The Power Of Thank You

The other day I was looking on my son's soccer league website to see at what age they start playing with more people one the field and with goalies and that kind of stuff. I noticed a contact us tab, clicked it and saw that I could send an email to the commissioner of the league. I figured that most of the emails he gets are ones complaining, so I shot him a quick email that said

Tom -
I just wanted to let you know that playing soccer is the highlight of my
son's week. He loves his team, his coaches, and his games. Thank you for
providing a way for him to have fun and fall in love with the game.

A couple of hours later I got this reply

Josh,

On behalf of the SCCYSA Board and Office staff I must thank you for the
e-mail you sent me regarding your son's developing 'love of the game'.

More often than not all we hear are the negatives and your response and
support is very much appreciated and quite frankly a breath of fresh air.

I hope your son continues to grow and develop not only his soccer skills,
but his social skills as well and we appreciate the time and effort you as a
parent are providing for your son to enjoy our services.

Then this morning I was copied (accidentally) on this group email that had two replies on it

Letters like this make it all worthwhile, Tom thanks for sharing!!

and

THAT'S AWESOME.

The email that I originally sent took me no longer than 60 seconds from start to finish. The thing is, nobody stops to say thank you. Nobody takes the time. So here are some guys working at trying to provide a quality product to their community, and because of their leadership level the only things they ever hear are probably complaints. They're constantly being bombarded with the things that are wrong, even though it is probably such a small percentage.
This kind of stuff makes me want to take the time to say "thanks" more often. It's not like it's hard.
JM