workaday Wednesday

I told a lie at work yesterday. In my defense, I was confused, and I still think there was a possibility I ended up in some weird alternate universe for a few minutes.

Okay, backstory: like many workplaces, mine likes to hand out trophies sometimes. My sense is that this mainly makes the committees that hand them out feel good, because these trophies are not much to write home about. They are essentially dollar-store plastic on top of a little block that has your name and accomplishment on it. (I got one for participating in a fitness challenge. I was hoping for a food prize, but no luck.)

[Interlude on workplace prizes in general: these are challenging. I get that. I’m not rallying against trophies, or anything. It’s nice that the company recognizes people at all, and this is how they’ve chosen to do that, and I respect that choice. In some ways I thought it was clever, because it’s recognition that is less likely to cause resentment — it’s a plastic trophy; it has no intrinsic value whatsoever.]

The showdown: I use past tense because yesterday I ended up in a room with one of the trophy-giving committees, and now I’m confused. The following conversation actually took place:

Committee team member: “We could hand out more of those trophies! I love those!” [turns to me] “Do you love yours?”

Me (thinking): is she joking? it doesn’t seem like she’s joking? no one really loves the trophies, do they? they’re not really substantial enough to engender such strong a strong emotion, I mean I don’t hate it, I would say I have a mild affection for it, but that’s not really love — she’s still waiting for me to answer, isn’t she?

Me: “Yes?”
[note: this was the lie]

Other committee team member: “Have you drank out of it yet? You have to drink out of it.”

Me (thinking): is *he* joking? you can’t actually drink out of it, I mean I guess you could, but that would be weird, because I’m not even sure that plastic is meant to be watertight, and what if the color just dissolved right off, that would be awkward and wouldn’t a regular mug just be better maybe they could give out mugs instead of trophies — he’s still waiting for an answer, isn’t he?

Me: “No. Um. Not yet?”

Anyway. Weird day.

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.