A pleasant surprise ....

We live in very much of a blame culture these days. So usually when one of my project doesn’t go as smoothly (read perfectly) as planned, I often get made to feel it my fault, even if its an issue out of my control (as in recently something not being specified by another person in the tender (before I was on the project) … that I would have had as a provisional item = more money = hassle). That’s the way we often get treated by our main client, but we’re stuck in a catch 22 situation a bit there. So due a bit of teflon shoulder management the hassle seems to end up at my door (or that of my collegues). It seems at times no matter how hard I try I’ll still get hassled about something (because we can’t be perfect).

Yesterday one of the more senior bods at work managed to leave the CD with his presentation for a big meeting in his computer here … but he wasn’t working here and unable to get back to pick it up in time for that to be an option. So as I unfortunately took the phone call (how do I manage to always get the hassle calls when the admin bods aren’t at desks?) and as the section’s most geek-minded I was sorting it out.

… some hassle later with our woefully slow computers (I wonder how mine manages to run AutoCAD at times) due to holding no budget (so other department cast offs/ desperation (ie we can’t work unless you upgrade)/ corporate upgrades only for us) I was having issues with the computer (having moved to the fastest free one) not liking the huge PowerPoint file. Ding! Inspiration … I have a faster computer at home with a broadband connection that won’t queue 10Mb Files until too late … and did a bit of WAH (Working at Home). In the end after a very long wait for a very large file to go through the e-mail virus scanner on its way out it failed. Lots of mobile calls from a frantic presenter during the process building up the stress at bit both ends of the phone. So split it up into chunks and all bar 3 slides made it in time … which were blagged through in the end. It was a good job I managed to get them sent as the presenter found that the new President of ICE was chairing the session even though it was at a neighbouring institution. Mind you I still don’t know why the error message on size came up before it tried to sent the split up version but after the sending bit of the whole file … I’m obviously not that geek-minded.

So after being stressed at down the phone and time running out … I ended up in rather a ‘I’m rubbish’ mood for the night, concerned the mobile would ring yet again! Lots of Dr T Hugs later and I’d settled down.

So I was really (and I mean really) surprised when he came in this morning with a small box of chocolates to say thank you for the effort I’d made yesterday to get him the presentation …. and sorry for getting stressed down the phone to me in the process.

It was such a surprise as usually you rarely get a sorry in this industry, and in the public sector the public only ever seem to complain, rarely will they contact you after a scheme to say thank you/ well done (in my old employer a positive letter was known as a Well Done letter as a one time boss would write this in red ink before passing it onto the project’s engineer). Of late it feels as if my presence in the office has been barely noticed and that I’m an object to hassle regardless of whether I could have changed things or not (see above project).

It’s also made me think about my New Year’s resolution as the year closes; it was to make the effort to say Thank You to people as much as possible when they did something for me … these days it seems people are taken for granted too much. You know what, when you do it makes you feel better as well!

So I leave you with this thought… if the council/ a business etc. have done something in your area and it went better than you thought it would …. Drop them a line and say well done! You’ll make their day.