Compliments at work are weirdly hard. There are unwritten rules about what you can say to whom, the wrong compliment can read as creepy or transactional, and HR-flavored corporate appreciation programs (the "kudos channel" in Slack) tend to die three weeks after they launch.
GlazeTrain solves this by being explicitly off-the-record. It's not your company's platform. There's no manager dashboard. Your boss isn't tracking your kudos count. It's just a place where you can tell your coworker their meeting save was elite and have it actually mean something.
How coworkers use GlazeTrain
The signed appreciation
The standard move. Coworker did a thing — bailed you out of a deadline, killed a presentation, dealt with a hard client. You send a signed Glaze. They know it was you. Specifically what hits: you noticed and you took the 30 seconds to say so.
The anonymous shoutout
For the cases where signed would be weird — you're senior to them and a public compliment would land different, or you're in a tense org dynamic where appreciation has political implications, or you just want them to hear it without it changing your working relationship. Anonymous compliments guide →
The cross-team train
When a project ships and the whole team killed it, coordinate a Glaze Train on the lead. 3+ team members Glaze them within 24 hours. The lead wakes up to a "🚂 Glaze Train completed" notification stack. Better than a Slack heart-react party.
The going-away
Coworker leaves the company, transfers teams, or gets promoted out of your day-to-day. The leaving-gift version of GlazeTrain: their whole team Glazes them on their last day. The recipient gets a permanent archive of every compliment from every former teammate. Beats the standard "best of luck!" card.
Things to actually say
Full coworker compliment list →
Things to absolutely not say
Workplace context means some normal compliments cross lines. Quick list of what to avoid (the platform's positivity check will reject some of these, but better to know up front):
- Anything about appearance to a non-peer. Senior-to-junior compliments about looks are not a thing, even nice ones. Comments on professionalism, output, communication = fine. Comments on outfit, hair, body = not via GlazeTrain.
- Backhanded "you don't even seem like an engineer/dev/manager" compliments. The "for a [demographic]" implicit clause is always there. Skip it.
- Compliments laden with implicit asks. "You're so good at X, you should review my doc" isn't a compliment, it's a request. Pick one.
- Anonymous Glazes from boss → report. Not technically against the rules, but anonymous appreciation from someone with power over you is loaded. Sign it.
The "is this weird" test
Quick check before sending a work Glaze:
- If your coworker forwarded this to HR, would it survive?
- Is it specific to a thing they did, not who they are?
- Are you sending it because they deserve it, not because you want something?
If yes-yes-yes, send it. If any of those is iffy, rework or skip.
What if your company has a kudos system?
Many companies have an internal "kudos" channel or platform. These aren't bad, they're just doing a different job — they're for public, company-visible, often review-cycle-relevant appreciation. Use those for things you want documented.
GlazeTrain is for the rest: the personal stuff, the things you'd say in a 1:1, the appreciation that has nothing to do with performance reviews. Different channels, different purposes. Both fine.
We've been asked. We don't have one. We're not making one. Companies that want this for their teams should encourage people to use the consumer app on their own. The whole point is that it's not your employer's tool — it's yours.
Get on the train
Free on iOS and Android. No ads. No subscriptions. No catch.