UPDATE 2/23/13:
Just realized how sloppily this post was written and so I cleaned it up, added some additional photos and corrected the mistake about the wording on my 5 year service award.
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ORIGINAL POST:
Take a look at this. Below is a snapshot of the web site where Microsoft employees can purchase replacement Service Awards – the awards given to us for being employed for 5, 10, and 15 years. (You can see there’s a space for folks that have been around for 20. Haven’t made it quite there yet. Crossing fingers!)
BACK STORY:
I’ve been with Microsoft for 17 years running. Back in 2000 when I was given my 5 year Service Award, they didn’t give away fancy shmancy Kryptonite-ish crystals like those you see below. We got a brushed aluminum desk clock about 3”x3”x1” that read:
“5 YEARS WITH MICROSOFT!”
No, it’s written exactly like that… with 2 exclamation points. (Correction: I guess I remembered the award incorrectly because it did in fact have only 1 exclamation point in this photo) Anyway, it was so… umm… ‘unique’ that that clock became sort of a target of humor. One person told me it looked like a hood ornament when I got it.
At 10 years, it got classy. The photo below is of the plaque that commemorates the famous 10 shares of stock that all employees were granted back then. (I don’t know if they still do this) I’m actually very proud of this plaque and was pretty giddy when I got it. Only the people I revered the most at Microsoft had one of these.
Nowadays, we get these beautiful crystal service awards as you see above. But if you look really carefully, you can see the costs associated with each below the photos.
Yup. $419.00 for the 15 year award. That’s a $150 difference from the cost of the 10 year award which sells for $269.00. Color me stunned!
…kinda makes you wonder what the 20 year award is like,‘eh?
Kurt's Thoughts 
Oh, I’ve got to go look and see if my 5 year had the double exclamation points!
Wow. Another old school guy with a brushed aluminum clock! A pleasure to have you here & I’m honored that you follow my blog, Hal.
Hi @kurtsh,
Would you be so kind to let us know the site for the replacement awards? I need to replace the top for my 10 years one.
Thank you very much.
There’s a link through MSW that uses federated authentication. That’s all I remember.
I see… Thank you very much. What if the person left Microsoft and works in another company now?