How can I get appreciation for my work when I'm working on something technical exclusively [duplicate]

Question

Let's say I'm working on a complex task X which involves lots of technical concepts Y that I need to gain in order to achieve that task. I face lots of technical hurdles that beginners might face and an inherent complexity in the task itself.

In other words, even if someone who's a master at Y worked on this task he would still face other complexities that are related to figuring out the task X, to manage problems that result in implementing X itself rather than his skill with Y.

Basically, both X and Y are complex in their own ways.

So when we do a complex task like this successfully and report it to the supervisor, he doesn't show any appreciation or a pat on the back. I think it happens because he's either unaware the complexities or doesn't care about them as long as the task gets accomplished.

Qs: How can I get my boss to tell me a "good job!" or "Wow! That was a pretty challenging task and you did it!"?

How can I get my boss to realize that I did a good job and that the job was complex when all that he can say is "okay good. now you can get on to the next task"?

P.S.: For everyone who's going to say "don't care about appreciation" - NO. Appreciation is important. There are lots of articles about it online (example: https://www.achievers.com/blog/appreciation-in-the-workplace-why-it-matters/)

Answer 1

I have found similar issues when explaining progress on a technical task, to a non-technical audience. My examples come from software-engineering, but hopefully the principle applies to other technical tasks. Ultimately the non-technical audience aren't that interested in or understand whether you have deployed a new AWS SQS queue or rewritten your application in Akka, they just want to know about progress towards completion of Task X. So describe your work in those terms.

For example, if you need to consider different approaches to the problem, explain how those different approaches affect Task X

"I'm researching how others have decided what cache to use. It seems there's a trade-off of how quickly we can return data to customer versus some of the data sometimes being stale. I want to get that right"

When implementing some detail that is largely hidden from non-technical person, try to explain how that moves towards the end goal

"we've implemented the queue now, which means the data is being stored in the cache, we just don't have any means to retrieve it yet, which is what I'll do next"

If you're doing stuff which is best-practice, again emphasise how that affects the end product, not just how it's "best practice"

I showed you the prototype last week, which looked pretty functional, but if we get new requirements in future, it would take a long time to adjust. I'm spending this week making sure we can add customers new requirements more quickly in future

Ultimately it may be impossible for your boss to judge how well or not you're doing the technical tasks if the only staff person who understand them is you, but hopefully this way you can show him how conscientious you're being and how much effort you're putting in. It may even offer optimization possibilties ("so your current task helps if we lost data? I wouldn't worry about that, the users will just have to put up with that")

Answer 2

A few thoughts.

1. Undeserved praise makes up for unsung deeds

   Some tasks that non-technical people think are easy are actually super hard and upon completion you're not going to get the recognition you deserve. This is the situation you're describing.

   But don't forget that some tasks that non-technical people think are hard are actually super simple and yet these non-technical people will heap praises on you even when the praise is undeserved.

2. Don't be too quick to toot your own horn

   Just because you think a task is praise worthy doesn't mean it actually is. Your opinion of your own deeds is prone to observer bias. A few examples:

   • Michael Atiyah, a very accomplished mathematician, was a little too trigger happy to toot his own horn when he thought he had proved the Riemann hypothesis, but his claims didn't stand up to scrutiny.

   • Claus Schnorr, a very accomplished cryptographer, was a little too trigger happy to toot his own horn when he thought he had come up with a revolutionary way to factor numbers, but his claims didn't stand up to scrutiny.

   • John B. Goodenough, inventor of the Lithium battery, thought he had invented a revolutionary new type of battery - a glass battery - but the general consensus is that his claims were vastly overstated.

   Those people thought they deserved praise even when they didn't and just because you think you deserve praise doesn't mean you actually do. I mean, maybe you do, maybe you don't, but you should be cognizant of your own bias.

3. Recognition can't be forced

   If you try to force it people could just tell you what you want to hear to get you to shut up. It could also make you come off as being a needy and have the opposite effect of what you're intending.

   If you're not getting the recognition you think you deserve then you may want to consider getting another job.