A couple of years ago I offered to form a scratch band to play at my friends’ wedding. They were on a tight budget and had essentially run out of money for the wedding reception.
I formed a pretty decent covers band with a few friends of mine. I specifically learnt a bunch of songs that they’d requested especially, many of which were quite technically complicated. I put in hours of practice getting the band together, rehearsing, setting up on the day, getting home in the early hours of the morning. And it went down really well: lots of dancing, lots of positive comments, everyone seemed happy.
Anyway, the reward we got was a thank-you card. No money, no token gift voucher or anything. I’m not sure why this irked me so much - after all, I had offered to be their evening entertainment and hadn’t asked for anything in return. I guess it would have just been nice to receive some token of thanks more than a fairly brief card a few weeks later.