The best compliment I ever received at work was from a customer, which is pretty much like the boss, right?
I travelled to Dearborn from Schaumburg for a 9AM meeting, my company forced us to fly out as early as possible rather than pay for a hotel room and we also had the unfavorable time change working against us.
I wasn't in the best mood when the technical people from the Big 3 automaker we made chips for started filtering in...one guy I had met with before saw me and immediately said, "This must be a big meeting, they sent one of the REAL MEN out here!"
He was mostly referring to me being a designer instead of a customer interface type, but I also took it as meaning that he respected my abilities.
I didn't mind getting up at 2AM or whatever after that!