I recently helped out a coworker with some excel troubles she has (ongoing troubles, since she has very little experience with excel and no prior training) and I have put together some informal training sessions for her.
I like to help and all I ever expect from offering assistance is the words “Thank you” or some variation thereof.
She sent me a “box of chocolates” as thank you for the help I have provided.
I clearly need to thank her for her kindness, but also, I feel uncomfortable, because its not that big of a deal to me to help, I enjoy doing it, but it did not put me out time (not significantly anyway).
I am leaning towards “Thank you - and please enjoy some too”, but I don’t want to offend her. Am I going the right way, or should I stick with plain “thank you”?
It may not have been a big deal for you to help, but your assistance to her was very appreciative. Accept the chocolates with that in mind and leave it at that.
I like “thank you, and please enjoy some too,” because I really like chocolate. When you say “box of chocolates” and you put in quotes like that, it indicates that she didn’t actually send you a box of chocolates - did she send you something other than a box of chocolates?
yeah - I am always trying to say “not necessary” and have apparently ticked off people in the past with that tactic. Hence asking here today.
Thanks for the input.
ETA: it was a champagne bottle made out of chocolate. So needs to be broken into pieces to consume anyway. I am picturing smashing it against something I want to christen. It is pretty much like a box of chocolates but not really.
I can’t imagine that someone would be offended by your offer to share the box of chocolates she gave you to express her gratitude. I’d probably just say, “Thanks so much! I hope you’ll share them with me.”
And I agree with Duckster that a “big deal” is in the eyes of the beholder. I’ve reached the age where shoveling snow is pretty much beyond my scope. When a neighbor recently cleared my driveway and the street in front of our houses, I was only too happy to bake a home-made pie and deliver it to show my gratitude (and my encouragement for such activities to continue). It probably wasn’t a big deal for the neighbor as he was using a bobcat with a snow plow attachment, not a shovel, but it was still a HUGE deal for me to be able to get out and get to work.
Me too! And I’m glad this was such a sweet (as it were) thread. Maybe I’ve read too many horrible threads, but I was picturing some kind of complaint about a co-worker always asking you for help when you were busy or constantly not getting what you were telling her. This was nice.
As people have said, it’s a big deal for her, and it was a good, kind and helpful thing that you did for her. She is a nice person who wants to thank you in some way, and I’m guessing it’s a case where offering you payment in money would be uncouth, socially wrong, and just generally gauche. And it did take some of your time, time that you might have spent having fun. (Although I agree it is also good fun when one is able to help another with something that is a mystery to the person, but perfectly clear to oneself. Heck, I know people who are enormously pleased if I type - well, word-process if that might now be a verb - something for them, which is a lot less than you did for this work colleague). But you were good to take time to help her, for which she is glad and grateful.
So either the simple “it was not necessary, but very nice of you, and thank you very much” or the alternative version where you ask her to share the chocolate - both of those would be fine.
Yeah, go on! It must feel good to have a chance to smash any whatever-thing against something*, and I am envious, (just as long as you make sure no chocolate will be lost or damaged in this experiment. That ought to go without saying, of course). Is there any hope at all that this champagne bottle made of chocolate does actually include champagne? Because that would be REALLY good.
And, like Freudian Slit, I think it’s rather good to find that this is not a “my horrible nasty co-worker” thread. Really rather cheering. There’s hope for the human race yet.
Tangential trivial point: I recall the launch of some boat or another - oh, all right, big ship, I suppose - where the queen or some other royal bod aimed the bottle of champers at said boat and it totally failed to smash. Tried again - same result. I think some useful navy man or other high-up took over and finally the bottle did smash. Perhaps nice for the little fishes but what a waste of good champagne it all is.
You sound like a good person, so just enjoy the choccy, Otternell!
I just had a similar situation happen to me just the other day. Last week, I helped out a fellow PC tech with a problem she was having. It wasn’t a big deal to me, but for her it really helped her out, so yesterday in my mailbox I found an absolutely HUGE bar of Hershey’s chocolate. I thanked her and she explained that it was her way of thanking me for my help last week. So I graciously accepted it.
