Gratitude on Stressful Days

With Thanksgiving last week, I thought that I would write a little about gratitude for this post. From what I understand, gratitude can help us re-frame things and improve our mental health. If you are having a bad day, then thinking about a few good things no matter how small can help change your perspective. I may be over simplifying things. I’m definitely not a mental health professional, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

One of the ways that I try to put this into practice, is by emailing the managers of coworkers who have helped me on particularly stressful days. If you have really helped me out on a bad day, there’s a good chance that I emailed some praise to your manager. For example, I was moving house to be closer to the office. My wife was supposed to be at the new house to meet an appliance delivery but was over half an hour away when we got the 30 minute warning for the delivery

I rushed out in a panic to meet the delivery. Some members of the DevOps team spotted my panic dash for the car. Whether they were going to pick up my ticket next or they saw that I was going through something, they picked up my ticket so when I got back to my desk everything for that effort was sorted out and I could continue on with my work. I felt incredibly grateful for their help, and sent out an email to their management as a thank you.

I have also observed that this practice is especially helpful for junior engineers. As a generalization, I don’t think many junior engineers know how to make the case for themselves during evaluations. I know that I didn’t at the beginning. As I have come to understand, the evidence that you provide for the good work that you’re doing the easier it is for management to make the case for promotions, raises etc. If you’re a junior engineer and you’re not selling yourself, then a good note from a senior engineer elsewhere in the organization can help make their case for advancing the junior engineer.

This practice has also been helpful during times when I’ve had higher stress due to taking on more responsibilities. Each year when my manager goes on vacation I have to take on an increased workload due to my seniority. It’s not a cake walk to do this, and I often miss having someone above me to filter out a lot of the requests that our team receives. Every time I have had to do this, there’s one day where I feel incredibly overwhelmed and on that day I look at what the team has done and email my manager with praise for my teammates.

Thanksgiving is now past for this year. The turkey has been eaten. I’m still thankful in this team sport we call software development for my teammates that help me get things done.