Saturday 4th September 2010 … 5:10am and my mobile starts going nuts with text alerts coming in to tell me that various elements of our network were not working correctly and there were audios being scheduled.  Rubbing my eyes, I grab my glasses and realised that the messages were not just about network elements but people – and buildings.

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake had occured in Christchurch and it had caused a lot of damage.  No loss of life but a lot of damage.

I was teaching that morning (taking some Open Water dive students to Goat Island) but I had a couple of hours before I was due at the dive shop.
I logged on to our tools to see what I could do.  I am part of the Online Response Team – we are a group of volunteers who look after our company in applications and services such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc and forum sites such as GeekZone.  Another member of our team had already picked up some communications and was running as lead.  All I could do was back him up.

Over the next month, I helped manage questions, information, requests.
We had information on how people could make the most of their mobile batteries, we made pay phones free – we tried to make communications a little easier for those who were affected.

Our buildings in Christchurch were also damaged.
We needed to move some things around, to let staff know where to go – or to stay home – and that we were here to help where possible.

It was nothing that we, that I would not have done anyway.

I got to work this morning to find a large envelope on my desk.  I opened it and as usual scanned straight to the bottom to see who it was from.

Our Chief Executive Officer had personally signed a Thank You letter – to me.  For doing my job.
no PP (signed by someone else on behalf of Paul) – no scanned signature – it was all blue pen and nice flourish.

I was 25% proud, 25% excited and 50% stunned.  I never ever expected to be thanked for just doing what I thought needed to be done.

Least of all did I expect a voucher for some rewards to be included.

I’ve got a smile on my face today.  And so do quite a number of other people here at work.

It is lovely to receive recognition for going over and above – for doing something outside of your role or job description.

Its just amazing to be thanked in more than one way for doing what you consider to be all in a day’s work.