You know what’s depressing?
Here’s what:
A team I was on won an award recently. We each got a certificate that the bosses had really nicely matted and framed for us. Mine had been sitting in its box since I got it, but we’ve got this open house thing tomorrow, so I thought I’d put it up.
It is physically impossible to hang it in my cubicle. It is too heavy and the cube walls are too thin to support it.
It’s the “Improving Our Workplace Award” (IOWA). Apparently nobody did an award-winning project to make good cube walls.
i hear you. the cube walls here are supposed to be like bulletin boards, so you can hang stuff with tacks. but you cant push a tack into them! maybe 1 out of 20 times you try you can actually find a spot a tack will penetrate. can you prop the certificate up against something? or on a shelf or something, maybe. hang it from the drop ceiling like a disco ball?
Take a look in Tsvet’s cubicle — he has some pretty heavy stuff hanging up, somehow or other.
Also note: the overhead bookshelves attach to the bracket mounts hiding between each of the “bulletin board” panels of the cube walls. I wonder if someone makes a small angle bracket — of the type retail outlets use to attach shelving or display posts — that will fit those brackets?
The question is, is it really a good award or is it one of those patronizing ones that they give you to try to say, “good job” when they really don’t mean it, but they think that, like a dog, if you don’t get a treat, you won’t work hard next time.
My team once was ushered into an all-staff meeting where they presented us with a….wait for it….cookie pie. You know, like a really large 10″ cookie. That was our reward for working overtime for 2 months and getting a product done under duress.
I never wanted to stab someone so badly. I will never, ever participate in a “cookie ceremony” again. :P~
So…not to put your award down, but I hope it was really something great and not something nearly as trite as that. 🙂
Nah, it’s a reasonably real award. I didn’t get a million bucks or anything, but there’s the nice framed certificate that’s leaning casually against my wall, and I shook hands with interim president Gary Fethke.