Basically it is a plastic trophy with a little bit of kudos attached (if you are thinking money, imagine the change that you have in your pocket right now, being removed from your pocket, lest your pants also be part of the award, and superglued on to the trophy, and you would be no where near close). It's meaningless to the outside world, but to those within the company, it gives an indication as to how well liked that person is where they work.

In the run up to the actual presenting of the award, everyone in the company has the chance to nominate one individual who they think has done a great job that year to the Office Manager. After all the nominations have been received, the long list is then distributed and everyone in the company can then vote for one from the finalists. At the end of vting, a winner is crowned.

So why am I writing about this now? Well, it may be a shock to you, given how popular and likeable I am, but I wasn't nominated for this award last year. So this year, I decided to be more proactive in getting a nomination.

For Plan A, I decided to do the decent thing, and nominate myself with the following:

I will stand for Employee of the Month myself this year, as due to what can only described as a gigantic oversight, I lacked a nomination last year.

I should be nominated Employee of the Year as I’m a triple threat: I know the front door code, the alarm code and I know how to work the dishwasher. There is no one who is more beloved by me in this company than the person that I have nominated.

Apparently, this isn't the done thing and my nomination was not accepted by the Office Manager. I had an inkling that this plan would run into problems, so I decided to move to plan B. Plan B was a little more crafty, and didn't necessarily involve me being nominated. Its better if you just read the reasons that I sent:

Despite my canvassing I am unsure if I will be nominated for employee of the year, since it is apparently “not the done thing” to nominate oneself.

In that case it is time for plan B. To nominate someone else who will promise me a 1% cut if they win. And 1% is better than nothing at this point.

To that end, I would like to nominate Parisa, as her formidable marketing skills have me believing that she will honour this agreement.

Now surprisingly, this wasn't an acceptable reason, even though the Parisa reneged on the verbal contract shortly after the email was submitted.

So after my two quite brilliant schemes to get the prize money or at least a percentage of the prize money, I was all out of ideas until my campaign manager helped me draft a heatfelt plea:

I believe I should be employee of the year because of my unique problem solving skills, as demonstrated by my previous nomination (for myself).

Many people would like to be nominated for employee of the year but no one, until now, has had the initiative or been brave enough to nominate themselves. I believe that by offering myself for nomination I am providing evidence of the creative thinking that makes me such an asset to the team. It also shows I am proactive at finding solutions to problems and driven towards success.

While everybody else is taking the long and hard traditional route to this esteemed prize by working diligently I have shown that I do not simply follow the herd by composing this email instead. This approach is far more time economical than the traditional approach, showing that my fresh take on problem solving saves the company both time and money.

A vote for Matt Fishwick is a vote for the future!

Now all I had to do was wait. But that night I got hungry (and not just for results) so I decided to order a pizza. The pizza was good and once I had slaked my thirst for doughy goodness I was in possession of several uneaten slices.

In an act of pure altruism, well as altruistic as I am capable, I decided to leave the remaining slices for the denizens of the office. Now in order dissuade them from the existence of pizza faeries, I decided to let them know how had supplied this cold feast.

Thus my first campaign poster was born.

Click here to see the Poster in PDF format.

So if that quality bit of electioneering doesn't work, I don't know what will.

But we shall have to wait until May 4th before the shortlist is revealed, and then I can put that pizza on expenses.