Wow...thanks!

[pegkerr]

No matter what may feelings may be about my job as a legal secretary legal administrative assistant, I do say that I work for some awfully nice people.

Last Friday, one of my attorneys asked for my assistance in getting out some personal letters out. I did it and didn't think anything of it, but he surprised me this morning by giving me a thank you note enclosing a gift card for Caribou Coffee (there's a Caribou Coffee across the street).

A thoughtful gesture like that really does make a difference.

How have your bosses given you thanks for a job well done, or for above-and-beyond effort? Or how have you thanked the people you work with? Or anyone else in your life?

Or tell me the story of a nice surprise you received from someone recently.

Comments

[enkeli.livejournal.com]

we always send folks free swag (mainly t-shirts and the like.. big currency at my company) to folks who go above-and-beyond. we've also done gift certificates to amazon or starbucks.

i've personally received an itunes gift cert.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

I was a temp at Dow Chemical in the legal department -- there were usually two secretaries for the HR Law department, but one had moved on. I had a bit of experience with law stuff, so I guess I was more helpful to the other secretary than she expected.

The day before we took time off for Christmas, she surprised me with a handcare giftset from Mary Kay (my hands had taken a real beating from handling all that paper). When I told her I felt bad, 'cos I hadn't even had time to get cards for everyone, she said something to the tune of "even if it wasn't Christmas, I'd want to get you something, and I hope you'll consider apply to take the job full-time".

Sadly, I didn't get a chance to take the job -- law school called. But man, Debbie and the lawyers in the department went out of their way to make sure I was very welcome if I wanted to come back.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

Consider applying.

To read makes our speaking English good.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

i wish i could say that i worked for even some mildly nice people. but... not so much. (i love the work, not the people!)

that doesn't mean there aren't other nice things in my life, though. this morning, i saw the bus start to pull past my stop as i was just nearly there... i started running and waving, hoping that i'd cover the twenty feet quickly and that the driver would have pity on me. he kept driving, and i gave up, frustrated. but then, miraculously, he stopped halfway down the next block and waited for me! i got there, got on and thanked him, and he told me he hadn't seen me, but other passengers had noticed me and asked him to stop.

it's a great way to start the morning.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I always used to do things for my workers back when I managing Lorimar Studios' xerox department. This was a vow I'd made after years of rotten treatment as a waitress and bar maid, during grad school. Nobody else at the studio thanked us, they just bitched if the scripts were not there on time (and of course at ten thou a minute when the clocks starts, they had reason to bitch) without ever having to inquire into why they were late--or who had to stay up all night hand-feeding the machines when the Santa Anas were blowing, causing constant static jams.

I was also extremely respectful of the xerox techs, learning to do all the easy maint and repair myself on all fourteen machines, with the result that when I put in a call, they were not only there fast, but they assigned me their two top techs. (I could usually tell them exactly what was wrong, or close enough so that they always came with the parts they needed, instead of whining "It doesn't work!")

Most people really do perform better if you treat them decently. They do know that at the school I'm teaching at. Stressed budget requires far too much unpaid "volunteer" time and no breaks, but the director appreciates every extra effort, and she tries in little ways to show it: chocolates one day, or little tiny gifts when we get stuck having a faculty meeting, which means staying in after three in an already sweltering classroom.

[haniaw.livejournal.com]

I was working on a very complex application development project for the bank where I work. It involved a great deal of complex editing with feedback from legal, translation, marketing, the business people, etc. It also involved massive amounts of overtime. All the overtime was starting to get to me. I guess my colleagues could see it was dragging me down. I came in to work one day to find that they had set up a small tent beside my office. They had filled it with a sleeping bag, pillow, survival gear, coffee, snacks and computer programming manuals. I was overwhelmed. They had gone to a great deal of trouble to lug all that stuff in to work and then come in early to set it all up before I arrived. All just to cheer me up and let me know that they were there to support me however they could. It was an incredible morale booster. We actually kept the tent up for a few days and I did make use of it on a few late nights when I needed a rest. I even have pictures so I'll never forget it -- they're posted on the wall above my desk.

...Hania

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

That's a WONDERFUL story. Thanks for sharing it.

[dawn-came-dim.livejournal.com]

ACS always tries to reward us with gifts of time. For example, they granted us half-day Fridays for the summer, and we get extra holiday days this winter -- like Black Friday, and an extra day each at Christmas and New Year's.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Our company has a program called "Above and Beyond" where you can give someone a $25 Amex gift check for a job well done. I've got (counts) 8 of them in the last 2 years, which is pretty darn good. But they do count them as income and put them on your W2 at the end of the year, which kind of sucks.

Also my boss is taking her direct reports to lunch next week because we all had to do online compliance training by a certain deadline and our group was the only one that was 100% compliant with the compliance training deadline :)

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

One of my first jobs in an office, over the summer while I was in college, I worked at a development office. Two seperate people gave me work with a couple of parts, so I'd have things done on a rolling basis. When I gave the woman the first part of her stuff, she asked me immediately where the rest of it was. When I gave the man the first part of his stuff, he thanked me. When I gave the rest of it to the woman, she said nothing, just immediately started looking it over. The man thanked me for his stuff, and then later they both seperately stopped by where I was sitting to thank me. And I thought to myself that I would treat people like the man did whenever possible, as it actually made a tremendous difference in how much I wanted to please him. When I left the job at the end of the summer, they gave me a card with a gift certificate to the college bookstore, and the woman I'd done a lot of work for (not the evil one, but rather one I liked working for) gave me crabtree and evelyn Patchouli bodywash, for which I would do almost anything. :)

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

(Hi, cruised in off my friendsfriends, hope you don't mind.)

Back in my senior year of college, one of my part-time jobs was creating the plates and plates and plates of bacterial cultures for the microbiology classes. This meant a lot of nights where I came in at midnight and days that were interestingly cut up by trips to the lab because the cultures had to grow for a specific amount of time before they were used the next day. The lab supervisor was a much older woman who had a reputation as a harridan with a lot of the students. Luckily, she and I got along pretty well.

One of my midnight trips in happened to coincide with my birthday. I walked into the lab, set my backpack down, and started to set up my burner and equipment... and then noticed the 9"x7" birthday card propped up to stand on the counter. It was a really lovely painting of a scene from Tolkien -- we'd recently discovered that we were both rabid Tolkien fans and had bonded over that. Written on the back was a gracious thank-you for my hard work and strange hours, and a hope that I'd had a happy birthday.

Sadly, the card has gone missing in the many moves since then, but I've never forgotten her kindness.