People often underestimate the work done by the person who makes the result look ordinary.

The measure of certain jobs is that nothing seems to have happened. A meeting that ran to time, a system that did not go down, an event where nobody had to ask where anything was: each is a considerable amount of unseen effort producing an absence of trouble. When it is done well there is nothing to point at, and when it fails everyone can see exactly what was missing.

Thank someone this week for something that did not go wrong. It sounds odd, and it is often the first recognition that person has had all year.