It’s been my experience that expressing gratitude for someone doing their job well really does pay dividends. It can be for someone who went out of their way and really does an exemplary job, or it might be simply letting someone know that their day-to-day work is genuinely appreciated–but those people do sometimes find a way to “pay you back” in unexpectedly generous ways.
I don’t praise people looking for something in return, but it does make life a lot more pleasant.
Yes, on quite a few occasions. The most recent was when one of the staff at my local council contacted me after hours, at home, about an issue about which I had been trying to get some information. The staff member was extremely helpful. The next day I wrote to both the Mayor and the council’s General Manager to express my thanks and to compliment the staff member.
I like writing Kharma letters, or emails, as it is now.
I use to be paid to write responses for bitch letters received into our company and the stuff people went on and on about just…well…didn’t anyone pay attention in Letter Writing Class in high school?!! oh, and the phone calls from these people were worse than anything.
But, years after that, I’ve taken the lesson learned and apply it. Every once in a while when I get a good kharmic vibe from something, I zip off a letter to the company. As high up as I can. I am very good at it as I’ve been on the receiving end of the shit stick. I do try to hand write a letter on nice paper and all that, but all I can find nowadays is a grocery bag, a sharpie and no envelopes or stamps. (le sigh)
One of my letters, written in spazms of pure joyous nonsexual rapture ( at receiving a company’s children’s book catalog that I devour and cherish until the next one comes in and I just had to write to them to tell them how much I adore and love them in a non creepy way) has been printed in part ( most of it actually) in the catalog for about 6 or 7 years now.
Another letter I wrote about a book in there catalog was right next to on their website until they discontinued selling the book.
Yeah, so the entire kharma feedback points is a good thing.
I’m giving my usual shout out for chinaberry .
I also go up to managers and tell them when they have an employee that knows their shit, so to speak. Especially when I’ve been one of those people who ask the vaguest of vague questions about a book that use to be on the corner of the display table over there at Halloween last year and it had a brown cover…and what the hell was the title? It was about ghosts or something like that. Did I mention it was a book. I couldn’t have been more Patrick Star if I tried. I mean, with deliberate digging around, the book guy got it.( It was a slow day and he wasn’t low on caffeine yet.) but maaaaaan, that made my month! If someone has to put up with my buttheadedness, they damn well better get rewarded with some kharma points.
I did this last year at The Gap during the holiday season. This branch in particular is on the small side so the line can back up quickly when it’s busy in there. They had one employee go through the line of people waiting and remove the security tags from their intended purchases to speed up the checkout process, and that line sped right along! I was amazed at how quickly the girls at the registers were zipping through the customers, and pleasantly at that.
When I got up to the counter, I told the worker that I was impressed with how fast they were going and that they were doing a great job. She and the girl working the next register smiled at each other, and the one helping me said “You’re the first person to say something all day!” I told them I worked in retail too and knew how much it means to hear something nice like that.
Always. It’s essential to good morale and continued good work. An unappreciated employee is one who will eventually stop producing, poison other employees’ attitudes, and probably move on. One of the better pieces of advice from a past management book, The One Minute Manager, was “find the good and praise it”.
Oh, I forgot one - when my mom and I were in Paris, a few years ago, after my dad had to go home, the front desk clerk of our hotel was so helpful. Her English was okay, not fantastically great or anything (we were out in the 16th arrondisment, not really a tourist hotbed) but she did absolutely everything in her power to help us out. When we asked about the Lido, she called for us and made reservations (there was no real concierge service at this hotel) and translated the whole menu for us because we had to decide then and there if we wanted dinner and what we wanted. She also helped us get a hotel in Brussells, since our plans had changed with my dad going home and all. Really went above and beyond the call of duty. When we left, she wasn’t on desk, so my mom wrote her a nice note and put a tip in for her, and when we got to our hotel in Brussells, there was a fax from us, from Sophie, thanking us for our kindness! We were just delighted, and so was she - double good karma!
