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Just fell off the turnip truck.
Oct. 6th, 2010 11:36 amI don't know when I discovered this, but I do know it was reasonably close to adulthood: Anyone can have a trophy or plaque made. I was stupefied. There are actual businesses that would sell trophies! To ANYONE! Without regard to whether they actually won anything!
I don't know what I thought the protocol WAS, but by golly I assumed there was something in place. That there were a few, tightly-controlled trophy suppliers. Not unlike the U.S. Mint system. With restricted access, products only obtainable by coaches and organizing bodies holding actual sanctioned competition. And of course there would also have to be some governing board somewhere, verifying that the persons or teams whose name was to be engraved had truly earned that regional championship, that employee of the month designation. I mean, you can't just let anyone have those things! They have be WORTHY of it!
I wasn't quite so astounded to learn that anyone can readily purchase BLANK certificates to be filled in however you wish. Surprised, maybe, but I quickly grasped the practicalities of that. I recognized that my 6th grade principal did not have time to appeal to the United Nations of Recognition to give me that "Good Citizen of the Month" award. But I persisted in my assumption that more substantial awards were more tightly controlled.
It all seems so impractical in retrospect, of course. Foolish, even.
But my heart still flutters a mite, when I reach out to run my finger across a pack of gold-rimmed faux-engraved blank awards in Office Max. And I still get a true thrill when I see an ad for a trophy business and think, There is nothing, NOTHING, holding me or anyone else back from acquiring completely unearned awards. And no one to report this crime to.
Mind-blowing.
I don't know what I thought the protocol WAS, but by golly I assumed there was something in place. That there were a few, tightly-controlled trophy suppliers. Not unlike the U.S. Mint system. With restricted access, products only obtainable by coaches and organizing bodies holding actual sanctioned competition. And of course there would also have to be some governing board somewhere, verifying that the persons or teams whose name was to be engraved had truly earned that regional championship, that employee of the month designation. I mean, you can't just let anyone have those things! They have be WORTHY of it!
I wasn't quite so astounded to learn that anyone can readily purchase BLANK certificates to be filled in however you wish. Surprised, maybe, but I quickly grasped the practicalities of that. I recognized that my 6th grade principal did not have time to appeal to the United Nations of Recognition to give me that "Good Citizen of the Month" award. But I persisted in my assumption that more substantial awards were more tightly controlled.
It all seems so impractical in retrospect, of course. Foolish, even.
But my heart still flutters a mite, when I reach out to run my finger across a pack of gold-rimmed faux-engraved blank awards in Office Max. And I still get a true thrill when I see an ad for a trophy business and think, There is nothing, NOTHING, holding me or anyone else back from acquiring completely unearned awards. And no one to report this crime to.
Mind-blowing.
