Back in college, I worked for a small (every sense of the word) company (mainly sheet-metal fabrication).
In addition to their generous health insurance ($5000 for the loss of one hand, foot, or eye; $10,000 for the loss of two or more of same - yes, those policies really did exist - and this was a Union shop!), their paycheck read:
“You Earned, and Vernco paid: $x.xx”.
The old shop in now derelict - that one would have moved production to China in 1990.
this. a socially cordial “thanks” would be fine. Actually being grateful? No, you’re handing me what I’m owed.
I used to have a boss who would bring around our pay stubs (we did have direct deposit) and if we said “thank you” when he handed it to us, he would reply, “No, thank you.” He was a good boss. I really liked him.
ETA: what I was saying “thank you” for was because he was handing something to me. It’s polite to say thank you when someone hands something to you.
Yes, this:
Or this:
Or I say, “thanks!” as I take my check from his desk, and he looks up and says, “thanks for all you do.”
Or it’s not pay week, and I’m in the office turning in my paperwork, and the boss will say, “Thanks, WhyNot!” and I’ll say, “thanks for all you do.”
Probably an unconscious reason why I still work at this crazy dysfunctional family run business. Because they take the 0.23 seconds to say thank you quite often. The least I can do is return it. Because while they’d be sunk without me, I’d also be sunk without them. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
If she just sticks it in my mailbox, I don’t walk around the corner into her office to thank her for paying me. But if she carries it over to my desk and physically hands it to me, I thank her for bringing it to me. By the same token, if one of the staff goes to the mailboxes to get their own check, it’s typical for them to also grab the checks of the other staff who work in their immediate area, and we always thank each other. Someone is saving you a little trouble, it’s only good manners to thank them.
I have gotten handed a lot of checks by bosses and I always say “Thank you.” And they thank me back.
Yes, you are both just doing your job, but it’s common courtesy. It’s sort of saying “Thanks for continuing to hold up your end of the bargain.”
I find this really hard to believe. Not one retail worker/waitperson has just said ‘Thank You’ to you of their own volition. You think they only do it because it’s somehow mandated by a corporation. How do you know this? Have they told you? They do have minds of their own you know and they could be genuinely thanking you for patronizing the place they work.
As for the OP, get over yourself. You are way overthinking it. It’s just common courtesy and politeness to say thank you.
But there should be nothing insincere about it!
What does the generally-polite casual “thank you” mean? What are you signalling when you say it?
When I say it, I’m just signalling “Hereby ends an interaction in which you do something that benefits me. It was successfully done in a way that caused no bad feeling.”
For reference, this did really happen and how it happened was - normally I say “thank you” without thinking about it. I was busy working when he handed me my paycheck and I took it automatically, and I guess since I didn’t remember to say “thank you” immediately, he gave a somewhat snarky, “you’re welcome”. That made me start questioning the whole “thank you” relationship at play here. And FTR, my boss is an insincere asshole and absolutely would play passive aggressive games. In fact, he acts like giving me my standard sick/vacation pay is a great gift and burden on his part, “Just so you know, I decided to pay you for Thanksgiving even though it was a day off”, looking expectantly at me for me to go, “Oh, thank you!” (Why yes, I am job searching!)
Being an aggressively independent person, I don’t think of someone walking 4 feet and handing me something as particularly helpful or anything. It’s not really a convenience for me, it takes three seconds. In most cases I’d rather just do it myself than wait for someone else to do something for me, especially if they’re going to act like such a simple task was a big deal.
The “sincerity” part comes into play where really, I don’t feel the majority of “polite” things we have to go through throughout the day, and wish I could just speak my mind more often.
But anyway, I’m going to keep saying “thank you” regardless of anything. I thought the replies were interesting.
Of course. I pay my apartment rent by personally handing my check to someone in the office, and she always says Thank You. It is a business transaction, and Americans always say thank you at the termination of a business transaction. The cashier at WalMart says thank you when she hands me my cash register slip. And I thank her for handing it to me.
In a workplace, there may be local customs. I once worked in a place where, at the conclusion of a task that was collaborative, the person in charge would always say thank you to the other people that assisted in the project. It’s a sign of respect for shared professionalism, but granted, that was in Canada.
Yeah TBH I’d’ve assumed you were being passive aggressive if I walked four feet, put something on your desk that you want, and knew you saw it, and you didn’t say thanks. I believe you that this isn’t your intention, but I think it would come off that way.
I used to take my paycheck envelope, look up, balance the tip on the end of my nose, clap my arms like a seal and make “Aaarp Aaaarp” noises.
Boss would shrug and just wander off.
Huh, that’s interesting. It’s such a tiny little thing (it’s not like they took the elevator and walked across a whole floor) I’m surprised a reasonable person would get bent out of shape or think less of someone over forgetting to say “thank you” once in that situation.
Back in the days when we got paper checks (it’s all direct deposit now), I would generally say “Thank you” when handed my paycheck. Or maybe some smart-ass remark like, “At last! Now I can buy food for the week!”
But the person handing it to me was never my actual boss; it would be the department administrative assistant. I was really saying “Thank you” for the physical task of delivering it to me, not the money itself.
Is it usual for the actual boss to hand out paychecks personally? I’ve never worked anyplace where that happened. Paychecks were always delivered by an assistant or secretary. If it were the boss, I would probably say “Thank you” to them as well, for the same reason. Basic courtesy, and thanking them for bringing it to me.
These days we don’t even get handed a paper stub for the direct deposit information–even that is sent to us electronically.
When I am given a pay check I thank my boss. When I am passing them out I thank each employee for their work.
In both cases I am sincere.
I was brought up to say thank you for pretty much everything, so I would.
I prefer what Calvin Coolidge said when he got his first paycheck as president after Harding’s death:
“Come again.”
I’d say “thanks” reflexively. Doesn’t cost me anything, I don’t even think about it, and I say it probably 50+ times a day for any number of interactions. Whether or not I mean it is immaterial; it’s just basic manners as far as I’m concerned.
I agree with Frylock on the passive-aggressive thing.
Someone hands me something, I say thank you. I don’t care if I’m dying of thirst and it’s a paramedic handing me a glass of water – that’s just what civilized inviduals do. But hey, you rock on with your, what was it, “aggressively independent person” thing (aka, excuse to be rude).
I never had my boss hand me my check. Early in my career the dept’s secretary went to the Payroll Office and picked up the checks. She went the around our offices handing them out. Not a big task. There was only 17 of us in Computer Services. The Computer Operations center’s secretary did the same thing for that dept. They were in a different building from CS.
I always thank anyone handing me anything. Well, anything that’s nice. It’s just a polite response.
When I was working concessions at the movie theaters, I was pretty conscious of the fact that I was just out of high school and had a pretty cool job with some neat perks. Transactions would invariably end with “…and three, four, five-fifty-three is your change.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.” and I was genuinely thankful. That transaction meant I was doing my job (well) and doing my job well meant I didn’t have to sling grease – which was dirtier, less prestigious, and didn’t get us into movies free on our days off – at some other place in the mall. And those were the main two choices for just-out-of-high-school kids who wanted or needed to work.
–G!
Unfortunately, that stimulus response pair stayed with me for quite a few years and “Thank you” sounded really dorky in non-retail situations.:smack: