intellectualammo Posted July 13, 2007 Report Share Posted July 13, 2007 (edited) I thought that I would start a topic on being recognized and appreciated for things that you've done in the workplace or in other areas. Mine. I just got home from work tonight to find in my mailbox a letter from the president of UPMC Passavant - a handwritten one. In it she personally and formally thanks me and writes this - "Your outstanding work and honesty are a tribute to you." Recently I have been nominated by at least three people for an ACES Award - first by the director of security, then my director, and also the president as well, from my understanding. This is what set it all off: I found in an unmarked envelope, sitting on a table in a cafe at the hospital - in the envelope was just under a thousand dollars. I turned it in. I have turned in many, many other things through the years as well - like diamond earrings to a nurse in ICU, half a dozen wallets/purses, and even a stolen laptop. So the director of security fired off emails to my director and to the president. Now, when my director found out what I did, he also added not only that I should be recognized for the money and all the rest of the items that I've turned in, but also for my work. I work just about everyday at the hospital. Last year, I only took 4 days off, and worked every holiday. I have so much paid time off accumulated- I'm actually losing it since I don't take off! I recently had to cash some of them in, so that I could accumulate more. With all the overtime I work - I make more than two FTE's combined. Also I had been trained to be a group lead within the first six months that I started working at the hospital. The woman that usually covered the weekends told me she wanted to make me her relief. And so she did. Now, about two hours after I had turned the money in, security got a call. A man was on the other line who said that he lost his money and thought that the only place he could have lost it, that he hadn't checked already, was at Passavant. When security told him that his money was returned - he started crying... Later security told me that he was at a nice restaurant with his wife. They never eat out because it is just too expensive (don't I know) and he wanted to take her out this time. It'd been years. He reached into his pocket and found that they had no money to pay the bill with. When he came in with his wife to pick up the money, they praised security, they praised my department, me, the hospital...they were just so happy! His wife said "No one ever does anything like this these days."...Well, someone did this day... Oh, and that laptop I turned in...the woman whom it belonged to, was some sort of PT case worker, where all her patients files were on the computer, and she was about to lose her job over it. It had been missing for about a week when I had found it. Apparently someone had stolen it from the patients room she was working in, but I can't say anything more than that. But all were happy when it turned up again, thank to me. So, when I saw the handwritten letter in the mail...I was wondering if any of you have your own stories of recognition and appreciation that you'd like to share. Edited July 13, 2007 by intellectualammo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-Mac Posted July 13, 2007 Report Share Posted July 13, 2007 Well let me first start off my saying great job, intellectualammo! It sounds like you are a nice, honest, hard-working person and it sure is nice to be recognized for all that you do. I want to also preface my story by saying that I am a college drop out, and although I consider myself intelligent, I could probably use a little more book smarts. I think that's another reason I am so happy to have discovered Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged recently. It's quite nice to be educated by someone I can respect. (No offense intended to any college professors out there.) After dropping out of college at the age of 19 and returning to my parent's home, I started working full time as a waitress and bartender. I worked for the same restaurant for nearly three years and felt quite lost in life. I certainly did not want to be a "Flo" (full-time, 50-something year-old waitress from the TV show Alice.) My last year in the restaurant business, I was promoted to key employee. That basically meant I was doing everything the restaurant manager was doing, but wasn't getting paid for it. The manager screwed me over on the schedule one day and that was it...the final straw. I had a "take this job and shove it" moment, told off the manager and stormed out. When I arrived home, I was mortified. What had I done? What would I do now? My crummy one bedroom apartment was so depressing and I just felt like a dumb failure. A few days later, I was sitting on my sofa watching TV and still feeling sorry for myself, when the phone rang. It was one of the bartenders I worked with and one of my regular customers had come by and was wondering what had happened to me. When she found out I was unemployed, she gave her business card to my friend and asked him to call me. Come to find out, she was an officer with a large mutual fund company in Houston, Texas, and she wanted me to come work for her. She was so impressed by my customer service skills and dedication, that she wanted to hire me regardless of my past experience and lack of a college degree. A few days later, I found myself at the nicest office building in the Houston Metro area being interviewed for a job I was clearly not qualified for, but they had faith in me that I was a good, hard worker and could learn. And so I did. Now, 12 years later, I have my securities license and work for an awesome financial planner. He is a great mentor, and friend, and hopes to have me working my own book of business if/when I choose to do so. In the meantime, I love his clients, love helping them plan for their futures and thoroughly enjoy this industry. I can't tell you how happy I am professionally. I sincerely love my job and my employer. And evidently, the feeling is mutual. I received a huge Christmas bonus last year, after only working with him for 6 months. I have never heard of an assistant receiving a bonus that large, but I sure was glad to be on the receiving end. More important to me than the money, was the message he wrote in the Christmas card he gave me. He gushed about how proud he was to have me a part of his firm and how he hopes we have many more productive years together. I plan to stay as long as he'll have me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intellectualammo Posted July 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2007 (edited) I want to also preface my story by saying that I am a college drop out, and although I consider myself intelligent, I could probably use a little more book smarts. I think that's another reason I am so happy to have discovered Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged recently. It's quite nice to be educated by someone I can respect. (No offense intended to any college