Secret Anxiety and Sadness and Anger all wrapped up in one person

Today is one of my least favorite days of the year. It is the day that our organization holds a conference and carries out the infamous award ceremony. This is the only place I've ever been that has an award ceremony. It is a humiliating experience. The chosen few get to walk the stage while the rest of us are left to contemplate whether or not the accomplishment was worthy of such merits and how it compared to the effort we put forth during the year.

I have been here 3.5 years and have never received an award. The funny thing is that what I do is always touted as the largest producing area of the university, but my name is rarely mentioned with it. I can't tell if I'm on a bad list or if people just think it's being done by others. I've improved processes, created documents to help support the development teams and tried to become more efficient in general. All behind the scenes.

Now, I will say that I am not someone that works to get rewards. However, over time, the lack of recognition for trying to improve my little part of the world starts to wear on me. Some of the award recipients really do deserve their honor. Others just contributed to a small project in a big way and receive accolades even if they wasted away the rest of their year in long lunch hours, smoke breaks and creating long unwieldy useless documents.

And, here I go to the first meeting of the conference….