PushingJelly

Having spent more time than I care to remember helping others with their computer issues, I have become acustomed to a general lack of gratitude from the people I help.
There are some of course that I have become “mates” with over the years here, and they seem to appreciate what I do, but there are others, sometimes closer to departmental home, who couldn’t give a rats arse because they feel it is “your duty to do what you do”.
I try to execute my tasks with the attitude of “how would I like to be treated” (well most of the time any way – we are all allowed BOFH tendancys some days), and am somewhat thick-skinned to it all. I enjoy my job (a rare thing) and enjoy it more when I do it well (alas, also a rare thing:-) so it kind of works for me more than them.
So anyway, I was helping chap from the department that deals with all the PC systems today, with a piece of software that he normally uses on XP but which he was trying to run through a web browser on the Mac. We had the usual difficulties with the proxy server settings, which we just worked our way through and eventually managed to get the application working, and although this wasn’t the ultimate goal, it was a stepping stone to where he wanted to get to.
I guess we must of spent a good couple of hours on and off on the issues with him making numerous visits to my desk and me his.
The problems were compounded by the fact that he was Mac first timer, but by persistance we did it and he said an obligatory thanks and that was it.

After normal hours that night, I was still sitting at my desk absorbed with a new auditing tool we are evaluating, and the chap in question walked over. I smiled and kind of expected another question about Macs but instead he said that he wanted to thank me for all the assistance I had given him and it was a really big help. He was really sincere. After I realised that he had made the point of walking accross the room, opposite to his way out, just to say thank you.

Its made my day.
I guess it really is the little things that count.