A One-Line Compliment in the Team Chat, and Two Voices in My Head

Five to five in the afternoon. A line from my boss has just popped up in the company chat: "Thank you, Diệp, this month's payment documents closed on time."

I am Diệp, twenty-eight, an accounts-payable clerk at a small company. My fingers are already resting on the keyboard, and the three words "oh, it was nothing" are sitting right at the tips. The standing fan rattles, the smell of coffee drifts over from the pantry. Before I type anything, I let the two voices in my head finish talking.

This reflex is not new. Last month, in the Monday morning meeting, Ms. Lụa praised the tidy reconciliation sheet I made, and I answered "oh, I only followed the old template" so fast she had not finished her sentence. All that morning I felt itchy, as if I had left something behind somewhere. That evening my mother praised the sour soup I cooked, and I answered "oh, it is not good, Mother", though I had stood at the stove for nearly an hour. Two times, one way of answering.

Brush-it-off: Type fast. "Oh it was nothing, thanks to the whole team for backing me up." That one is safe, everybody types it. Wait a few seconds and people will think you are sitting there waiting to be praised.

Take-it-in: The team did back me up, I know. But Ms. Lụa's bank statement came two days late, and as for the documents, on Wednesday night I sat matching them one by one until almost nine. Both things are true, and the ready-made sentence holds only one of them.

Brush-it-off: Saying that sounds like bragging. They praise you in one line, you answer in one line, that is modest. Besides, your boss is probably just being polite. Who really notices?

Take-it-in: Maybe so. I do not know either whether my boss noticed or was being polite. All I know is that two voices are arguing, and my fingers have already run ahead of both.

Brush-it-off: So what if they run ahead. Running ahead means less embarrassment. You know this embarrassment, it heats up both ears, twenty people in the group can see it, and all I want is for the praise to slide down under other messages as fast as possible.

Take-it-in: Oh. So it is not modesty, it is embarrassment. Two things that look alike from outside and are nothing alike inside. Modesty does not need to run.

Brush-it-off: And what is wrong with embarrassment? As a kid I was told that accepting praise is arrogant. My mother used to say "listen to praise, do not believe it". I listened. I did as I was told.

Take-it-in: I am not asking you to be quiet. Embarrassment can stay, ears can burn. I only want to try answering with one sentence that says exactly what happened, no bigger, no smaller than the truth.

Brush-it-off: Which sentence? Do not tell me to type "thanks boss, I am pretty great", I would die at my desk.

Take-it-in: No. Something like: "Thank you. I finished matching them on Wednesday night, glad it was in time." That is all, nothing added.

Brush-it-off: That short? That does not sound like me at all.

Take-it-in: Right. It sounds more like me a minute from now.

Both go quiet for a while. The fan rattles, the iced tea beside my hand is sweating, one drop runs down onto the wooden desk.

My ears are still hot. I let them be hot, and stop arguing with them.

I type one word at a time. Thank you. I finished matching them on Wednesday night, glad it was in time. I read it back once, slowly, from start to finish, and only then press send. Neither voice won, and neither left. It was the first time I let a compliment stay in the chat a little longer instead of pushing it down.

Nothing big happened. Two minutes later a thumbs-up appeared under my line, and then Ms. Lụa added a small heart. That was all. But for the rest of the afternoon I sat matching the last few documents with something quieter than usual in me, and I did not reopen the chat to see what people thought of my reply.

The next week I tried again with a different compliment, and failed. "Oh, it was nothing" was typed before I could think. I deleted it, typed again, and lost four more seconds. Four seconds is fine.

If a compliment arrives with one more task piled on top of it, or from a person whose words are always heavy, that is a different matter, and so is the reply: ask again about the deadline, ask again about who else is doing the work. Being criticised in front of a whole room is something I have met too, and the three breaths afterward are a story of their own.

That evening, riding the motorbike home, I still remembered the heat in my ears. It did not bother me the way it usually did. It just sat there, like the water left in the bottom of the iced tea glass.