Most days I hate my job; not because it's that difficult or that stressful but just because I have to do it. Some days I'm just not feeling it. Most days I commit 'professional recklessness' the phrase I coined to describe how I conduct myself in my cushy position that I feel I earned after spending 13 years in the Telecom industry. Professional recklessness is at it's best when I'm driving through school zones presenting to people in about 8 different countries while Maison is watching Smurfs on the DVD player in the car. Yes, these occurrences say I care a lot about my job.
But then today I got an email from our senior management regarding our "Thinking Days" results. (Aside: "Thinking Days" were just created by our Senior Mgmt in the trendy Applications group I'm in, which means for 2 days a quarter we just think about improving our product or improving ourselves...no emails, no meetings, no conference calls, no IMs...just thinking). Quite honestly, I did consider dialing this one in and doing a half-azz job considering I work from home and all. It would have been easy to think while watching Days of our Lives. But in the end I decided to give it a go, not just because I'm such a stellar employee but because my manager asked us to report back to our team how we spent our two days. So I put together some process improvements for Agile methodology and PCT (project core team) and submitted it.
You can imagine my surprise when I got an email today saying out of 250 employees, 60 ideas were submitted to the Senior Leadership Team by our managers for potential implementation. Of the 60 ideas 19 were selected for implementation and the 19 submitters would receive $25 Amazon gift cards. Of the 19, 4 finalist were selected to receive an iPad 3 with 4G and LTE functionality....wait for it, wait for it...I was one of the 4 finalist! I was in the car with my dad looking at houses (yes, committing more professional recklessness) when I got the email and I literally blurted out, "Holy Sh*t, I just won an award at work." I think I'm still in shock...I literally had to read the email 3 times before i believed it.
Considering most telecom companies haven't given their employees anything but a pay check in the last 10 years I was floored that they would spring for a top of the line iPad....sometimes working in worth it!
Woohoo!
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