2024 Thank you for reading this

 Thank you for reading this

March, 2024

Steven B. Zwickel

It seems like such a simple thing. Someone gives you something or offers you a compliment and you respond with “Thank you.”

People have different reactions to not being thanked. Some ignore it, but others, myself included, take it as a personal affront.

This topic came to mind when I realized I was angry about someone not thanking me for something. I won’t name names, but I sent a young person a special, valuable gift and got no response. Nothing. Not a word. I know the gift was received because I paid for insurance and tracking.

Now I am not going to rant about young people today having no manners, etc. That has become steady fodder for the advice columnists, after weddings and boundary violations. Perhaps an advice columnist would tell me to gently, and non-judgmentally, contact the donee’s parents. What could I say to them that wouldn’t sound like I’m criticizing their parenting skills? Better to keep silent and wait for the anger to dissipate.

Why does it matter? It matters because giving and receiving are part of an interpersonal transaction. The giving of a gift or kind remark creates a kind of debt, which can be repaid by saying thanks. The debt is cancelled with “You’re welcome.”

I don’t think most of us are natural thankers and I think thanking people is something that must be taught to children. My parents did a pretty good job of teaching me to say thank you and to write thank you notes. 

I have few regrets in life, but I do feel bad about the times I can remember being less than gracious. {The Spanish word for “thank you” is, of course, gracias}. I wish I had done a better job of showing appreciation for a gift or compliment.

I have kept some thank-you’s I have received over the years and really liked getting. This one was in response to one of the 100+ presentations I have done:

I liked this one, which thanked me in advance for helping with graduation at the University of Wisconsin–Madison:

Some of my favorites are thank you’s from former students, like this one:

I ran a summer camp for teenagers to teach them about Engineering. This one came from a former camper:

I helped some people in Wisconsin state government figure out how to train users of a new voting system:

Last, but certainly not least, is a postcard I received after I spent part of the summer teaching conversational English in China:

If you liked reading this blog entry, you're welcome!