Simplicity of a Compliment

Today at work I got a compliment from a co-worker. It was a simple act of kindness for him to go out of his way to walk over to me, stop me from what I was doing and tell me that he thought that I did an awesome job (yes, he used the word awesome). I guess he worked an extra shift a few days before which meant that he got the opportunity to work with another person who does the same job as I do (but on my days off), and he told me that the quality of work and effort that I put out was just on a completely different level as this other person.



The conversation took only a mere 30 seconds or so, but it meant enough to motivate me to create a blog about it. I think what lead me to really think about this simple little act of kindness was that at this job, I get very few compliments from my bosses. Because the bosses work different hours and shifts than we 4&4 people do, they don't see our continual work habits and probably don't take much notice of the differences between one charge floor operator to the next. In one way this really sucks because I am the clean freak who continually sweeps the floor but it's not recognized by the bosses. The thing with working with the same 4&4 crew is that they all work with each other every single day and they see just how hard we do or don't work, and the quality of the work that each individual puts out there. I think that the bosses here are just content when they are able to get through a day without someone blowing something up or breaking something down. I also know that they have lots of people to overlook and lots of responsibilities, so I'm not putting out any blame here.

Anyway, the point of this rambling is that it was really nice to hear such encouraging words from my co-worker. It's great to know that someone out there notices and appreciates what I do at my job. We come to work, day in and day out, and somewhere along the line start to become numb to our surroundings and may lose sight of the big picture (for me, paying off school and student loans!). Now I'm not saying this happens to all people at all jobs out there, but I mean, sometimes one can put out a lot of effort at a job and the little recognition can start to wear a person down. At a previous job that I worked, we were all given a good pat on the back every day and this made all of the employees feel really good about coming to work. If I had a shitty day at work, that little "you did a good job today Adrienne" was enough to make me smile and want to come back the next day and give it another go. I think it's really important to make your employees feel good about who they are working for and for what cause. It's a whole lot easier to want to be friendly and courteous to customers when the boss makes you feel important and part of a team (unlike another job I had in which we were scolded 100 times for every 1 time we did something right. And if we did do something right, that did not mean that we would get a pat on the back for it).

Tip of the Day: Making your employees feel discouraged and useless will only lead to mutiny and ex-lax in the company cupcakes.