Thank You

Thank You. Two words, two syllables. Easy.

I might have mentioned this before, but again, I have met and worked with a lot of different races in the world (Chinese, Indian, Singaporean, Spanish, American, etc.) and my co-Filipinos are always the odd ones and the hardest to deal with.

I have noticed that a lot of the Filipinos have a hard time saying THANK YOU. When someone does a good deed or gesture, maybe we feel a bit uncomfortable or maybe it is just a culture-thing that instead of just saying THANK YOU, we opt to say something witty and joke about the person who made the gesture. Maybe we are trying to be funny but end up just bringing embarrassment to that other person.

This morning, I brought coffee for all the coffee drinkers here at work. I thought of bringing coffee so they could at least understand why I don't drink coffee made here in the office (our house coffee is brewed by Keurig using the K-cups which is properly measured and we use hazelnut creamer... I think I love our coffee at home mainly because of the hazelnut creamer).

I thought that would be a nice gesture, to share something I love, maybe they would love it too. So I did bring two travel mug full of good coffee (which mind you, I drove extra carefully and slowly to work just so it won't spill).

I did get a good reaction from one of them, he said his thanks and was very excited after smelling that it was hazelnut coffee. As for the others... typical Filipino guys, I got nothing but joke-full ridicules like:

"why didn't you bring coffee yesterday?"
"why can't you bring coffee everyday?"
"next time you bring coffee, it should be very hot." <--- In my mind I said "Sorry... but I kind of carefully and slowly drove from home so it is not boiling hot when I served them to you." Yes, my dear readers, I even delivered the cup of coffee to their desks!

I just went back to my workstation and literally ignored everybody. I know they have just been teasing but they really had the worst timing. I just sat on my chair, stared at my monitor and concentrated on the news I am reading. I can still hear them and see them on my peripheral vision, but I ignored everything outside my monitor just to recompose myself.

Several months ago, I brought banana muffins (that I baked myself) to work, like a couple of times. Of course, instead of getting Thank You's, I got some jokes, ridicules and whatever nonsense they can say just to put me in the lime light of embarrassing attention.

I remember back in my early college years, a good girl friend of mine said "Kayan, you have nice feet." I felt awkward and said "No, I don't. It's too little. It's too bony, blah blah blah." Then my friend said "Kayan, you don't know how to take a compliment? You have to learn to receive them."

From then on, every time I receive a compliment or a nice gesture, I go back to that story and try my best to say THANK YOU first before blabbering something else.

I, THANK YOU.