Employee Recognition Cards

The company I work for likes to recognize its employees for a job well done. This is achieved through the formation of “committees”. We have two committees that I know of. There’s the “Fun Committee” that recognizes fun things and there’s the “Recognition Committee” that recognizes recognizable things.

The Recognition Committee got this idea to put “employee recognition cards” all over the office under the theory that if your peer does something great, you’d fill out one of the cards, put it in one of the Recognition Boxes and then the Recognition Committee would dig it out and post it on the Recognition Wall.

I recently discovered the Recognition Boxes.

I filled them out for everything.

One of my coworkers was moving to Alaska, for which I promptly filled out a recognition card for. “This is to recognize Jim for moving to Alaska.” “This is to recognize Scott for being mostly a jerk instead of a total jerk as per usual.” “This is to recognize Susan for saving the day that one time.” “This is to recognize Jane for boldly using the word ‘breeded’ in a sentence whilst on the phone with a customer who probably knew that ‘breeded’ isn’t a word.”

I lost interest in this exercise after about a week. Then, a month later, one of my coworkers – an emissary if you will - from the Recognition Committee approached me with a handful of Recognition Cards. He was very serious. His breath smelled like truck stop coffee and Marlboro Reds. By his demeanor, I thought he was coming to tell me he hit my car in the parking lot. In a very serious voice he asked me to stop filling out recognition cards. Apparently I wasn’t taking them seriously.

I listened to everything he had to say and, after a brief temper tantrum, told him that I appreciated his coming to me in this matter. It was a good meeting. When he was finished and out of the room I filled out another recognition card recognizing him for talking about recognition card abuse. Lesson learned, sir, lesson learned.