My Proudest Achievement: A Downloadable Certificate from eBay
eBay amuses me. They sent me a message the other day telling me that in recognition for my sterling efforts in buying other people’s junk and sometimes selling my own junk I could download a certificate. The message said “We’re cheering you on every day” and “We hope you’ll download your Turquoise Star Certificate and display it proudly.”
Presumably, there must be people out there who feel special when they get a form letter or the geniuses that populate big company marketing departments would not send them out all the time, right?
Here’s their message:
Congratulations! You’ve achieved a feedback rating of 100! With a Turquoise Star beside your user name, you are an active and well-established member of the eBay community.
We want to thank you for helping make eBay, The World’s Online Marketplace™, a safe and vibrant place to trade. Your success is our success. We’re cheering you on every day.
We hope you’ll download your Turquoise Star Certificate and display it proudly. You’ve certainly earned it! (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have it, get it here.)
Again, congratulations on your success, and keep shooting for the stars!
Meg Whitman
President and CEO, eBay Inc.
Here’s my reply:
Dear eBay,
I recently got a message in my eBay messages signed “Meg Whitman President and CEO, eBay Inc.” congratulating me on getting feedback rating of 100 and being given a turquoise star.
It said “We hope you’ll download your Turquoise Star Certificate and display it proudly.” Naturally, I was very pleased to see this. After all, it is not every day that the CEO of a major internet company personally sends me a message, and not every day I get a certificate to proudly display behind my desk.
Naturally, the first thing I did was bid on a certificate frame in an eBay auction so I would have somewhere to display it proudly as instructed. (Item number 200119977791)
However, after admiring it on my wall for a while I started having nagging doubts. I realised that the message from Meg (I hope she does not mind me calling her Meg, after all, she is sending me messages) does not include my name. It probably was not personally sent by her at all.
Worse yet, my certificate does not have my name on it either. If one of my coworkers steals it, they could easily pretend that they were awarded a Turquoise Star Achievement Award rather than me. Surely eBay has access to the kind of advanced technology required to insert a custom name into a PDF file?
My state of mind only went downhill from there. I realized that anybody can go to http://pages.ebay.com/awards/StarAwardTurquoise.pdf (the URL Meg kindly sent me) and print out a Turquoise Star Achievement Award of their own. The high esteem that my coworkers were holding me in because of my Turquoise Star Achievement Award could be diluted at any moment by somebody else printing an award they did not earn.
The final slap in the face was when I realized that just by guessing file names, I could download better awards.
http://pages.ebay.com/awards/StarAwardPurple.pdf
http://pages.ebay.com/awards/StarAwardGreen.pdfHow am I supposed to take pride in my award when I know that anybody else could simply print out a better one? My coworkers respect and admiration for me could evaporate instantly when somebody else figures out these URLs and prints a better Achievement Award than mine.
Do you think Meg would be happy if her MBA from Harvard Business School was suddenly rendered valueless by a link allowing anybody to print out a DBA from Harvard’s web site?
The seller of the certificate frame does not specify a return policy, so I don’t know if they will accept disillusionment with the award contained in the frame as a valid reason for a refund.
Luke Welling
Turquoise Star Achievement Award holder
Of course, eBay being eBay it is hard to tell if my message went to a person or to a very small script. I did get a reply. They promised to investigate whether the email really came from eBay or whether it was a phishing message.
And, of course USPS being USPS, the frame I ordered on eBay was smashed before it reached me.
Glory is such a fleeting thing.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Dear Luke,
I’ve been on and off of eBay since 1997. Started with the Yellow star, No money, a dream, a wish, and a prayer. Time
passed and after three long years of fighting as a “PowerSeller,”
(fighting on eBay to receive your items or money is common), I
received in my BUSINESS NAME (USER ID), a similar form letter,
and certificate, signed ONLY by Ms Meg Whitman, CEO The award is titled “Outstanding Achievements in Business.” Like you, I have it perma-plaqued and next to my two Master’s degrees, a B.A. from Loyola, and my Community College AA degree, and other achievements of the sorts from the Menninger Society, American Society of Sciences, Cambridge University Outstanding Achievement and photo page in their “Who’s Who” among American Women.
Was a 10th grade drop out student from high school, with ADHD, a learning disability. ERGO, for me, who ended up with a nice “import-export” business on eBay, as well as a College Professor Life Credential with the Community Colleges, plus,
teaching UNIVERSITY level with 1/2 a Ph.D., (in progress like my forever in progress website), my only suggestion is YES, you have received an achievement award for you to post next to your degrees too. As a Lifetime Learner and High Risk taker, do not allow anyone to take that sense of accomplishment you first felt away from you. You did earn it. It is your certificate and your VERY FIRST feelings or senses are usually correct. They are yours and yours only. You have indeed, “Achieved!”
With Genuineness,
Cher
TriquettaCom
February 8th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I have been visiting this site a lot lately, so i thought it is a good idea to show my appreciation with a comment.
Thanks,
Jim Mirkalami
PS: I am a single dad! ;)