I’ve been busy. WAY busy. Between hockey, housework, and other chores, I’m just not getting any time to relax. It’s becoming a little more than I can stand. Hockey’s fun, but I continue to maintain that once the season starts, it really cramps the schedule.

Jenn’s still not done with her costume. I can only hope she’s got it done by Saturday for the party.

We went over to my parents’ house last night to help them make a flyer because they’re selling their house. While my dad and I did that, Jenn and my mom went to Costco. We tried to finish before they got back, but we didn’t and for a short while it looked like it was going to turn into a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen sort of thing.

But we got it done, and Jenn and I got home with enough time to price all of the stuff that we’ll be putting into the garage sale that my parents are having on Saturday, which I will be helping out with after my oil change that morning. We have to take our stuff over there tonight because there’s a hockey game tomorrow night and we won’t have time.

The company all-hands quarterly meeting happened today. Among other things during the meeting, they recognize certain individuals who give an outstanding effort towards the betterment of the company. Recognized people get a $50 gift certificate to a local restaurant (or wherever they happen to get certificates from this quarter). After they recognized several engineers who helped out with different efforts, the VP of marketing got up there and said he had one person he’d like to recognize.

He described the person as helping to enhance the outward appearance of the company and make it look more professional. He said the person put forth quite the effort for our recent user conference and went the extra mile to ensure that everything was provided for. I almost tuned out, but then he said that the person was “the guy behind the new corporate web site.” Huh? I didn’t do anything for the user conference… so that must mean…

That’s right - the guy who handed me the graphics to base the web site off of was the guy who got the recognition.

He basically handed me screen shots, folks. I did all of the implementation work. The magic that makes the site functional? Me. The new dynamic navigation system that allows easier content management on the back end? Me. The templated standardization and easy updates to the global look and feel? That would be… me. Oh, and the server hardware and software upgrades and security enhancements on the back end were also me.

The guy who got recognized did come by and say that, technically, I was the guy behind the site, while he was the guy in front of it. Which was very cool of him to acknowledge, but it’s interesting to see that what the rest of the company, outside of my department, sees is that he did all this work. And, of course, when it was my boss’s turn to speak, he threw in the “Travis did the back end work” comment, which was also nice. Not quite on the visibility level as the previous recognition, though.

Our department, Corporate IT, got recognized very briefly for “all the good work we do keeping things together” and we’re going to get to go to lunch at a “reasonable place.” Cool. So they recognize this other guy for accomplishments he didn’t even do and he gets $50, and our department gets recognized en masse and gets a $7.50 lunch. Sounds fair to me. What do you guys think?

Anyway, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stewing over this one. I’d like to think that I do some pretty good work around here, and the people who are directly involved with my projects - who know who’s doing the work - are pretty damn happy with the stuff I produce. I’d like to think that if you want something done, anyone can do it, but if you want it done right then you come to me. And that’s the kind of product I turn out.

Getting pretty much snubbed like that in front of the company has left a bad taste in my mouth. It makes me wonder what the point of working so hard is if you’re not even going to get credit for the work you do. I’m sure others out there have gotten more than their fair share of this kind of thing, but this is the first time I’ve been out-and-out ignored for my efforts. So if I seem a little pissed off, that’s why. And if you don’t like me complaining about it, you can fuck off. I did the work, I should get the credit - even if that doesn’t entail any sort of monetary reward. My work, my credit, end of story.