What Are the Shovel Awards?

The Shovel Awards came about as our somewhat satirical attempt to help people who sure look to us like they’re happily digging themselves into a hole–usually a hole in a big ol’ heap of rubbish. We decided to lend a helping hand, and offer them a shovel. Or two. Or maybe even five, if they’re dug themselves into an especially deep pit.

Every shovel, be it a garden shovel, snow shovel, a standard digging shovel or even a big ol’ steam shovel, shares the same characteristic: it can be used to keep digging a deeper hole, or to dig oneself out of a hole.

It’s the shovel operator, so to speak, not the shovel itself, that determines how a shovel gets used.

So, to our Shovel Award winners: here’s your shovel. We’re offering it because we think you’re digging yourself into a hole. We may be wrong–foundations are also dug with shovels. But it looks to us like you’re digging in, when maybe you should be digging your way out.

Just sayin’.