I Don't Know How To Take Compliments
Tags: discuss
Published: 2018-10-23 21:14:02

---
title: I Don't Know How To Take Compliments
published: true
description: Sounds like a humble brag, but it's not
tags: #discuss
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/ca2h2smzkh4qn34qaa9z.jpg
---

Today was a good day. My wife complimented me in my new shirt and pants (totally rocking some floral print), I helped a coworker with design on a different project, and I wrapped up a proposal and thanked a coworker for his assistance. I can handle my wife's compliments... but I wasn't sure how to deal with the other two situations.

# What Happened?

My coworker asked me about handling role-based view components. We white-boarded it for a few minutes, and I finally mentioned that we could just use the role names as map keys and the values as components that role had access to as a list. We finally settled on (as his idea) the map values being another map which contained boolean properties that we could use in an `ngIf` so that there was constant lookup time and minimal logic in his view. He said to me "I've had to do role-based management on several different projects, and this is *by far* the cleanest way I've ever seen it done. Thanks for your help!"

## So what's wrong with that?

I don't really feel like the credit is all mine. His idea was half of the implementation, and the last part to make the lookup constant time instead of linear time. It's not a big deal, considering we have few components and roles right now, but still! Half of the idea was his. It doesn't feel like anything incredible, honestly. I was just doing my job. I mean, I reminded him that he was part of the solution, but I still felt a little... not really embarrassed? More like sheepish, I guess?

# Anything Else?

Another coworker had been helping me work on my proposal and I pulled him in at the last minute to help, and I apologized to him up front for not engaging him earlier. After we wrapped everything up and I went to his desk to thank him for his help and apologized again for roping him in so late. He said "Well, I definitely appreciate you thanking me. A lot of people expect me to just drop what I'm doing even with late notice, but I appreciate your courtesy."

## AND?!?!

I blushed when he thanked me for being courteous and told him, "Well, I didn't know what else to do but apologize and thank you." And I just really didn't think that what I did was extraordinary by any means. I thought it was... well... just what should happen.

# So what are you getting at?

The first situation, where I helped my friend/coworker with a design issue... I can handle relatively well. I did help him with something, and he finished out the idea. I'm totally fine for taking the partial credit for a good idea, but I really just felt like I was doing my job... nothing special.

The second situation, however, I can't really get past that one. I was raised to be polite to everyone who is providing you service - a waiter, a mechanic, a coworker - and so it made me uneasy to know that I was the exception rather than the rule when it came to showing appreciation.

Is it wrong to feel like this? To feel like what you think is common courtesy or just doing your job is praised? Have any of y'all experienced this feeling and worked through it? I'd love to hear some feedback!