I hate awards

I was recently nominated for an award, a technology award. Actually, I was nominated along with one other guy that helped build - add on - to a product. And it just so happens that the product impressed someone enough that they nominated us for an award. Great.

Frankly, I don’t like awards. Most of the time I feel awards are just empty pats on the back from people that don’t really know why they voted (or nominated) someone. This happens to be one of those cases. It is not that I don’t feel somewhat honored to be nominated for any sort of award. But the one thing I also am not a fan of is the hoopla that comes with an award.

It is not enough to just say you’ve won or lost and send you a nice crystal paper weight. They have to have a banquet dinner and invite most unexciting people and put them under one roof. I have more fun dusting off and sorting my Hot Wheels cars.

It happens that I didn’t win the award. But frankly, it turns out I didn’t have a chance. The product I was nominated for was a web application that allowed my company to collect and distribute high school football scores for the entire state. Despite how I feel about my own product, it is kind of cool and works pretty well. However, the competition in the category were things along the lines of curing cancer and helping sick children. Football scores or saving lives? Hmmm…tough choice.

I think awards are only meaningful when they are nominated by and voted on by people that understand what is you did. It is easy to nominate people. “You do a great job, I’m going to nominate you for an award.” In other words, an empty gesture even if it was not intended to be. The other thing that makes an award worth something is if you can tell someone you have it and they know what you’re talking about.

All awards aren’t the Oscars so you have to look within the industry. I don’t believe that if I had gone up to a fellow tech nerd and say “I was nominated for a TopCAT award” that they would know what I was talking about. They’d probably just think I was an ass for mentioning it. I saw this as one of the awards CIO’s and CEO’s love to go for because it makes their company sound great and important.

I consider my reward when the people that are actually using the things I make tell me themselves how much they like it. I don’t need a trophy from The Man to tell me I’m good at what I do. But thanks for the chance.