The other day we had our Annual Company Meeting. We had this off-site at a Marriott, and it began at 8 am. Right off the bat I was running late, but eventually started the 45 minute commute with my breakfast: two Heineken and a bowl of green. It was a delightful drive and I eventually arrived 15 min late, stood in the back of the room, smiling, taking photos of the event.
Around lunch time we took a break to have some sandwiches provided by the Marriott that were utterly disgusting. They just randomly handed out the sandwiches, so whichever one you got you were stuck with. I was stuck with a raw roast beef sandwich, on day (or two day) old wheat bread, two small thin strips of heavily-marbled red raw roast beef, the core of iceberg lettuce, and a soup ladle sized scoop of mayonnaise. The sandwich was also server with a pickle (which was good), and a mustard potato salad(which was bad). Needless to say it was horrible and I was still hungry. So I decided to leave to go out to get lunch, even though no one else left, I wasn’t too worried and didn’t think anyone would notice my absence. I went to Arby’s to replace the taste of the disgusting roast beef with delicious roast beef. On the way back my dessert was another bowl of green.
I got back to the hotel about 10 min after the meeting had resumed, happy as could be, grinning from ear to ear. But my boss was in the hall waiting for me when I returned, he was upset and embarrassed because they had been looking for me because they were handing out the employee awards and I was supposed to be taking pictures of this. But even worse, they had called out my name to come up and receive an award I won. Once back in the big meeting room, the owner and president, who were giving out the awards, noticed I had returned and called me up to the front to receive the award.
The awards are voted on by fellow employees and then the executive team meet and decide which of those employees nominated should receive an award. There are 6 different awards; for Collaboration, Continuous Learning, Courage, Fun, Integrity, and Quality.
I won the award for Integrity, the description of which is –
Candidates must demonstrate a commitment to ******** by consistently showing business excellence, while maintaining the highest standards of business ethics and portraying respectful, responsible behaviors and attitudes while making positive and sincere choices on the path to integrity.
Here’s another definition of integrity - comprises perceived consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles. Integrity may be seen as the quality of having a sense of honesty and truthfulness in regard to the motivations for one's actions. The term hypocrisy is used in contrast to integrity for asserting that one part of a value system is demonstrably at odds with another, and to demand that the parties holding apparently conflicting values account for the discrepancy or change their beliefs to improve internal consistency.
A pretty sweet award, made all the more special given the circumstances, and the fact that my work self is in some ways far different than my true self. It makes me proud that I can be who I am and enjoy what I like, yet still be able to go to work and act in a professional and ethical manner and make others believe that is truly who I am.
