Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Appreciate or Get Depreciated

Greetings Happy People,

For my next post, I have a story to share with you.

This story is about two gentleman. To protect their identity let's call them "Mark" and "Carl."

Carl works at an office as a supervisor. He is one of those people that talks loud, does little, and annoys the hell out of everyone. Mark works at the same place in a different office. He is a regular guy that doesn't mind helping out a person or two.

One day, Carl had a massive project assignment to complete. He had to send a year's worth of reports, facts, and figures up to their sister offices in Denver. He would have done it himself, but he spent too much time talking loud and doing nothing. Knowing that he could not do it by himself, he asked for help from different people in different offices. One of the people he asked was Mark.

With great teamwork, and tireless efforts, the team managed to get the yearly reports to Denver in a timely manner. With the exception of Mark and Carl, there were six other people on the team. Each person did their job responsibly and helped Carl out.

Mark felt proud of what he was able to do and how he helped Carl out. Until a couple weeks later, when Mark looked at his email message.

In his email message, he noticed that Carl wrote up a letter to the higher office recognizing the people that helped him out. To Mark's surprise, he looked at the email and realized that his name was not on the list - along with two other people.

This hurts Mark because he thought they worked on Carl's project as a team equally and believe that the people on the team should be recognized equally. He asked Carl what was going on and Carl gave an answer that could be seen as a lie from miles away.

In Mark's mind, he believed that Carl's actions were deliberate. Mark tried to talk to upper management, but they would not listen to him.

These actions put Mark's vision of Carl in a different light. He sees Carl as someone who is ungrateful and unappreciative. Anytime he sees Carl, Mark is reminded of that bad taste in his mouth. To this day, he refused to help Carl out and worked on any project associated with him. Instead, he would work on other projects and assignments for other people. A few weeks later, Mark left that workplace for a better job opportunity at a rival company.

Within months, Mark proved to be a valuable asset at this rival company as he worked hard and got promoted through different levels of his job. He felt a lot better than he did at the company he worked before. Meanwhile, Carl's company took a hit. He tried to ask for help with another massive project, but people remembered what happened last time and would not lend a hand to him. This caused a bad image on the company and Carl. After that fiasco, Carl was fired.

What messages can be taken from this story? No matter if you see things from Carl's or Mark's eyes, it is good to appreciate and be appreciated. People like a simple "thank you" or a nice recognition. It makes them feel good for doing a job that is well done!! However, if you are not appreciating, you are depreciating.

Depreciation creates ripples of mistrust, hurt feelings, and questions about different things. Not too many people enjoy feeling depreciated. Instead, they would rather go to a place where they are more appreciated. If they can't do that, then they would drown in their own self-worthlessness.

So if you are a Mark or a Carl in this story, always remember to appreciate and never depreciate. It can make a difference in more ways than one.

That is all I have for now. Take care and thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Jesse I-I-I

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