Honoring coworkers
Duing a stint as an on-site contractor at Verizon, I began to notice something interesting: the employees had all manner of awards, placques and certificates in their cubicles. Contractors, however, had none —not an unusual situation. But after seeing engineers that built and maintained mission-critical systems simply escorted out of the building at the end of a two-year engagement, I resolved to find a way to honor the hard work of my peers in a way that would not be too maudlin (or expensive.)
Thus began a ten-year career of creating humorous certificates, personalized to the recipient, for peers to scribble their best wishes on and ultimately present to honoree at a farewell luncheon. It is a source of both pride and sadness that I made more than a dozen of these at Verizon.
After Verizon, I was offered a position at Intelligent Software Solutions, a defense contractor specializing in data analytics, and worked with another marvelous team of talented people. And this provided another opportunity to honor the contributions and exploits of another family of employees.
