My SO got a Tiffany keychain from his boss. I wouldn’t mind a piece of Tiffany something, as I would never buy one on my own (or ask for one; I’d much prefer a PSP or something.) But I’d prefer something like that to a plastic paperweight. I even prefer plaques. I keep minimal things on my desk and don’t want to feel obligated to keep more.
My company does the exact same thing. Makes me wonder if we work for the same company!
The 5-year “gift award” that I selected was a very pretty silver & ruby ring. I wear it on my wedding ring finger and tell people that I’m married to my job. 
I used to work for a company that managed employee benefit programs for school boards and state governments. One year, as an enrollment incentive, I ordered little tiny Matchbox car school buses with our logo printed on them. Each work location got like 50 of 'em to hand out to the first 50 people who showed up to turn in their benefit enrollment forms.
Five years later, I* still* had people coming by my office to ask if I had any left over and could they have one?
I’m sorry for your pain, but that’s funny as hell to me. It really is.
I think I’ve posted this before, but a company I used to work for dumped a big extra project on us all and handed out awards to people who logged the most time or something. Anyway, my manager - a super lady, really - got an award. An iPhone. *Just *the phone, in a box. She was in the middle of a divorce and couldn’t afford the expensive plan you need to, y’know, go with those things so you can actually use it. Saddest thing I’ve ever seen. What a slap in the face to her.
Can I have one?
Exactly. The paperweight or plaque or mug are just the tangible symbol of the recognition. It’s no different than a soldier getting a medal.
The problem is that some businesses haven’t figured out the symbolic part. They believe that the symbol is what’s important and forget to give the recognition that was supposed to go with it. In cases like that, a paperweight is indeed just a meaningless lump of plastic.
Scott Adams creator of Dilbert once pointed out that employee recognition programs are the cheapest way for management to demotivate staff. You give one person a cheap trinket and piss off everyone else. It may also have been him that pointed out that to be eligible for a recognition award you have to be a low level drone, there are no awards for best VP or best director.
Yeah, 'cause it’s *so *terribly difficult to (a) jailbreak the phone or (b) just sell it. How truly *terrible *to be handed a very expensive and fun piece of technology.
No different? Really? Would you guess that the % of plastic squares in dumpsters to the ones handed out is less, equal, or more than the % of military medals awarded? Do you guess ex-military routinely trash their medals and pins like workers would do with their plastic trinkets?
A soldier’s children would be honored to hold on to their father’s medal as a keepsake. They would also worship a wristwatch even it was inserted up his dad’s rectum (e.g. Pulp Fiction.)
I don’t see children wanting dad’s plastic cube of “Best Voted Employee 2010” in their display case. I suppose the father could shove that plastic cube up his rectum to give it more “character” but I still have doubts this would convince his children to want it.
Sure, I see the similarities between the acrylic paperweights and sports trophies. The sports trophies I understand because it’s usually given out to adolescents for high school competitions… football, swim meets, etc. They are young and impressionable for that sort of thing. When they were even younger than that in elementary school, you could blow their minds by sticking scratch-n-sniff stickers to graded homework papers as motivation.
So we have this in-between age of 22 - 65 year old workers that you can’t really give trophies too (too juvenile) or service medals (civilians not military). The plastic squares is our best tactile artifact? I wonder if its a cultural thing. Do workers in Japan and Germany get these things?
So, it’s only the low-level drones that are dumber than hamsters. 
The senior vice presidents and directors are not fooled by such nonsense. Scott Adams – the man is genius.
I do not agree with the OP on this one. The point of the cube is recognition for a job well done. Apparently Ruminator has worked for companies that take the time to acknowledge success. If the company gives them out to practically everyone that works there over time, well, yeah, then they are meaningless but if they are given to an employee of the year with the name engraved, I think that is very nice and would be proud to have one on my desk. And no, I wouldn’t rather have a movie coupon or a gift card for a steak, this would mean more to me because it is something that lasts and I could keep.
Seems to me with so many companies doing absolutely nothing to thank their employees, people would be more grateful for being complimented no matter what the form it takes. I would certainly save such an award and not add it to the landfill.
I also wanted to add, past the edit window, that every year I receive quite a substantial end of year bonus from my employer. The money is great, don’t get me wrong, but I look forward to his kind words of appreciation in the card just as much (if not more) than the cash.
Thank you for presenting your comments – especially given that I’ve had so many harsh words about it. I respect your sincere opinion.
Apparently, I work in an alternate universe because me and my colleagues are jaded and we all think those things have become a form of mockery. Give us a $5 laser pointer with the company logo plastered all over it instead of a $30 plastic cube. That’s how we think.
Imagine my world where I’m walking into cubicles and offices where people have a dozen of these plastic paperweights. For example, you would get one for each milestone shipment of a product. You ship every 6 months and all of a sudden after 5 years, you’ve got 10 of them. This doesn’t include the other plastic paperweights for accomplishments unrelated to shipping products. One person stacked them into pyramids on the window sill. They’re no longer respected mementos. They’re just lego toys for adults. They’re a joke.
That grammar should have been “my colleagues and I are jaded”.
I usually leave mistakes alone but that one was too glaring to leave as is. I’m not going to get any awards for English editing.
I’m fresh out, sorry.
You appear to be under the impression that every piece of decoration on the chest of a member of the armed forces is for something extraordinary. They’re not. There’s some of bling you get pretty much just for showing up. There’s a similar–albeit more restricted–range in play with recognition at your place of work.
No, high-level people get rewarded for good performance through a significant portion of their pay coming in the form of variable compensation. When you don’t want to extend that to the lower ranks, you need to come up with other ways of recognizing their achievements and making them feel appreciated. Which isn’t to say that all of the ways are *good *ways or ones that work, but.
I was specifically thinking of the medals like Little Nemo cited…presented in velvet jewelry boxes or clamshell cases. They look nice. They appear to have staying power. They become family heirlooms.
Your example of a modest ribbon to me would be equivalent to the name tag they slide into the slot of a cubical label… or maybe equivalent to a box of business cards. You get those just for having a pulse on the job site.
I agree but I was thinking that the plastic squares were something HR folks liked more than the actual employees on the ground. (Setting aside Notchimine’s particular example.)
Okay, fine, how about a Good Conduct Medal? Still pretty much just for showing up (serving a continuous three-year span without any non-judicial punishments, disciplinary infractions, or court martial offenses).
Most organization tends to have various ways of recognizing people. Not all of them are for spectacular things. But not all of them are universally bad or disliked, even when they’re recognizing pretty baseline behavior.
Polymervores such as them at least can eat their own work.
I get your point about this particular medal.
When Little Nemo mentioned “getting a medal”, I was picturing a ceremony where the President or a general presents it to you. I thought he was equating the plastic squares to THAT kind of medal and not the lower intermediate medals.
My point was that nobody really values a medal or an award because of its instrinsic value. A Congressional Medal of Honor is physically just a small piece of cloth with a little metal token hanging at the end. Its value is what it symbolizes - that the organization you belong to is publically recognizing your merit.
The reason corporate awards don’t get the same level of respect is because most corporations don’t offer the same level of recognition. So the symbols have correspondingly less meaning.