On that note, I'm gonna give a shout out to QA. Thanks guys.
Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
#22Thank you.
Re: Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
#23> 2. Thank the people who never get thanked I always make a point of telling anyone in IT at whatever company I worked for that I appreciated what they did and knew it was a thankless job. It's one of those areas where if you do a perfect job no one knows you're there and you're only high-profile when you screw up. I've found over the years that they'll pay back that kindness ten-fold and often when you're in some so…
To add onto this, I remember explaining the idea of our devops team to my non-technical/muggle coworkers at one point. Explaining how "the cloud" and "servers" are really just OPM (other peoples' machines) and that you need entire teams to orchestrate those servers (among other things) opened their eyes to how comparable IT teams are to civil engineers. I like to think they enjoyed learning about the process and will…
Heh, i noticed a site recently for some framework or other that claimed it was "serverless". Meaning that it was designed to run inside a container or VM, and thus whatever hardware it ran on was not "your" problem.
I really do wonder what kind of accounting gymnastics this kind of thinking leads to, as at the end of the day someone has to pay the people that monitor and maintain the hardware, never mind the power bill.
Re: Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
To add on to this, this thinking of "fake" vs "real" gratitude falls into the typical Socratic thinking of "I can tell you what isn't XXX but I can't tell you what it is cause I'm not wise yada yada." As human beings we like to think we can tell human beings intentions. However, as miscommunication proves, we often can't, at least accurately. Having individuals go through the motions of generosity, humility, and grat…
> teaching people those intentions why do we need to teach people though? If its obvious that gratitude is good why can't we simply adopt it in an instant. Unless you mean 'anti gratitude' is inherent to all human minds and needs to be constantly suppressed and overpowered through practice.
> If its obvious that gratitude is good why can't we simply adopt it in an instant.
Humans are creatures of habit. You don't change behavior by flipping a switch; we aren't wired that way.
Re: Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
#25Thanking can be the new humble brag.
Re: Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
#26Is it really gratitude if you cultivate it? Can you really become mindful/thankful/x via pure practice? If it makes sense and is logical why can't you instantly become thankful, why do you practice? I see ton's of people in daily life who have cultivated modesty (eg: politicians, ceo's ect) . It is so obvious that its fake, why do ppl do this?
> I see ton's of people in daily life who have cultivated modesty (eg: politicians, ceo's ect) . It is so obvious that its fake,
No. You have seen tons of people who have cultivated modesty-signalling. Signalling is cheap, but it stops passing for the real thing when overused. That's where the fakeness feeling comes from.
The more advanced manipulators are already practicing anti-modesty-signalling: Open disregard for courtneousness, plus some other subtler signalling that people subconsciously correlate with real modesty. Onces these tactics get widespread, they will feel fake too.
But all this does not mean you cannot practice the actual thing. Being mindful, thankful, etc does require practice... and it is harder than just signalling for it. It does not come naturally to human beings, at least not in our culture, but it does not make it worthless.
Re: Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
#27> people are less likely to feel or express gratitude at work than anyplace else. And they’re not thankful for their current jobs, ranking them dead last in a list of things they’re grateful for.
First off I don't want to be thanked or praised, I want to be PAID. If I do a great job give me more money, a day off, or something tangible. I don't want a non-monetary gift either. I have a drawer full of work trophies. It's nonsense. Why should I be thankful I have a job? I've earned this.
I used to have a manager that would thank me all the time and then praise me for the littlest thing. It lost any meaning it may have had and often feels more manipulative than anything. Student of the one minute manager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Minute_Manager.
I thank my co-workers all the time though because they don't have to be nice or helpful. And I nearly always help a co-worker when they ask for it and sometimes when they don't. I typically get a thank you. Thanks and praise from my teammates goes well beyond anything from a higher up. Maybe I'm cynical, but it nearly always feels like I'm being placated in some way.
Edit:
I think it goes further to respect and listen to the opinions of your fellow co-workers and your employees. Take all opinions into consideration. Do not dismiss anything immediately. Acknowledge those who've contributed yes, when taking any sort of credit when speaking to other higher-ups or outside the department.
Also respect a person's work. Don't throw it away for a complete rewrite because that's easier than trying to understand it and don't suggest a revision without fully considering what already exists.
Re: Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
#28> people are less likely to feel or express gratitude at work than anyplace else. And they’re not thankful for their current jobs, ranking them dead last in a list of things they’re grateful for. First off I don't want to be thanked or praised, I want to be PAID. If I do a great job give me more money, a day off, or something tangible. I don't want a non-monetary gift either. I have a drawer full of work trophies. It…
Indeed, you have summed up a huge problem with SF area culture: many people think that these fake-nice platitudes are meaningful, and also use them against others on a large scale in their daily life as a form of pervasive emotional manipulation -- often to avoid paying someone money.
Re: Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
#29Our group uses a chat bot, which plays silly games at random times. Sometimes the challenge is like "Say thanks to somebody to earn some points". Those points are useless gamification tokens, but maybe it helps to encourage gratitude. There was always somebody who took that challenge so far.
Rather, it encourages people to become good at simulating gratitude in a plausible manner.
It devalues the entire notion of gratitude to engage in that sort of petty manipulation. Gratitude is rendered into a base and superficial thing.
Re: Ways to Cultivate Gratitude at Work
#30Just wanted to say something about this part: "In short, Americans actively suppress gratitude on the job, even to the point of robbing themselves of happiness. Why? It may be because in theory, no one gives away anything at work; every exchange is fundamentally economic." <- this does not matches with my work experiences with americans at all. On the contrary I noticed careful attention to appreciate every bit.
I agree - this matches my experience too. Americans are blunt but that goes both ways. They appreciate a good deed while at the same time make their disapproval heard too.
I would point out that "Americans" are not a homogenous entity, culturally or otherwise. The United States is huge and has many distinct local cultural regions, with radically different behavioral norms that are obscured through the use of a common language and political system.
San Francisco is vastly different than New Jersey, for example, and both are vastly different than, say, the rural south.