What is it with people who need praise for doing ordinary daily tasks?

The BBQ Pit
1

Some people seem to want/need/crave praise for damn near every ordinary task they do, and it drives me nuts.

Note, I said ‘praise,’ not gratitude. If someone does someone else a favor, even an ordinary thing, sure, they should be thanked.

And I’m not talking about some actually noteworthy achievement. You totally rework some record keeping that results in savings of time or money or just frustration – Kudos. I’ll lead the applause.

But if all you’ve done is one of those ordinary mundane daily tasks, like making a fresh pot of coffee, don’t expect everyone to fall around lavishing praise on you.

For example, there’s a guy at my office I’ll call Bill, 'cause that is his name. Today he put a new toner cartridge into one of the printers. I know this because he made a point to come over to my desk to announce it to me. And not just that he’d done it, no, he had to tell me in detail about every step. How he’d noticed the ‘replace toner’ light blinking. How he’d had to go to the supply cabinet (all the way across the hall, for goodness sake!) to get a new one. How he had trouble getting the new box open and had to borrow a letter opener from someone else to pry with. How he’d had to move the chair beside the printer, since it blocked opening the toner door. On and on and on. And the whole time he’s staring at me, making sure I was giving this epic tale my full attention and handing out verbal ‘wow, good boy’ strokes each time he paused…

Fer crissakes, he didn’t wrestle a saber-tooth tiger to the floor and rip its hide off with his teeth! He replaced a toner cartridge, something every single person in the office has done, most of us several times. The biggest deal anyone else has ever made out of accomplishing this task is a comment like “Took care of the printer” and the most response expected would be a half-attentive acknowledgment like ‘great.’

Bill, though, figuratively forces us to praise his ‘accomplishment.’ (I actually overheard him telling another coworker the same over elaborated story later on today – I guess I didn’t dish out enough praise.) I bet he wouldn’t think a parade complete with confetti would be at all over the top.

The cherry on the sundae is that this is totally one-sided. He never praises anyone else for doing any tasks of this magnitude. But if the rest of us don’t stroke him enough, well, he’ll spend the rest of the day pouting.

Arrrrrgh. Grow up, dammit. You’re not a four year old mastering a new skill, and we aren’t your adoring mommies.

2

Yeesh, I don’t like that either.

The only time I’ve ever talked at length about replacing the toner is when we were having problems with the printer, and so there was some newsworthiness in the task, as in “Hmmm, I changed the toner, and it seems to have made the streaking better, and I noticed some black stuff on the outside of the old cartridge. It must have been leaking a little. Hope I cleared it up.”

But just everyday toner changes? Sounds like he needs a dog, for all his unconditional approval needs.

3

I like the confetti idea. Get a three hole punch, collect up the little circles, wait for him to start a ramblin, stare him straight in the eye without saying anything, and as soon as he finishes, throw up a handful of paper circles, stating “Woop-de-doo”, then turn around and go about your business.

4

Can’t come up with one crummy syllable and a smile? Rather bellyache about how the creep demands too much of you?

My step-son never bothered to acknowledge the check we sent him at Christmas. (We used to send presents until he and his wife became out-spoken in their displeasure.) They didn’t send us anything in return, but they were young and struggling at the time. Eventually, I told him that I would appreciate a word of thanks for the gift each year. He said he wasn’t taught to say “thank you.”

Yet both he and his wife have read the Great Books of the Western World series.

I agree that it is inappropriate to require acknowledgment for doing every mundane task. It is just as inappropriate to withhold thanks.

The money for their Christmas check goes to charity now and no mention is made of it.

5

Hey, let’s give the OP a hand for bringing this to our attention!
*clap, clap

clap…*

6

Did you not read the OP?

It seems to me that in an ordinary world, the exchange would go something like this:

Co-Worker: Hey, I noticed the toner was out so I changed it.
StarvingButStrong: Thanks for that.

Here’s how it seems that things actually go:

C-W: Hey, I changed the toner.
SBS: Thanks.
C-W: Yeah, I saw the “change toner” light blinking and I checked and it said we were out of toner.
SBS: Uh, yeah. That’s what it does.
C-W: So I went across the hall and got the toner, but when I got back, there was a chair in the way!
SBS: That’s great turning back to work
C-W: Yeah, I had to put the chair in the corner before I could change that toner…

Repeat with every other person in the office.

What your little story had to do with this, I don’t know.

7

Well, there’s always tomorrow.

8

Are you sure he wants praise? It could be his (pathetic) way of making conversation. And the “pouting” could be his realizing that he struck out once again, but being frustrated with himself because he doesn’t know any other way.

9

This is, pardon MHO, a case of bringing way too much baggage to the subject at hand.

