Please and Thank You? New Concept? I can haz?

It’s always nice to be asked to do something, rather than be told. Today, I was asked to write a blog article. That’s right. I was asked, with a “please” and a “if you can” and a “if you can’t, let me know.” Wow. I wasn’t even “asked” to do articles at work in the first place. I was given a password and told “you’re going to start writing blogs.” Our copywriter needed to plug an article into the beauty blog about fashions from the 2011 Golden Globes. I didn’t watch the ceremony, but I still rocked that article. Why? Because I was asked, which was polite and implied that my services were needed and appreciated! If you would like to read it, click here.

You know what’s also great to receive? A legitimate, heartfelt, genuine “thank you.” I was thanked quite generously by our copywriter for writing that fashion piece. Yay for praise! Strangely, I’ve been getting more tokens of gratitude in the last few months than ever before. I don’t know why. Like, at Christmas I actually got presents this year! I was given a card, fudge and cookies! For driving on treacherous ice last week, my manager bought each of us dare devil, customer service stunt ladies a box of chocolate turtles, and with the help of my husband and the IT department, I demolished the box in one day! If this keeps-up, I might even get a present during Administrative Assistant Appreciation Week (AKA: Secretaries’ Day), but I’m not going to get my hopes too high.  Not a single person remembered last year…even the blog article I wrote celebrating Admin Week was postponed, so I had to revamp it to a not-so-time-sensitive Office Must-Haves piece.

As fun as candy is, my favorite “thanks” have been in the form of song and poem. Here are three instances of executives trying their hands at rhyme to show appreciation for me:

When I was on sick one Friday, nobody was going to clean the fridge, so Tom took it upon himself to clean the fridge with an Elvis theme:

Dear [Office] Fridge Dwellers,

It has come to my attention that the normal Friday discipline of cleaning out our fridge, as well as the disciple of that procedure, is not in a position to do so today.

Of course, some may believe a task as minor should just be ignored, and no one would be the worse for it.

Fortunately, people with a passion for what they do is my weakness, and our Prentice has been “passionate” about this task….

So today, in her honor, I will volunteer to clean the fridge – at the “little’ bit earlier time” of 4:30pm.

And, I will don special attire for this cleaning, and have a song that I will be performing live in concert as I clean…… (see if you can guess who I will be dressed as)

Bless my soul, what’s wrong with you,

You left your food a wastin’ and it’s making my spew

The smell of this is causin’ us all to shout,

Your food’s done – were throwin’ it out,

Hey-Hey, Hey, Heyyyyy, were throwin’ it out!

Our VP of Finance wrote this for me, after receiving the tracking number for a package I sent on his behalf:

On its way it be

Hopefully it will arrive at its destination and not get lost at sea

Without you at the front desk it would not stand a chance

And the receiver on the other end would never get to take a glance

So for this thank you very much

When it comes to fedex you have the Midas touch.

….probably not up to your level on the rhymes but I am working it

My personal favorite is from our previous CFO. He asked me to print a bunch of “really neat files.” I agreed to do so, only because they were “really neat files, rather than regular boring ones.” He then replied with this:

Fanciful, elegant, momentous reports

Each waiting its day in the sun

And of all  employees, from all our cohorts

Their deliverer, the beholden one.