What Does “Big Thank You” Really Mean in the Workplace?

I have been hearing a lot of “big thank you” and “huge thank you” at work lately, and I keep wondering what exactly that means. Thank you, as I understand it, is already a complete sentence. It is a simple and sincere acknowledgment of help, effort, or kindness received. It does not need an adjective to function properly.

When did thank you become scalable.

At some point, a normal thank you was apparently no longer enough. Now it has to be big, huge, or sometimes even massive. I find myself quietly asking what the measurement standard is. Is it based on font size, vocal emphasis, or the number of people copied on the email. Seriously, how does a thank you grow in size.

Then there is the latest workplace innovation: “Doing thanks.” I first heard someone say, “Let us do thanks,” and for a brief moment I wondered if I had missed a meeting. Apparently, thanking is no longer something you say. It is something you do. As if gratitude has become a task, possibly with a deadline and a follow-up reminder.

This is where it starts to feel like another form of workplace madness. Gratitude works best when it is natural and unforced. Turning it into a slogan or an activity strips it of the very thing that makes it meaningful. A thank you does not become more sincere because it is labeled as big or huge. It becomes more sincere when it is honest.

I would happily settle for a simple thank you. No adjectives. No performance. No action verbs attached. Just a brief moment of recognition that sounds human rather than rehearsed.

So maybe we can stop doing thanks. We can also stop upgrading them to different sizes. Let us just thank. Quietly, plainly, and sincerely. That was working perfectly well before we decided to improve it.