Unexpected Recognition

Tonight, I went out for dinner and drinks with my boss and two other people that I work with.  We’ve all been a part of the same project that has been on-going for more than a year now, and the occasion for the dinner/drinks was to celebrate completing a very huge chunk of the project, on time and successfully.  More or less, our boss just wanted to show his appreciation for our hard work.  It’s something he doesn’t get to do very often, since he’s a VP and there are days where he doesn’t even have time to take a proper lunch.

There’s a pretty cozy restaurant/bar right down the road from our office, which is where we chose to go.  Nothing fancy.  We got a few sandwiches, a basket of “loaded fries”, and some wings.  I had three Captain and Cokes.  After our first round of drinks arrived, my boss proposed a toast to the three of us for all the hard work we had done over the past year and a half, stating that he really didn’t think anyone else in the company would have been capable of pulling such a project off successfully. 

As we clicked our glasses together, both of my co-workers stated that the success of the project was due in large part to me.  Neither of them needed to include that, and it was nice surprise that they did.  All of us already knew it — we divided the project up to conquer it, and this particular portion we completed was the portion that I had decided to tackle since it was the most tuned to my personal expertise as an algorithm analyst.  So, it was a nice gesture. 

It seems these days, I see more negative gestures from people.  I see people doing rude things to each other (including me, sometimes, I’ll admit) when I’m driving to work, when I’m at the supermarket, I read about things in the news, and don’t even get me started about how ignorant people can be when you give them the anonymity of a keyboard and computer monitor.  All of that makes experiencing these two gestures — of my boss personally thanking us for our work in the way he did, and my co-workers unexpected recognition — refreshing, and makes me glad that perhaps not all people should be dragged out into the street and shot.

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