the goodness, rewind

last week on thursday, my manager came upon me in my cubicle as i was banging my head against a large, high visibility bug (against which, by the way, i’m still doing the head-hanging thing — it would be better if there was some hair metal in the background), and asked me if i had a couple of minutes to spare.

gulping nervously, i let him lead me into a small meeting room, feeling like i knew what was coming. honestly, i didn’t think he was going to berate me, but i was fairly certain that he was going to say that he was going to take the bug and give it to someone else because he felt like i was underperforming and endangering the project, although a tiny part of me actually feared an honest-to-goodness berating.

instead, he whipped out an amex gift check for $100 and told me that it was a show of appreciation from the company, and that he wished it was bigger for how hard everyone was working, but that budgetary concerns put a hard limit on it.

i totally almost cried, but sucked it up and was all, “dude, that’s it?” ok, i didn’t say that, so you can stop yourself from passing out from indignation. [this does remind me of the time that one of my managers came upon me and said “looks like you’re working hard!” whereupon i gave him the double finger-point and said, “hardly working!” i almost slapped myself over that one.] i told him how much i love my job and enjoy the project and the people i get to work with. i tried not to gush too much, but it was hard, as i genuinely love my job.