Positive Reinforcement

my office at work has started granting ourselves extremely well-deserved and not at all outlandish awards for our outstanding work in a number of life arenas. over the past several weeks, we've awarded ourselves the following (accomplishment/award format/granted to/awarded by):

Ah, but before we get to that, i should first introduce our office. it's me, laura, bill, joan, and helen. cathy is my good friend that you met at zeitgeist previously (see Friday, 4:45pm), who is often in our office.

'Best Office Award'/ribbon/our office/Cathy

We think Cathy is bomb and she thinks we're cool too. Also, we have a window, which is nice to sit close to while you're taking a little break from work.

'Participant'/ribbon/our office/Bill

because we are here. we show up. pretty generally, we are around. and also because these were the only awards that bill claims he ever got in elementary school.

'Bravery'/medal + ribbon/?/Bill

i don't recall any of us doing particularly brave lately, so i have no idea how we earned this.

'Honesty'/medal + ribbon/me/Bill

the other day i got this errant email from some admin that gave me access to a spreadsheet filled with detailed performance reviews for other people in the company. i didn't open it. it is for this reason that bill awarded me the ribbon for Honesty.

'Shoes'/ribbon + graphic (think: leg lamp in Christmas Story)/me/Bill

i didn't really win this. i basically told bill to give me a shoe award, so he went up and drew it on the whiteboard.

'Best Beard'/statuette/Joan/Bill

because it is important to recognize everyone's strengths, and mine is shoes, i thought of what bill's may be. he has a spectacularly well-groomed beard, and went up to draw the award himself and then realized that it was stupid to be granting himself an award. so i made joan draw it, since she's an actual legit artist.

it's the best award so far. it's a statuette of a beard. a standalone beard. when i asked that a face be drawn, bill pointed out, 'it isn't the best face with a beard award. it's just the best beard award.'

award yourself something. it doesn't matter if it's less of a strength or talent, and more of a distinguishing character that is particular to you because it makes it a lot less likely that someone will beat you and earn the ribbon for themselves.