1:04 a.m. - 2008-04-19
big night
Tonight was my agency's staff appreciation night. It was a really nice event. Awards were given for MVP, Living the Mission and Quality Service - staff voted and several people in each category were nominated (I was nominated for Living The Mission) and those nominated received a certificate of recognition in addition to the winners in each category. This happened later in the evening.
But at the beginning of the evening during the welcome ceremony, a few accomplishments were noted - one of my new programs was mentioned along with some other notable achievements in other programs - and then suddenly, the exec director is looking at me and starts saying something like "There is one person I'd especially like to recognise tonight..." she calls me up on stage to receive a gift of appreciation for all of my fundraising work this year. They gave me a really nice engraved travel mug which is kind of a joke because I am notorious for leaving my mugs all over the agency. It has my name on it, presumably so when I leave it around, it will make it's way back to its owner easily.
I was actually blushing. It was soooo exciting and slightly embarassing and really an incredible feeling to be recognised in front of 100 people who all do great work, for doing what I feel is just my job. I'm the youngest director in the agency by decades and sometimes that scares me and makes me feel like the under dog or something - like I have to prove I'm not just a kid or something. The other awards were nominated and voted on by staff - the nomination for one of those awards was acknowledgment enough - to be nominated by my coworkers was really amazing. But to have the ED and my supervisor create a special acknowledgement for me was just awesome.
It was so cool to have Kevin there and see that. I am still beaming.
I also won the centerpiece at our table via raffle - woo - potted plant! And the cash prize winner of the big raffle prize ($250) was won by our executive director and she immediately announced she was donating the money as a scholarship for my summer camp. WOW.
What a night. I couldn't feel better at the moment.
You guys reading this, you know what a nightmare my last full time job was and how much it shook my confidence. When all of that went down, it made me feel like maybe my previous success, impact, experience was all a big, drawn out fluke - maybe I would never have a boss who believed in me again. Maybe I wasn't cut out for this work (fundraising) maybe I wasn't anything special.
I will probably screw something big up, fail at something, forget something of dire importance, make a giant mistake at some point in this job - it is going to happen. But this night is such a reminder that I can do good work - good enough to be noticed and to deserve a job with a lot of responsibility.
I feel like anything is possible at the moment. Whenever that big screw up happens - please refer me to this blog entry so I remember that I'm ok and I can do a good job.
Thanks for letting me be a little self indulgent.
