Cindy

Droog

Read Cindy's bio and previous columns

March 19, 2009

The Award Submission Is Due When? Noooooooooo!

You’ve know the scenario. The annual awards for your industry are due this month, but no one seems to know exactly when. Not even the guy who’s on the committee. You look it up. Hold your breath. You know it’s coming, yet you pray for it not to be true.

God wasn’t listening. The entry is due by the end of the day tomorrow, and today is the first day in a year that your favorite intern called in sick. You tell yourself there’s no way that it’s because the weather finally made it into the 60s after a long winter. No way.

Sun or no sun, it’s no matter now. It’s all on you to pull it together.

You have no idea what really happened with the program you’re writing about, but when it comes to “fluff and puff,” you’ve learned to become the Pillsbury Dough Boy. You’ve even got the fake laugh down.

You pull a couple of rabbits out of your hat. You manage to find some data that you twist into something relevant that proves results. You convinced the V.P.’s secretary to supply you with a six-month-old Power Point slideshow with a couple of good quotes. For at this point, original content – aside from your introductory and conclusionary paragraphs, of course – is not an option.

The entry is eked out in the nick of time. Only you forgot. One more person needs to approve it. And he’s at a training seminar in Greensboro. On the odd chance (one in 10, most likely) that you win, and he hasn’t approved the brief description for the program and it makes it in, you’ll go another notch down the ladder you’ve propped against the wall outside your cubicle and are determined to climb.

Crap. You upload the entry anyway. Hit submit. Pray again.

This time, someone must have been listening. The next day, there is another crisis du jour, and your intern looks and feels better, if not slightly more sun-kissed.

You’ve forgotten all about the entry until a few months later when the dreaded e-mail comes. You’re a runner-up. No corporate equivalent of the Miss Universe sash shall be bestowed upon any of your company’s executives. The lobby shelf will have one less, “we’re better than our competitors and so we deserve a statue of arms reaching up to the sky” sculpture.

At the event, your executives will clap politely and silently curse your name as someone else gives their acceptance speech.

It’s sad. Not that your hard work was for naught. Not that you’ve disappointed someone despite the fact that you did your best with absolutely no time to prepare.

It’s sad that the adult version of the bowling trophy is one of those projects that lives on the edge of importance. It’s critical enough for people to get insanely worked up over, yet not so important as to prepare for it, or provide great direction for it. 

When the economy improves, and entry fees become a plausible way for companies to throw away money again, I’m going to start an Awards Development business. I’ll take on many clients. I’ll manage their needs for external positive reinforcement. I’ll keep their timelines, cherished related records and write copy that knocks the living freaking socks of judges in industries of all types.

Then, people in business in lower-to-middle management can go back to praying for important things. Like not being the one asked to represent their department at the next Doughnuts with the Directors meeting.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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