💬 A teammate said I was easy to work with and I replayed it all weekend

We finished a 6 week project on Friday. 5 of us stood around the table with cold samosas. My teammate Nikhil, who barely talks in meetings, looked at me and said, you're easy to work with. That was it. 8 words. Then he asked who wanted the last samosa and the meeting ended. I said thanks like a robot. Then I went to my desk and sat there smiling at nothing. All of Saturday I replayed it. I do that with insults too, but this was a new one. I started checking what I'd done on the project. Maybe I'd replied to his emails fast. Maybe it was the time I covered his review when he had a fever. I'd forgotten that. My mother asked why I was grinning at my phone. I said, nothing, work thing. She didn't believe me. On Monday I noticed something. Nobody at my office says nice things unless there's a farewell cake. Everyone says, who broke the build? Nobody says, thanks for staying till 9 to fix it. So I wrote a short message to Sana in testing. Just, hey, your bug reports are really clear. She replied with 3 hearts and a question mark. Then she asked if I needed something. I said no. I said I just wanted to say it. She sent back a long row of laughing faces. It was awkward but now we get along better. She sends me the bugs with a little note. Nikhil has no idea any of this happened. He's still on the other side of the room, eating samosas. I owe him a samosa. I've left one on his desk twice already and he thinks it's a mistake.

Mine came secondhand. A colleague told me weeks later that someone praised my report in a meeting. I wasn't even in the room, so I never got to say thanks or act cool. That one stuck harder than your 8 words, I think, because nobody said it to my face. Nikhil probably told the whole floor you're easy to work with. You just missed that meeting.

My manager once said my meeting notes were the only ones anyone opened later. He said it in the lift between floors 3 and 4, so I had 6 seconds to reply. I said thanks and looked at my shoes.

8 words and you replayed them all weekend, I'd have done the same thing. Best one I got was from a teammate who said I never made her feel dumb for asking twice. The samosa on his desk made me laugh, I might copy that for my own team. Nikhil will figure it out one day and you'll have to explain. Good luck with that one.