A train pulls into the station at 9:58am. Scheduled departure is 10:02. It sits there, doing nothing, for four minutes.
Trains can't be early. The timetable won't let them. We don't want them early anyway, unless we happen to be standing on the platform. So there's no kudos for early cause early isn't allowed. On time or late, those are the only two options.
Plenty of jobs work this way.
A referee is praised for the games where you didn't notice him. Get one big call wrong and you're roasted on X.
I get this at home where I'm the IT department. The internet runs fast and clean for three weeks and my kids say nothing. It drops out for six minutes on Sunday and I hear about it until it's fixed.
It's difficult to notice the things we depend on. Nothing tells us to look up. We only notice when they fail.
So take an extra look for the people whose job is to stop things breaking, or dropping, or being early. These people are easy to miss.
If they're on your team, report the streak. Fourteen months without a payroll error. Two hundred days since the last outage. A number going up is something people can see.
And tell them what you noticed. Not a general thanks for "all that you do". Tell them the specific thing. The network hasn't skipped a beat all month, or payroll has been flawless all quarter.
Give them a little upside.
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