (Ageru, Kureru, Morau あげる, くれる, もらう | Japanese with Anime). Funny how two completely sources use the same puzzle!
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