Cheapening Awards

Remember when awards used to mean something?

• OT - I heard the Policy Group is receiving a Department Commendation for the recently published Legal Handbook. The irony of this travesty - a former ASA wrote the darn handbook with no input from the Policy Group.
  
  It looks like meritorious Sgt. picks are coming up soon. Is this an attempt to justify the upcoming promotions of the Policy Group? On paper a Department Commendation is a Department Commendation. This job is so legit, yeah right!

We know, we know, it's been this way for years. But once upon a time, a majority of the DC awards were actually awarded for police work, not makey-work or paper-work. Now they make up awards so the anointed have something to wear like the "Attendance Recognition Award" or a DC for pamphlet-making. Old-old-timers claim it started to go overboard with the 1996 Democratic National Convention pin that everyone got. Other people say the CAPS ribbon bar was the beginning of the downfall. We assume it got its start when everyone started to get "participation" trophies and gold stars in grade school, middle school and college.