If you send your step-son presents and/or checks and he (and/or his wife) can’t be bothered to acknowledge it, that sounds like something you should bring up to his dad/your husband or ignore totally. Depending on your mood.

It has zero to do with a guy at the office doing an ordinary mundane task like changing the printer cartridge and expecting crazy kudos and gratitude from his co-workers. I don’t get major props for doing MY job at work; why should the silly fool in the OP?

There’s no comparison. Changing the printer cartridge at work is not a GIFT. It’s your fucking job.

And if you think the two are comparable–gifts to family vs. doing your job–than I have nothing further to add, because you’re bananas.

10

When you hear somebody complain all the time that nobody else fills the paper or toner in the copier, you get sick of it. Being in the same room as the copier I see how often it needs filling, and normally end up doing it. I told the complainers every time they came in who filled what between their visits. They (multiple people) got sick of it, and I told them I didn’t want them to think they were the only people that filled the copier. In the future don’t bitch to me about the copier needing paper. People often had to make copies in quantities between 30 and a 50 pages at a time. The tray holds 144 pages. Do the math and figure out why I got sick of the bitching.

11

StarvingButStrong you must work with my husband but, you know, his name isn’t Bill.

12

Gah, my coffee friend is like this, she goes on and on in the finest detail if I let her, and its mostly about mundane shit like that. The. most.mundane. detail. It. drives. me. crazy!

Part of me understands, part of me wants to rip her throat out!

13

You need to write a small program and email it to him, with instructions to run it when he needs immediate gratification.

Giveafuck.exe
Click ‘Run’ button
~ 5 seconds pass
Error message:
Application failed
Fuck not given
Go back to work

14

Oh dear god, I sit next to the shmuck in the OP. Every, little, minute thing he does right, he must have a conversation with me about it that exactly follows Sierra Indigo’s mock conversation. Good for you, you did your job correctly, now shut UP.

He also lavishes praise on everyone for the minorest of details. One of our less-than-savvy employees had a problem with Word, and another employee fixed it. Shmucky the Clown proceeded to praise her for 5 minutes, how the boss needs to give her a raise, she’s solved the crisis, etc. Finally, he went back to his desk, and a minute later started calling the same crap over the cubicle wall again. It gets way past the point of discomfort, especially when he had absolutely nothing to do with the problem in the first place and didn’t even know what was going on.

I get that he thinks he’s being sociable and friendly, and sometimes it’s like kicking a puppy to tell him to shut up, but I can’t stand talking to him. He’s the most pathetically insecure person I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet, and because I sit next to him and he considers me his immediate supervisor, I can’t simply avoid dealing with him.

Fuck nepotism.

15

Is it possible the coworker was trying to make a point because he feels that he’s the only one who bothers to change the goddamned toner? Because I do that with the refrigerator at work, when I throw away rotten shit, and it’s not because I want praise. It’s because I want other people to realize that throwing their shit away isn’t that fucking hard.

16

My business manager came over once and said something like that: “Hey…I’ve changed the toner in the printer.”

And I said “Good for you, champ! I know you’ve been waiting all year for that! You’ll sleep well tonight.”

He laughed, and said “Yeah, I don’t know why I said that, I just felt like talking, and couldn’t think of a better opener.”

Maybe the guy in the OP is just really lonely, and can’t think of a better way to start a conversation. That doesn’t excuse him if conversation is unwanted, of course, but it could explain things.

17

Maybe it’s not his job, and that’s why he feels compelled to share.

Sailboat

18

My coworker does this passive BS. Just say, “hey guys, make sure to clean up a bit”. If cleaning up their shit isn’t your job, then don’t do it.

At my job, I’m not the primary phone answer (I work in shipping), but I can handle calls when needed. So when coworker says, “Flander, are you here today?” (meaning she wants me to help with the phones), I want to punch her in the face. Also, it makes me not want to answer phones, which doesn’t help.

19

Oh, everyone gets the email reminders about cleaning up their shit, and they don’t. Then somebody else does it, and says, “I cleaned up the crap.” I suppose the bitterest assholes who won’t clean up their shit then get all resentful because they had to find out that someone else cleaned up their shit for them and think it’s passive agressive. They will find the world filled with passive agressive people who resent their lazy asses until they finally meet an agressive agressive person who grabs the cart they’ve left lying in the parking lane for somebody else to move and slams it into their lazy ass.

Well, really, not cleaning up your mess is more passive agressive than cleaning up and just letting people know.

20

Well, you reach a point sometimes where you can’t stand the odor of rotten stuff in the refrigerator and/or need the space. But it’s always fun to see how people who are basically pricks – not using their turn signals, not cleaning up after themselves – have this moral world where it’s other people EXPECTING them to act like grown ups that’s the problem, and not them being pricks.