Leading From Possibility

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ‘THANK YOU’ AND ‘YOU ARE WELCOME’?

For a while now, I have been noticing something that is quite peculiar.  It has to do with how people respond to compliments or being thanked for something that they did or a way they are looking.  For instance, when a colleague thanks you for your taking her place at a meeting that she was assigned to attend but could not because of a case emergency, what do you say?    Is it ‘No Problem?’ or  ‘I didn’t have anything else to do during that hour’.  And when someone compliments you on a new tie or a great pair of shoes, do you respond with, “Oh, I’ve had these for a while,” or “do you really like it?”

I want to know whatever happened with the old fashioned, “Thank you very much,” or “ You are most welcome.”  What is with this “NO PROBLEM” response?  Do you realize that there are two negatives in this phrase?  The negative is the word ‘NO’ and the second is the word “PROBLEM.  How odd of us to respond with a double dose of negatives when someone is complimenting or thanking us?  Where is our sense of civility and genteelness?   I want to bring it back, or if we never had it, start generating it.  Right now.

With this in mind, I want to thank our great NASW members for all that they do. Thank you! For choosing social work for your  profession when  you could have  chosen a more lucrative,  often less stressful career, for supporting communities in reaching the goals they have set, for putting your caring into practice rather than keeping it solely in words, for being part of NASW so that your professional organization can represent you and the clients you serve in the legislature, and other governmental and private settings that influence public policy.  Thank you for what you do and for your dues.  And thank you most of all for giving me a great job, where every day when I come up on the elevator I enter Suite 409 at 14 Beacon Street, Boston, with a big smile on my face.  Thank you.

Carol J. Trust