I was told that I’m reliable and nice. One co-worker even said that she’d never heard or seen me lose my temper, which pleases me very much.
An individual asked this in a good way (not backhanded):
Sir, were you prior enlisted?
I’ve had other people at work, including now, seek me out for their teams because people seem to appreciate working with me. But that question early on was one of the finest compliments I’d ever received.
Tripler
Always listen to your NCOs.
You’re not as dumb as you look.
When I was in grad school, one of my classmates one year went as me for Halloween, because she wanted the nerdiest costume she could think of.
I was heading down Belmont St. towards the lakefront for a run when I heard a loud metallic BONG and a bunch of laughter. I’d just passed some girls and one of them walked into a no-parking sign staring at my legs. (She wasn’t hurt.)
At a bar: “I can tell you’re a Christian. When you swear, the words don’t fit in your mouth.”
I was called a “Renaissance Man” by a friend after I had done something that impressed him. I cannot remember what I add done, however.
I once had sent a novel to an editor I knew, but it was rejected.
A week or so later, I was at an SF convention and she saw me, came over, put her hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eye, and said, "You’re a good writer.
Really cheered me up.
Second best was a rejection on my fourth story where the editor wrote “We’d like to see more of your work.”
I had to do an exercise in a work training in which I had to ask five people to pick a word to describe me. Two of them said “brilliant”. I was shocked, but it did make me feel pretty good.
I coached youth softball. At the end of the season, one of the parents came to me and said "it was halfway through the season before i could figure out which girl was your daughter. "
Technicians newly assigned to my area weren’t given any formal training on the tooling they were expected to repair. It was up to them to follow a senior tech around, to learn the ropes. I was told that word had gotten around among new techs to seek me out, as I was the best trainer.
I had to think about it for a minute, but that’s pretty good.
I love this!
Mine is along the same lines. I was called “The nerdiest person I know” by the nerdiest person I know.
The (intended) compliment that will ring in my head for the rest of my life came from the boss at a chemical supply company where I temped for a few weeks nearly 20 years ago. On my last day he said “Thank you for conducting yourself like a lady.” Don’t get me wrong, I get what he was trying to say and why, but the wording… !
I’ve been in a nine-pin bowling club with ten other guys for 20 years. We bowl for three hours once a month and go for a club vacation for a few days every two years. I’m known as the smartass of the club, so the boys ask me all kinds of questions, and one time when smartphones still weren’t ubiquitous and I knew the answer to a question nobody else could answer, our youngest member blurted out “You’re the walking Google.”. I was a quite proud.
In 1975, Navy women were not allowed to serve on ships. I was an avionics technician in a training squadron. My team lead said words to the effect that he’d be fine with having me serve with him at sea. He wasn’t hitting on me - it was an acknowledgement of my technical abilities. It was a real warm fuzzy moment.
Before I retired, I used to teach a monthly class to newcomers to the office. It was about satellite orbits, and it was designed for people with non-technical backgrounds. I usually got pretty good feedback, but one comment really stayed with me: “I wish Mr. Shakespeare had been my high school physics teacher”.
Yeah, and that’s exactly what i was going for - no favoritism; treat them all the same.
My second favorite- i was in college, working in the theater. A theatre company came in, and i was helping set up lighting. We had a 20 ft extendable a-frame ladder. Had it fully extended; running up and down the ladder carrying 2 theater lights, and one of the roadies said “That guy’s crazy!” When a roadie calls you crazy, you’re doing something right!
This question brought up some memories of personal and work compliments, but if I have to pick one as “the best”, it’s from an encounter this summer.
I was at a conference and ran into a German professor I knew at a reception, We were talking about his research group and other European efforts and out of the blue, he said “I still remember the talk that catalyzed the European research (in this aspect of the technology)”.
In 2001 (a week after the planes were allowed to fly again), I had participated in an all-European workshop on the prospects for a new direction in our technology. As an invited speaker, I was the only non-European in attendance. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I do remember afterwards hoping I hadn’t embarrassed myself with my frank criticism of where they were and the tough path forward that I thought was needed. I hadn’t realized that the workshop was the start of a series that continued through the present day, though I did follow the progress the Europeans made (but never associated that in any way with a little talk I gave at an early workshop). The professor I met again at this summer’s conference had been a post-doc attending that workshop.
Sometimes, those of us with long careers in a field look back and wonder if anything we’ve done has really made a difference. Encounters like this are unbelievably heartening.
“You remind me of your Dad”
There is no higher compliment, nor one less deserved.
I once overheard a group of people at work talking about the wonders of the internet. One of them asked, “What did we do before you could look up anything at all online?” Someone replied, “We just asked don_t_ask.”
Recently someone that had interviewed for a promotion spotted me at work and came over to thank me for her success. I said it had nothing to do with me. She replied that, “You had interviewed Anjuli as well and, after her interview, she told me that don_t_ask made it so comfortable that she almost forgot that she was being interviewed. And she was right.”