"Best of City-etched products"

[Kev Williams]

The city I live in has sent me a few emails, stating that our business has been awarded a 'best of' award in their 'etched products' category.

And they point out that, to show pride in our achievement, we should go online and claim our award--

--in the form of purchasing a pair of trophies; a nice acrylic award and a nice plaque. Only $199 for both...

I'm fighting the urge to take the email to city hall and point out the obvious irony...

[David Somers]

Kev,

Perhaps you should bid on the job???? he he he!

Congrats on the recognition by the way!!!

Dave

[Michael Reilly]

We had an article published about us in our city newspaper and some year and a half later, we still get emails from companies wanting to produce a plaque of it for us. When they first called, I told them that we were more than capable of doing it for ourselves!

[Michael Reilly]

I do have to say that it takes the credibility out of an award program if you have to buy your own trophy. I realize they cost money, but that's what entry fees are for.

[John Bion]

Congratulations Kev, I have no doubt that your work deserves an award - the SMC photo contest was one evidence of that.
The first thing I would think of if I received that e-mail was 'this is just another scam', but if it is genuinely from the city, then it wouldn’t be a moneymaking scam..... would it?

[Dan Hintz]

Are you sure this is actually sponsored by the city? It sounds an AWFUL lot like the "Due to your standing in the community, you've been nominated to be included in this year's edition of Who's Who.. please send $150 for your copy." scam... and everyone gets that letter.

If the city truly is sponsoring it, asking recipients to pay for their own trophy (especially at that price) is... erm, defeating the purpose?

[Mike Null]

I agree with Dan. What's amazing to me is how many of my doctors signed up for the "Top Ten Doctors in St. Louis" scam.

[Scott Shepherd]

We made the cover of a sign magazine a few months ago. I emailed the publisher and asked if we could get a digital copy of the article. Their response was "Sure, send us $500 and we'll send you the digital copy and release any copyright restrictions on it for you". Then we've been pestered week after week by a company that scans magazine articles for people and they want to make us a plaque that has the article mounted to it, like you see in various small businesses, and it's only $299.

Something we did, which helped sell them magazines, and we got nothing for doing, and everyone wants something from us on it. Looking back, we should have charged them for the article

[Pete James]

Or you all could be like me. My work is so shoddy that no one dares give us any awards or write glowing articles.

[Mike Null]

Pete

The quality of your work is not what counts--they want the money.

[Scott Shepherd]

Or you all could be like me. My work is so shoddy that no one dares give us any awards or write glowing articles.

Pete, what award do you want? Johnson sells plenty of them. Just buy the one you want, engrave what you want, and you're all set

We subleased from a contractor when we first started and we had done some samples for a company and had some award left over. I created an award for him and it was something along the lines of "Contractors R??????? Association Professionals" (Can't remember what the r word I used was. It looked really nice. I gave it to him and he loved it. Proudly put it on his desk, people would come in and comment about his award.

In big letters, down the side, it said "CRAP".

I laughed about it for quite a while. One day I showed it to him and he busted out laughing as well. He had no idea and no one had picked up on it. Many of customers congratulated him on it, so just order you something, make it what you want, and put it on the shelf.

I know a guy that owns an awards place. He got a panic call one Saturday asking if he could do a one off trophy that day. He met the guy there and the guy was apparently with his girlfriend Friday night and he had told his wife he was in a basketball competition. He came in and bought a basketball trophy and had it custom engraved with the details on where he was supposed to have been

[Bert Kemp]

Maybe we should all engrave a few top honors awards for ourselves, place them around the towns we live in , say a gift shop, or store that maybe sells your stuff, in your own store or office if you have that. Lots of restaurants and stores have place's for local business men to place their cards, hey leave an awards plaque with a build in card holder LOL

[David Somers]

Bert,

Great idea!!! Maybe we could take it a step further and each do an award or two or three for someone else on the forum? That way it doesn't seem quite so self serving. I could do some for you (it would have to be a turned wood item....no laser yet) and you could do some for Scott, and Scott could do a couple for Mike, etc etc. A mutual admiration society? And if we each charged $199 for an award it would all balance out and no money would even have to change hands! This is brilliance!

<grin>

[matt heinzel]

I just hope it is isn't from the US Commerce Association! USCA or USLBA is a scam for sure. We actually use to make the plaques and glass awards for them :-)

[Glen Monaghan]

...I created an award for him and it was something along the lines of "Contractors R??????? Association Professionals" (Can't remember what the r word I used was. It looked really nice. I gave it to him and he loved it. Proudly put it on his desk, people would come in and comment about his award.

In big letters, down the side, it said "CRAP".

Hired as the hardware engineer on my first job, I was the junior team member and so got all the crappy little office tasks that everyone else could get pawned off to me. Hence the moniker I was given of Junior S[undry] Jobs Officer. I also took on the software engineer role when that guy quit late in the project. My combined duties were to include overseeing all the crappy details of subsystem integration and testing, so I wrote up my job description with the job title "Software/Hardware Integration & Test Engineer". My boss said it all looked great and signed off. His boss signed off. It was sent to HR where an astute student of acronyms approved it with the only change being to swap Software and Hardware in the job title, making me merely a HSIT Engineer...