I am a sarcastic person.  I know this.  I don’t mind this but occasionally I get to thinking that I should give more compliments out to people I work with because they do a good job under hard circumstances.

Last week we had a cat come in to get scheduled for a spay.  In the course of her pre-op check we discovered she had a disease.  We wanted to get some additional blood tests.  She was done.  She had waited in the waiting room, been poked and prodded, and now she was done.  We weren’t going to get that blood.  As one my acupuncture teachers said, “The first rule of working with kitties is (bows with hands in front of heart) Respect The Kitty.”

So one of the techs suggested that since it wasn’t an emergency situation she should go home and come back in a week or so.  We’d take her right back with no waiting and pull the blood.  That happened yesterday.  The tech that had suggested it was busy elsewhere and didn’t know that the cat had come back and that it had worked perfectly.  I decided to tell her.

“C came back today and they did want you suggested and just brought her in immediately and pulled the blood.  It went fine.”

“Shut up!”

“What?!  Remember C from last week where we needed the extra blood and you said to come back when she calmed down?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about right now but I’m sure you are being sassy.”

“No, I’m being nice and complimentary about your idea.”

She stared at me suspiciously.  “Okaaaay…”

Eventually she remembered that she had a good idea and sort of accepted that I was complimenting her.  Later I saw our boss.

“Hey, I’d like to lodge a complaint.  I was trying to be a fine and upstanding coworker and gave THAT ONE (I pointed at the tech) a compliment on a fine idea she had and she told me to shut up.”  I gave him a dramatic replay of the conversation.

He looked at me sadly and shook his head.  “I lose respect for you every time you are nice, especially to (he pointed at the tech who we both get along with well).  I prefer you sassy.”

Obviously niceness is not for me but I’m going to work on it now that I know it really messes with their minds!