How Long Can You Gloat?

11 Jan 2020 at 19:13 // under

Last weekend, as we walked around a shopping centre we noticed a series of awards on the wall. Then we noticed the dates were all around 1995 and 1996. Is it something to be proud of, to have won a "family friendly" award over 20 years ago.

Sure, if it was a run of awards, unbroken, then that would be worth showing off. But as far as we could see, there was nothing more recent. There must be a point at which showing off an old award has the reverse effect. Once an award gets old enough, you start to ask "so what have you won recently?" or "Why are you not as good now?".

If course if you have an Olympic medal or a Nobel prize, you get to show that one off until the day you die. In fact longer. It would probably be mentioned a few times during your funeral. But for most other prizes, particularly ones awarded to organisations, there is an unwritten use by date. Show if as much as you want before then, but after, it is probably worth removing any reference to it.

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