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Earlier this week, side pocket wrote a diary for the Kitchen Table Kibitzing series (if you don’t know it, you should check it out!) that resonated with me in a certain way. He wrote about a particularly positive customer service interaction he had and his attempt to give positive feedback, both verbal and more “formal.” Some commenters noted, probably correctly, that the verbal feedback meant a great deal at the moment to the employee.
I am sometimes reminded of how important the occasional positive reinforcement is to me. I’m not a customer service worker—I teach college students (which, unfortunately, is sometimes made to feel like a customer service interaction). Like anybody else, I have my good days and my bad days. Sometimes, those good days or bad days (most often bad days) are more like weeks than days. That might be fine for some people, but I am a rather nervous person, and I often feel anxiety in all of my daily interactions, including at work. As a result, I overthink everything. As I write this diary, I am finishing what has felt like a particularly bad week. I can’t really put my finger on what made it so “bad.” I was just commiserating with a faculty friend who also feels as though this week has been rough, and our experiences were pretty similar. I have just been off of my game, and it had bled into every class I have taught this week. I’ve stumbled and fumbled my words in class, I’ve mixed things up, I had to have a student repeat a question because I got lost about halfway into it, plus some classroom management issues that I really shouldn’t be having in a college lecture hall. As I told my friend, the scene of the priest engaging in self-flagellation in a dimly lit room is sort of how I handle my bad classroom days. I replay scenes in my head, dwell on how I could have handled situations better, and beat myself up over how I could have been better prepared or how I could have worded something differently. I’m probably a lot harder on myself than a student will ever be on me in an evaluation.
As I wrapped up one class this week that felt as though it had gone in a particularly bad direction, I had a small line of students who wanted to see me at the end. This usually means that there are problems—either with understanding or (more often) technology. Indeed, most students had a problem they needed to discuss, which somehow made the day feel even worse. At the end of the line, a student I recognized approached me. I recognized him because he has taken literally all of the courses I have ever offered on campus—proving, I guess, that I’m not all bad. As he approached, he said something to the effect of, “I don’t have a problem. I just wanted to let you know that I really love your classes. This is an 8:30am class, but I actually think I’ll get up on time most days this semester.” I thanked him (after laughing at the “getting up on time” comment) and told him I was glad he enjoyed the class, adding that I’ve been happy to have him in all of my courses. He probably didn’t realize just how much the comment meant to me, though. It was just enough to propel me through the day, and to be honest, I’ve been running on that single comment’s fumes ever since. It’s not too often that somebody in a class goes out of their way to express something like that, so when it happens, it is special. And in this case, it happened just when I needed it the most.
So I was reminded of just how much I rely on occasional positive feedback. I think we all do. It doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while, I’ll get a note or a card from a student at the end of the semester telling me that they enjoyed my class, sometimes accompanied by a very personal reason why. Not only do I keep them, but I’ve actually started to arrange them on my wall—I call it my “positivity wall.” I have about ten pieces of positivity on there right now that I sometimes stop to read on a bad day. Again, I don’t think many students fully understand how much I really value this kind of feedback.
And so, as I mentioned in side pocket’s KTK diary, I have made a point as of late to go out of my way to compliment others more generously when appropriate. You never know when the compliment for a job well done is going to be the bright spot in someone’s day—or even the thing that gets them through the week. How much do you rely on positive feedback, and do you try to be generous with it?
Now, on to the tops…
Top Comments (September 20, 2018):
From thurayya:
This astute and striking comment by Hugh Jim Bissell about the Senate Judiciary Committee deserves further recognition.
Top Mojo (September 19, 2018):
Top Mojo is courtesy of mik! Click here for more on how Top Mojo works.
Top Pictures (September 19, 2018):
Tonight’s photo quilt is courtesy of jotter!