Ugh – Mondays are tough.  I know very few people (actually, I’m not sure of any) who wake up greeting Monday with a “Hurrah!”  However, I did receive a very pleasant surprise toward the end of my day which made my Monday all better.

Day 4…Thank You

This time last year, I was working on a project reporting to a very difficult person (aka “BSD”).  It was a dark time in my professional life and as a result, placed a dark cloud over my personal life.

My typical day began at 6 am by answering emails from BSD.  After some “quality time” rushing my then-2-year-old off to daycare, I would head into the office before 9 am to tackle my exponentially growing To Do List.  I rarely left my office unless I was summoned to a meeting at BSD’s office.  This meant that I would often skip meals (unless I picked up something on my way in – not that it matter because I was so stressed out that I rarely had an appetite) and bathroom breaks.  The day was filled with answering to BSD – numerous emails and telephone calls assigning me more and more tasks with short turn-around times (BSD once called me in my office at 11 pm to assign me new tasks to complete by the next morning!) while berating me on the quality of my work (vague instructions coupled with BSD’s unavailability to answer my questions made it difficult to meet BSD’s unrealistic expectations).  In the evening, Husband and Kid would call me to say “good-night”.  I would finally make it home well after Husband went to bed, just in time to “rest” for 3  to 4 hours (I was rarely greeted with sleep from all the anxiety) before my day would start again.  This went on day after day, including weekends, for months.  I did not celebrate my birthday – heck, I wasn’t even sure if I could make all the family Christmas events!  I worked Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day.

And after all this…I did not get a genuine “thank you”.

In my industry, it is rare to receive appreciation – “bosses” and clients take you for granted and there is often a lack of respect for your time and expertise.

Fortunately, not everyone is like BSD.

Yesterday, I received the following email from a client (with a cc to my firm’s client responsible contact):

“[Care,]

Thank you so much for all your work and research today (and always)! You are my go to person and I can’t thank you enough for your responsiveness and diligence.

Have a great night.

Best,
B*****”

It was a very unexpected but welcomed surprise to be recognized and appreciated.

I am grateful for B*****’s appreciation.  I am grateful that not everyone is an a$$hole.  I am particularly grateful to B***** for reminding me that not everyone is an a$$hole.