Thank you messages are much appreciated
Posted By David Gough
Posted 1 month ago
A few weeks ago I wrote about some of the teachers I had and the lessons that I learned from them.
Two of the teachers wrote me thank you notes after reading that column. One came in the regular mail, and the other one was a quick note done by e-mail.
I appreciated the notes. It's not every day that someone stops and writes a personalized note.
I get thank you notes from time to time, mostly due to the articles I write in the Courier Press. Without sounding too mushy, I like them. They are delightful, and they make my day.
The thank-you notes got me thinking of my Grade 8 teacher. He always hammered it into us that thank-you notes are very effective. I remember him telling us about how he once had the opportunity to play a certain exclusive golf course, so after his round he jotted down a quick thank you and mailed it to the club manager.
A couple years later, my Grade 8 teacher, who had studied turf grass management in college, was sitting down to a job interview, and guess who was interviewing him? It was the guy who he had sent the thank you note to a few years earlier. Yes, he got the job.
Last week I covered the police services board meeting. In the agenda items were a number of communications to the police chief. Most of them were well-written thank-you notes. I then had two epiphanies. The first epiphany is that epiphany would make a cool name for a girl. My second epiphany is that I should write more thank you messages.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
There are numerous people that have impacted me positively and I never let on to say thank you for their efforts. Time has carried on and my thoughts are kept to myself.
I can't go back in time, but I can start anew.
It's not January yet, but my resolution for the new year is to write thank you notes by the bucketful. Well, maybe I'm kidding myself, but I intend to send out a quick thank-you e-mail every week in 2010. An email thank you only takes a minute, tops.
What's the worst thing that can happen if I send out a large number of thank you e-mails?
Hey, who knows if one of the recipients of my thank-you e-mails will be interviewing me in the next few years.
