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Just Wanted to Say Thanks

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Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#161

Post by spacedcowboy »

briandear wrote: post #154
kostarelo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On every retrospective session we do, every other week, there is an additional column called “stars” or “heros” and we add a note each there giving praises to someone else for something they did those two weeks. We then read them all out followed by a round of applause for each one of them. It brings great positivity to the team.

That sounds horrible to me. I’d much rather be in the background rather than getting effusive, mandatory public praise. Maybe I’m weird, but I’m not motivated by cupcakes, gold stars and clapping. If I do a good job, that’s just the minimum standard. If I do something worthy of clapping, then just remember that when it’s time to award annual RSUs and bonuses or when a special project comes up that needs leadership. T…

This.

I don’t want claps from my peers. I’ve already figured out if they like my work or not from day-to-day interaction.

If you want to recognize my contribution, give me money - that’s why I’m here. This is a business relationship. I work, you pay. Pay up.

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#162

Post by sailfast »

kostarelo wrote: post #126
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #90

I’ve learned that when I have a positive thought about someone, it’s generally worth communicating it. If I think a coworker saved me on some project, I tell them. If my partner is making me feel warm and fuzzy, I tell her. If someone impresses me, I say so. I don’t think people express these things nearly as often as they feel them, and I expect that many of the positive things that do end up communicated have anoth…

On every retrospective session we do, every other week, there is an additional column called “stars” or “heros” and we add a note each there giving praises to someone else for something they did those two weeks. We then read them all out followed by a round of applause for each one of them. It brings great positivity to the team.

Lots of folks seem to dislike the star / hero approach, but my team has a simple “thanks” column in our retros and it works really well to set the tone for the rest of the conversation - and it’s a great reminder to say thanks. Even if it’s just “thanks for being you.” It’s a great way to express gratitude without it having to be some “best of the best” style moment.

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#163

Post by cacois »

yiyus wrote: post #160
cjmcqueen wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gratitude is a skill anyone can learn. Accepting compliments is also a skill that anyone can learn. But, both of them take practice. It's okay to feel uncomfortable with something, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong. Sometimes we're just uncomfortable with something because it's not something we've had a lot of experience with.

Expressing gratitude and accepting compliments are nice skills to have, but making of it a public show is just bad taste, IMO.

Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but "praise in public, punish in private" is a saying for a reason. Praise is more effective in public, and praising one person on the team publicly benefits the entire team, not just that person.

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#164

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

civilized wrote: post #22

Some people are pointing out how rare it is for GitHubbers to express gratitude, but GitHub doesn't exactly encourage it. Doesn't it feel inappropriate to express gratitude as an "issue"? Maybe if there was a natural place for these messages they'd be sent more often. To the extent that there are affordances for it (stars, emojis) it is actually quite popular to praise good work on GitHub.

> Doesn't it feel inappropriate to express gratitude as an "issue"?

Yes, because it is, but I'd dispute the claim that GitHub discourages it. If anything, the people who use GitHub are more willing/most likely to misuse bugtracker for not just support requests but also general discussion and comments like this. It seems like there's a (non) issue like this that gets linked at least once a month on HN. I click through, get annoyed with the person who opened it, read the maintainer's response, get annoyed with their endorsement/encouragement of the idea, close the window, and then file it away in my mind or my bookmarks or both as an example of how annoying it is to try to collaborate with people whose platform of choice is GitHub.

Post this stuff on Twitter, or a mailing list, or a discussion board. Or at the very least, be productive and file a bug that says something like, "I wanted to express my gratitude for this project, but the README doesn't link to any public venues for general discussion". You know: things that at least attempt to pass themselves off as legitimate bugs? Or just don't do any of that and keep posting this sort of thing on GitHub--but in that case, please kindly also curb your and your colleagues' whinging in all future instances where you find that someone has chosen not to host on GitHub and, upon with being asked to, they say "no" and point to things like this as being among the reasons why GitHub users can't be trusted to make responsible use of project infrastructure.

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#165

Post by cutemonster »

cacois wrote: post #163
yiyus wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expressing gratitude and accepting compliments are nice skills to have, but making of it a public show is just bad taste, IMO.

Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but "praise in public, punish in private" is a saying for a reason. Praise is more effective in public, and praising one person on the team publicly benefits the entire team, not just that person.

This is more "praise in public, when the boss says so, because the boss says so", though?

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#166

Post by cutemonster »

ImaCake wrote: post #159
henry_bone wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP was talking about genuine, honest communication. I think these rituals in work teams have the correct idea. Their hearts are in the right place, so to speak, but it doesn't really work perfectly. As you've said some can feel left out. Others might just feel uncomfortable. The idea is good: share the love, highlight good work. But it probably better just to let people know more naturally.

Absolutely. My current workplace is very good at the organic thankyou. I try my best to show gratitude where I can.

What could have caused you and the other one to not get any votes, at the previous workplace? I'm guessing it was not work performance or anything like that

(The votes were publicly announced -- and also who had voted?)

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#167

Post by cutemonster »

berkes wrote: post #119
rualca wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think people express these things nearly as often as they feel them, and I expect that many of the positive things that do end up communicated have another motive behind them. I have the displeasure of working with a team member who does the exact opposite: at every chance he gets, he expressed his displeasure regarding other team members to management. Once I confronted him about that behavior and he state…

I hear you. But having once worked with team-members who take critique at anything, personally, I feel there is more to this. I always try to praise a person. But I also want to "reserve all rights" to say that a codebase is crap or a choice made in the past was evidently a bad choice. Finding the balance to critique work that a person contributed to, without criticising that person itself, is hard. A true challenge,…

> if a project is Open Source and you truly feel you have to "warn" people against using [it]

How did you go about doing that? (How did you warn others about an oss project, ... Maybe one/some project at GitHub?)

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#168

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

jblarneyforward wrote: post #44
civilized wrote: post #22

Some people are pointing out how rare it is for GitHubbers to express gratitude, but GitHub doesn't exactly encourage it. Doesn't it feel inappropriate to express gratitude as an "issue"? Maybe if there was a natural place for these messages they'd be sent more often. To the extent that there are affordances for it (stars, emojis) it is actually quite popular to praise good work on GitHub.

Often I email the person directly to thank them, but only works if there’s a public email.

This is baked into Git at the core, but just like many other cases, GitHub subverts the intent of fundamental expectations about the way Git is supposed to be used and actively goes out of its way to make it difficult if you're interacting with the project through GitHub instead of local tools. (In fact, for new GitHub accounts, it even defaults to obscuring users' contact info, and it attributes all changes made through the web UI to an opaque @github.com email address. You have to deliberately go into the settings to turn this off, without ever getting a notification that that's what GitHub is doing.)

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#169

Post by J5892 »

rualca wrote: post #100
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #90

I’ve learned that when I have a positive thought about someone, it’s generally worth communicating it. If I think a coworker saved me on some project, I tell them. If my partner is making me feel warm and fuzzy, I tell her. If someone impresses me, I say so. I don’t think people express these things nearly as often as they feel them, and I expect that many of the positive things that do end up communicated have anoth…

> I don’t think people express these things nearly as often as they feel them, and I expect that many of the positive things that do end up communicated have another motive behind them. I have the displeasure of working with a team member who does the exact opposite: at every chance he gets, he expressed his displeasure regarding other team members to management. Once I confronted him about that behavior and he state…

He's doing you a favor. Now you know that if he gets promoted faster than you or your co-workers, it's probably time to find a better company (or a better team, if that's an option).

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#170

Post by thegginthesky »

chrisweekly wrote: post #94

Expressing gratitude is one of the surest paths to a better day. One of my all-time favorite books -- "How to Want What You Have" by Tim Miller, PhD -- has as its central thesis the idea that: 1. Most people are relatively unhappy; 2. The root cause is our tendency always to want More [money/power, love, recognition] -- which stems from evolutionarily adaptive traits; 3. The remedy is to live in the present moment --…

There's a very very old saying "There's more happiness in giving than there is in receiving."

One of the key things I believe most people forget is that being a free giver doesn't mean only to participate in charity and help those in need. It means to act like this to everyone, including those around us. Most people need encouragement and to feel appreciate, and I believe culturally we don't show enough of it.

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