Sunday, January 20, 2013
Prepped my old iMac to give to Sam. Breakfast at home: 3 hash browns, 2 eggs scrambled with green onions, 8 ounces of orange juice. Laundry. Switched the UPS power cord from the outlet to the right of my desk to the outlet to the left of my desk. Drove to Aggie's, helped her with her computer for 2.5 hours. Errands at Stonestown Galleria: Apple Store (two SuperDrives, one Magic Trackpad), Trader Joe's (various groceries). Late midafternoon meal: TJ's asian noodle salad with chicken, TJ's middle east feast. More iMac-for-Sam prep. Cleared the kitchen floor of items temporarily in that space. Moved my bed about a foot over. Installed a lamp hanging over my desk. Removed the lamp on my desk. Dinner at home with Patrick: TJ's mushroom tortelloni, baked sweet potato with butter and spices. More iMac-for-Sam prep. Continued editing Patrick's new book: page 88 to 95. Late meal: leftovers. Today while cleaning and organizing in the living room I came across the boxed picture frame that I had selected to receive several years ago as a gift from UCSF for my 10-year employment anniversary at UCSF. I had never opened the box until today because I didn't really need a picture frame. I didn't need a picture frame today, but I opened the box because it's a leisurely holiday weekend, and I was curious to know what the picture frame looked like. I still remember when I had selected this gift years ago. To me it was the least worst of all the gifts offered. I cannot emphasize that enough. I spent hours browsing all the selections, being disappointed in each one, until ultimately realizing that, no, it wasn't possible to find a gem amidst all the other awful gifts, and then I realized I had to spend even more time finding the least worst gift. In retrospect, I should have quit then and simply not selected a gift. Basically, someone at UCSF found a company that will stamp the UCSF logo on a wide variety of objects which, to me, were mostly cheap, plastic gadgets, then offer them to employees specifically for employment anniversaries. The picture frame is from Howard Miller, which is the world's leading clock company, according to the words beneath their logo on the box, which to me is weird because I've never heard of Howard Miller before, and I'm pretty old, and why would a company want to tell me they're the world's leading clock company on the box for a picture frame that they make and sell? Clearly they're not the world's leading picture frame company. And as I recall, I did not select a picture frame that had an LCD clock glued onto it. The frame model is 655-122 Rosewood Frame II. Upon opening it, I was immediately impressed with the quality of the frame. The rosewood is a deep, dark red with an extremely glossy finish that reminds me of decoupage. No LCD clock—confirmed. And then I noticed the UCSF logo at the bottom of the frame. I understand why it's there. I disliked and expected that. I dislike the logo because its presence limits what I can do with the frame. What do they expect me to do, put a photo of myself in it? I know what I look like. Its position also means that I can use the frame only in portrait mode and not in landscape mode. What disappointed me was that the logo was 4 millimeters horizontally off center. I also would have preferred the UCSF logo to be free-floating (or I want to say die-cut, but that's probably incorrect terminology to use here) rather than within a bordered box, but that's forgiveable. I will mention but won't further discuss the fact that this use of the logo does not observe the clear space rule and the minimum size rule specified by identity.ucsf.edu (presuming they apply in this situation). 4 millimeters off center is not forgiveable. That doesn't sound like much, but my eye instantly noticed the error. The logo is perfectly vertically centered, so I don't know what happened in the horizontal alignment department. I laughed, showed the error to Patrick, thought about throwing the whole thing in the trash, then put it back in the box. Even if I had discovered this on the day I received it, I'm not sure I would have complained. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make me feel recognized and valued, and the result was that I felt sorry that the university spent so much money and effort for nothing. I'll never use it. Could I return it and have it replaced? Possibly, but that's not the point. If I have to go through a gift return procedure to correct a production flaw, you've sucked out all the cheer one might normally associate with recognition. You just can't have errors like this and expect recognition to do what it was meant to do.