professors out there.) I'm a college dropout as well - but more: a repeated college dropout. And it certainly was not because of my grades... I however wish I was a high school drop out - seeing how I was in a public high school (read: local government education installation) (having said that- more: an elementary school dropout) but I didn't think about dropping or transferring to private/secular education at the time. But this is getting off topic... More important to me than the money, was the message he wrote in the Christmas card he gave me. He gushed about how proud he was to have me a part of his firm and how he hopes we have many more productive years together. I plan to stay as long as he'll have me! Well done! Thank you so much for sharing your story. I plan to be working as long as UPMC will have me! Edited July 13, 2007 by intellectualammo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-Mac Posted July 13, 2007 Report Share Posted July 13, 2007 I'm a college dropout as well - but more: a repeated college dropout. And it certainly was not because of my grades... I however wish I was a high school drop out - seeing how I was in a public high school (read: local government education installation) (having said that- more: an elementary school dropout) but I didn't think about dropping or transferring to private/secular education at the time. But this is getting off topic... Right! I mistakenly thought I was getting a good education because I was going to a highly coveted school district in an up-scale Houston suburb. (Although my family was not in the upscale neighborhood.) :-( The sad thing is, I think I really did get a much better education than a lot of public school districts were/are giving students. How sad is that?! Sometimes, I really wonder how much better my education could be if I had been challenged at all. But I digress...this is off topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intellectualammo Posted July 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2007 But I digress...this is off topic. Yes, but not a valid reason to end the talk, as such . We can take it somewhere else. I'll PM you sometime soon, Kelly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenure Posted July 14, 2007 Report Share Posted July 14, 2007 I wish I had something to contribute job-wise, but I don't. But I am enjoying this thread. It brings a big smile to my face to read your stories of dedication and success. Actually, I do have one little story. I was moaning in another thread that my Acting teacher never recognizes the amount of work I put into the pieces he asks us to do. I never hear any helpful feedback. Well, that's not entirely true. It's not that I never receive feedback, just that it's very rarely about me, but instead he focuses on addressing the class as a whole. However, there was this one scene - I was Orestes, and I was conspiring with a member of the Chorus, trying to find a good, convincing reason why my mother deserved to die. Now, she's already murdered my father and chopped him up into little bits, before sending me into exile for 10 years or so when I was a young boy. I've come back, on command of Apollo, to avenge my father's death, told that my actions would be considered just and righteous. However, I'm still hung up about having to kill my own mother. That is, until the Chorus member relates to me a dream my Mother had, about giving birth to a snake, which suckled on her breast, drawing out blood and milk. Well, the whole thing was a bit of a blur for me, but my next little monologue, where I go on about how I am that snake, and how she bred this sign, etc etc... well, I just stood there before hand, fixated on the telling of this story. I then just imagined that it was like being told that a girl that I'd always fancied, actually liked me in return, and that I'd just been told about how she'd gone on about how slap-dash gorgeous I am. Well, I went insane - I started jumping about, going on about how I was this snake, how I would become like a serpent and kill her, and how it was all her fault. When it came to my bigger monologue, where I go on about how I'll actually kill her, which is actually meant to be the focus of the scene, I just hurried through it, like it was a grocery list. I didn't plan to do any of this stuff, it just came naturally. My teacher absolutely loved it. He said it was fantastic, I was pursuing my objective, I was being natural, I was definitely doing a clear action. He loved how I'd approached it. I had a big dumb grin on my face for the rest of the lesson. So, it's the one thing that's given my confidence, that I may one day be able to reach Christian Bale proportions of acting ability. One day at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-Mac Posted July 17, 2007 Report Share Posted July 17, 2007 Great story, Tenure! I got a chuckle thinking about you jumping around. These are nice and inspiring stories. Does no one else have one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cogito Posted July 17, 2007 Report Share Posted July 17, 2007 Great story, Tenure! I got a chuckle thinking about you jumping around. These are nice and inspiring stories. Does no one else have one? I've got a good one... The summer before ninth grade, I learned how to play volleyball beyond the level of "lets smack the ball randomly and hope it goes over", and I fell in love. The next spring, I tried out for my school's volleyball team, but didn't make it, and with good reason because I was hardly any good. The next year, I practiced quite a bit before tryouts, then went to the first tryout. The second one, however, was during a doctor's appointment, which I told the coach and he said it was ok because there would be a third. There was no third, and had I known that I would've rescheduled the doctor's appointment, but I didn't make the team. This past school year, however, I put serious effort into practicing before hand and in the tryouts themselves, and I made it. I started off as a bench player, but by the end of the year I was being put in at key moments, especially when the other setters started faltering or we needed a good serve (my best skill). After the last game, the coach pulled me aside and told me that he wished I had been able to come to the second tryout the last year, and that he was very glad to have me on the team. Two weeks later, at our school's sports banquet, I got the Coaches Award Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-Mac Posted July 17, 2007 Report Share Posted July 17, 2007 (edited) After the last game, the coach pulled me aside and told me that he wished I had been able to come to the second tryout the last year, and that he was very glad to have me on the team. Two weeks later, at our school's sports banquet, I got the Coaches Award Ah, I love sports. Great job, Cogito! What a great feeling of accomplishment after you worked so hard and waiting so long. Edited July 17, 2007 by K-Mac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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