Thank you notes.. on real PAPER!

Ah yes, if there was one thing my mother harped about while I was growing up it was the thank you note. Every Christmas, after the brightly colored paper was picked up, and the tinsel vacuumed out of the carpet, we sat down and were practically forced to write thank you notes for all of the gifts we were given. I say forced because as young children, most don't fully appreciate what they have. It may not seem like a big deal to write a thank you note now, but think back to when you were 8 years old, and Mom made you take time from playing to write Aunt Jess a thank you note for the present she sent you. It was a pain. What you really wanted to do was go play with the Barbie that you had asked for ALL YEAR LONG and finally got under the Christmas tree. Yes, this is sad that some children are so spoiled, but it is true. I guess I was one of those children, and maybe some of you were as well. But you know what happens to those kids that are "forced" to be grateful? In most cases, I know in mine, they end up BEING grateful.

And this happens in the corporate world as well. How many atta-boys do you have in your inbox though? Probably a few, or maybe you should just change your career... hmm. Now mean how many hand written thank you notes do you get for things you do? Probably not a lot. The reason I say this is because I am a huge advocate of hand-written correspondence, or even verbal. These days the Internet is ruining our manners. I don't know about you, but to me it means so much more to get a call from a company/org I'm working with and have them tell me "Thanks, it's been great working with you", than to have someone randomly send me a "Thanks" email, which took them all of two seconds to send. No thought, no preparation. Just today, we received a letter from the Gen. thanking us for our help with his visit. So you know what I did? I sent a thank you letter to a lady that's been helping our office with a bunch of stuff lately. That's right... on PAPER and IN THE MAIL! Craziness!

NOTE: Mom, I still send thank you notes for just about everything. Just like you like it. Yes, I had a rough time this Christmas, so I MAY still have a couple that never got sent, but I did write them... You'd be proud. Thanks for making me have manners. As much as I hated you for it before, I love you for it now...