Thanks for your 10 years of service– would you like a can opener?

I received a pleasant letter, certificate, and foldout the other day to congratulate me on my 10 years of service at EMU. I guess that hadn’t really hadn’t occurred to me before I received this stuff: yep, 10 years. Go figure.

Anyway, as part of being congratulated and as “an expression of our gratitude” (I assume “our” there is human resources in general?), I can pick from a wide selection of anniversary gifts. Now, there are the usual kinds of things one might expect– watches, jewelry, clocks, etc. I think I’ll stick to the watch I have, I don’t really wear jewelry other than a wedding ring, and we need another clock in this house like a hole in the head.

Fortunately, there are some other gifts of gratitude, though some kind of goofy gifts. Some of the options include (and I swear I am not making this up) a tennis racket, flatware, dishes, a boom box, binoculars, a cordless phone set, walkie-talkies, golf balls with an umbrella, a fishing pole, slow-cooker, and (my personal favorite) an electric can opener.

I just don’t know what to make of this. I mean, I appreciate the thought and the recognition, but given some of these choices, I think they might have done better to just give us all a gift certificate to one of the Main Street Ventures restaurants in Ann Arbor or to Borders or something.

In the end, I actually settled on the Coleman Propane Road Trip Party Grill because it looked like the best reviewed items available that was something I vaguely wanted. So the next time we’re camping this summer, I’ll think of my service at EMU and wondering if I can get a tent for year 20.