Complimentary
Tonight I made dinner for a few friends. We had meatless meat-lasagna, which is to say both my roommate and I wanted meat lasagna but since we were hosting, we had to accomodate our guests - meatless lasagna. It turned out perfect, just like the rest of my lasagnas. The girls I had over were ranting and raving about it. Seriously, they were thanking me for cooking it, and saying how great it was every five minutes. After the lasagna (which was served with a Sparkling Apple Cider, 2004), I cooked up some MilkShakes, you see I concocted a new flavor Monday (I think it was) night, and it has been deemed "the best one (so far)" by the majority of taste-testers. More compliments.
I can take a compliment gracefully, but I honestly don't know what the hell to do with it. It's quite bothersome, actually. Does that mean just keep doing what I'm doing? Is there no room for improvement? Have I reached the pinnacle of this (whatever it may be that I have done)? Am I the best? Where do I go from here? I don't know. Compliments aren't constructive; what the hell? And who, other than me, complains about receiving compliments?
This bugs me at work also. On end-of-the-semester evaluations, I basically rack up perfect scores. But that means jack shit to me. I'd rather get an okay score with some direction on where I can improve instead of having to figure it out on my own. Perfect evaluations usually give me a complacency that leads to poor job performance until I realize I need to shape up because I'm slacking.
Compliments don't even make me feel good anymore. If I'm complimented directly, I feel like I'm being paid lip service, so that I will do what I've done again. Although if I overhear someone saying good things about me to someone else, then I'm like, "I thought I was doing a good job," and my work performance suffers as a result of my re-found complacency. Vicious cycle.
Moral of the story: Compliments can be accepted graciously, but I question the motive and will usually end up taking it for granted even after it no longer applies. So I ask, what am I to do?
I can take a compliment gracefully, but I honestly don't know what the hell to do with it. It's quite bothersome, actually. Does that mean just keep doing what I'm doing? Is there no room for improvement? Have I reached the pinnacle of this (whatever it may be that I have done)? Am I the best? Where do I go from here? I don't know. Compliments aren't constructive; what the hell? And who, other than me, complains about receiving compliments?
This bugs me at work also. On end-of-the-semester evaluations, I basically rack up perfect scores. But that means jack shit to me. I'd rather get an okay score with some direction on where I can improve instead of having to figure it out on my own. Perfect evaluations usually give me a complacency that leads to poor job performance until I realize I need to shape up because I'm slacking.
Compliments don't even make me feel good anymore. If I'm complimented directly, I feel like I'm being paid lip service, so that I will do what I've done again. Although if I overhear someone saying good things about me to someone else, then I'm like, "I thought I was doing a good job," and my work performance suffers as a result of my re-found complacency. Vicious cycle.
Moral of the story: Compliments can be accepted graciously, but I question the motive and will usually end up taking it for granted even after it no longer applies. So I ask, what am I to do?
posted by The @ 10:39 PM
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