And now for something completely different...

Wow. Today was actually a pretty good day. Normally, I work second shift in the office, which affords me the opportunity to sleep in a little bit later and start things off at a more leisurely pace, but yesterday the manager asked me to open up for him while he went to a couple of doctor's appointments.

In between visits, he stopped in the office to specifically thank me for switching the schedule with him and then went on to thank me for all of the hard work I've been doing. He told me about previous employees that he'd trained that didn't work out, or even work for that matter. Once he'd gotten started with the compliments, they kept coming like he'd opened the floodgates of praise. I picked up the slack in his work that he wasn't able to get to without him even having to ask it to be done. I'd file claims on missing or damaged shipments when I saw he was working on something else. I worked three days on, one day off throughout the year without so much as a complaint. On and on he went until the office got busy again and then he had to leave for his next appointment.

His visit left me with a sense of accomplishment that I haven't felt in a long time. It also helped me smile, which I haven't done in an even longer time.