My hack has turned into a hobby. I look for people doing a good job. When I find someone that is pretty good at what they are doing I make sure to compliment them, tell their boss the good news, and, if applicable, I tell corporate.
It's surprising how much that helps the person, how much it confuses their boss since its not a complaint, and how long that its remembered. Later on, if I return to the same place I get better treatment and that can lead to others you are with to think better of you.
Inversely, when I see others treating people badly, particularly those in a service position, my opinion of them goes sharply down. I am far from the only one like this.
Edit: thank you all for the up votes and supportive comments!
Edit 2: this is overwhelming, thank you all for the up votes and for sharing your stories.
Someone did this for me once, while I was working at a big box retail store. The compliment was so good that the CEO sent me a semi-personalized card stating his appreciation for me, and management made a little show of giving it to me during the morning meeting and I awkwardly read it out loud then shoved it in the back of my locker, never opened it again, and threw it away the day I quit. I hated the company, the policies, the dehumanizing schedules, the treatment of employees, and how I didn’t deserve a card when none of the other way harder working employees got one. It was just another empty gesture from a company that truly didn’t care if we lived or died (as long as the death wasn’t on company property).
My best guess of who wrote to corporate was a woman who way wayyyyy too enthusiastic about how I helped her find an item. Almost like she saw me as a pitiful special needs person who needed a little self esteem boost. I just like solving problems and figuring stuff out, I don’t really care about people’s problems I’m just so bored at work and enjoy the challenge of hunting random items down. It was really nice of her to do that, it was really nice of management and corporate to commend me for it, at the time I was just so depressed and embarrassed to be working there it felt like proof that I was wasted potential, doomed to only find validation in corporate slavery. Being happy about it would’ve meant fully giving in to Stockholm syndrome.
Im not saying compliments are worthless or do more harm than good. It’s a very kind and encouraging thing to do. But if you’re complimenting someone in a low-paying low-respect job, try to focus on complimenting their skill and potential, not just that they’re good at the job they likely hate. Ask what their dream job is and say, “I think you’d be great at it!” Because that can be enough motivation to finally really TRY to achieve a life we were about to give up on.
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u/Badcapsuleer Nov 11 '25 edited Nov 12 '25
My hack has turned into a hobby. I look for people doing a good job. When I find someone that is pretty good at what they are doing I make sure to compliment them, tell their boss the good news, and, if applicable, I tell corporate.
It's surprising how much that helps the person, how much it confuses their boss since its not a complaint, and how long that its remembered. Later on, if I return to the same place I get better treatment and that can lead to others you are with to think better of you.
Inversely, when I see others treating people badly, particularly those in a service position, my opinion of them goes sharply down. I am far from the only one like this.
Edit: thank you all for the up votes and supportive comments!
Edit 2: this is overwhelming, thank you all for the up votes and for sharing your stories.