Despite the good people in this thread to the contrary, I believe it to be rather rare and that people are inherently lazy - if it doesn’t benefit them or isn’t bothering them, they can’t be asked to do something.
When I was a project manager, my main project had an extremely tight deadline. We were tight on DBAs because half of them apparently decided to go on vacation at the same time, and being that it was a very large company, there were many other urgent projects that also required their time. I had been assigned one of the best DBAs on the team, but he had been informed that his boss would not authorize the overtime to get it done on time. As was my bad habit, I promised him that I would make sure he got paid the overtime if he’d just get the job done. He took me at my word, and said he’d get it done. Unfortunately, this was on a Friday, and the deadline for the work was Monday morning. I made a bunch of frantic phone calls afterwards, working to get the overtime issue taken care of so that I could at least keep my word. I did get it authorized, but couldn’t get in touch with him to let him know. But he called me on Sunday to let me know that it was done.
I called my boss on Monday and insisted that we do something to thank him - in my opinion he had really gone above and beyond. My boss agreed and we finagled two paid days off and a 50 dollar gift card for him. He was stunned, but pleased, but I was just eternally grateful that he had saved my project from missing a crucial deadline.
If you really want to thank someone, thank their manager. This is a rule I’ve lived by for a long time. When someone is thanking me for doing something above and beyond, I always say “appreciate the kudos, but if you really want it to mean something in the company, express the thanks to my manager.”
This really helps for raises, contract renewals, bonuses, not getting whacked in a layoff, promotions, etc.
Catooniverse, beyond the feel good factor to both yourself and the shipper, I’ll bet that email also will help get a material improvement to the shipper (bonus, raise, opportunity)…that’s really saying thanks and rewarding someone for a good consistently well done.
I’ve worked customer interaction jobs for forever. I routinely ask to speak with a manager if I’m on the phone and get you know, actual competent help. I just called Canon the other day and told the manager to weigh the woman to find how much she was worth, so he would know what a deal he was getting, she was awesome, patient, helpful and diligent.
I once called Winn-Dixie corporate to compliment my local manager and it was kinda funny because he had just gotten off the phone being reamed out for a customer complaint when I called, he was SOOO thankful for the call. He also got promoted out of my store and now it’s gone to hell, oh well.
I get customer complaints all the time, one of the job hazards when you deal with compulsive gamblers, mostly our boss ignores them, but then again, he ignores the good things too. Unfortunately, most good things are said to me or my direct supervisors, and usually doesn’t make it to him. So I agree with that go way up theory.
The karma police rock. I donated a car load of stuff to the battered womens shelter and man, karma gods work on merging, elevators, breaks, fish tanks, it was a great week!
I challenge you all to make someones day this week! Compliment someone on a job well done.
I admit that I don’t do it as often as I should but I try to deliver praise from time to time.
At this old job, I was on a customer service team, sometime called to answer questions about products that actually lived in a warehouse in another state. When there was an extremely specific product question (“will this spiral bound cookbook lay flat when opened?”) we would call or email “our guy” at the warehouse, Brad. Brad would put down whatever he was doing (and he was a manager of some stripe, not a pack/ship drone) and trot into the warehouse to have a looksee at the product and get back to us with the info.
We got together and sent him a care package of chocolate and other goodies with a note from all of us on the CSR team declaring “Brad is Rad.”
I do agree that the praise needs to find at least a supervisor if not upper management. This man I’ve mentioned, I sure do hope that he has been praised, or rewarded in a tangible way for his service. They’ve recently ( autumn ) hired a young man who appears in college, if not fresh out, to assist the gentleman. This young man is learning all of the good rules, and when I’ve dealt with him he’s appeared to be presenting the same positive, hard-working model.
Auntbeast, I’ll take that challenge- but only meet it if someone truly fills the bill. No fair praising mediocrity ! Down With Mediocrity !!
