Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplace
Back when I was still a geek (I was a software developer for a small consulting company in my second job out of university) I had a boss that was… shall we say unpopular. My co-workers and I hated his guts and we complained ceaselessly about him.
It got to the point where we couldn’t start a meeting, have lunch in the cafeteria, or even go out for a beer without spending half an hour complaining about him.
We whined about his attitude, his stupidity, his meddling, his spinelessness … hell, even his dress sense came under fire. But then again, he is the only manager who has ever interviewed me wearing a narrow 80s-style purple, fake-leather tie.
But did we ever tell him? Nooooooo! While we were bitching and moaning to ourselves, he blithely went on as usual because no one ever complained to him. Which might’ve made sense when you think about it…
Looking back, I’m not sure that complaining to him would have worked - I think he was incorrigible - but one thing is for damn sure: Out bitching about it, fun though it may have been, did not improve things one little bit.
Because that kind of chronic complaining, justified or not, in the workplace leads to no good. In fact, in can be downright toxic and can make a department or even a whole company a terrible place to work.
Here’s why constant complaining is so bad:
1: It makes things look worse than they are
When people complain, they focus only on what’s wrong. Things may be mostly fine in the company, but complainers only talk about the problems, annoyances and peeves they perceive.
If things in a company are 80% good and 20% bad and you spend most of your time thinking and talking about the bad 20% - the situation will look a lot worse than it really is.
2: It becomes a habit
The more you complain, the easier it gets. In the end, everything is bad, every situation is a problem, every co-worker is a jerk and nothing is good.
The more you focus on the negative, the harder it gets to switch into a positive mindset.
3: You get what you focus on
According to Wikipedia, Confirmation bias is:
…a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions and avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs.
In other words, what you already believe influences your perception of everything around you. That’s why constant complaining makes you see everything in a negative light, because your subconscious mind tries to make new observation fit with what you already know.
4: It leads to onedownmanship
A complaining session might go something like this:
The other day, my boss came in 5 minutes before I was leaving and asked me to finish two huge projects for him. I had to stay two hours and missed my football game.
Yeah, well my boss told me to work this weekend AND the next.
Hah, that’s nothing! My boss…
This type of interaction rewards the person with the worst story who can complain the loudest. Not healthy!
5: It makes people despondent
Not only does constant complaining make you see the workplace as worse than it really is, but because you’re constantly hearing stories of how bad things are and how they’re constantly getting worse it also destroys all hope that things can get better.
This of course makes people less likely to take action to improve their situation, because everybody knows it’s doomed to fail anyway.
6: It kills innovation
Because the situations looks so hopeless, people become less creative and innovative. What’s the point of coming up with ideas and implementing them - it’s never going to work anyway.
Also, chronic complainers are the first to shoot down any new idea.
7: It favors negative people
The way to get status among complainers is to be the most negative. To be the one who sees everything in the most negative light.
Any attempt to be positive or cheerful will be shot down and optimists will be accused of being Pollyanna, naive and unrealistic.
8: It promotes bad relationships
People who complain together unite against the world and can create strong internal relationships based on this. But these relationships are based mostly on negative experiences. That’s not healthy.
It also means that you can only continue to be a part of the group if you can continue to complain, miring you even deeper in a complaint mindset.
9: It creates cliques
Being positive, optimistic and appreciative makes you more open towards other people - no matter who they are. It becomes easy to connect to co-workers in other departments, projects or divisions.
Complaining, on the other hand, makes people gather in cliques with their fellow complainers where they can be critical and suspicious of everybody else.
10: Pessimism is bad for you
Psychologist Martin Seligman showed in his groundbreaking research in positive psychology that people who see the world in a positive light have a long list of advantages, including:
- They live longer
- They’re healthier
- They have more friends and better social lives
- They enjoy life more
- They’re more successful at work
We sometimes think that pessimists and complainers have the edge because they see problems sooner but the truth is that optimists not only lead better lives, they’re also more successful because they believe that what they’re doing is going to work.
The upshot
Constant complaining in the workplace is toxic. It can drain the happiness, motivation, creativity and fun from a whole company. Wherever it’s going on it must be addressed and handled properly.
I’m NOT saying that we should never complain at work - quite the contrary. If you see a problem in your workplace, complain to whoever can do something about it.
What we should avoid at all costs, is constant bitching and moaning, where we’re always complaining about the same things, to the same people, in the same way, day in and day out.
So what can we do about it? Well first of all, each of us can learn to complain constructively. This means learning to complain in a way that leads to the problem being fixed - rather than to more complaining. Here’s my post on how you can How to complain constructively.
Secondly, we can learn to deal with the chronic complainers we meet at work. Unfortunately, our traditional strategies like trying to cheer them up or suggesting solutions for their problems don’t work because complainers aren’t looking for encouragement or solutions. Here’s my post on how to deal with chronic complainers.
Finally, you can train your own ability to be positive. Just like complaining can become a habit, so can being appreciative, optimistic and grateful. You could declare today a positive day, you could take a few minutes at the end of every work day to write down five good experiences from that day or you could praise a co-worker.
Try it and let me know how it goes!
Your take
But what do you think? Do you know any chronic complainers at work? What is their impact? How do you complain, when you see a problem?
Please write a comment, I’d really like to know!
Related
Here are some related posts about workplace complaining:
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Jill Said,
August 7, 2007 @ 9:58 am
I broadly agree with this post, except that, well, right after reading it, my feed reader served up a post from another blogger I enjoy reading called “The Right to Complain“. She and I are both academics, and there’s certainly a culture among many academics to complain about the system we’re in. I’ve found your blog, among others, helpful in trying to figure out what it is that I’m not happy about in my job, and what I am happy about, and which things, if any, I want to change.
Anyway, coming just after each other like that, two posts on complaining that argue very differently. Dr. Crazy argues that academic jobs are extremely difficult, because of the large investment in time and money you’ve put into getting there (thank you Norway for better funding), the large amount of “invisible” work that goes into research, publishing, administration etc, and your lack of choice in where you live, among other things (I’m lucky, I work where I want to live). Yet people tend to think it’s a cushy job, “you only work 12 hours a week”! (that’s the classroom hours).
If you have time, I’d love to hear your opinion after reading her post. Could there be a kind of complaining that’s not directed to someone like the boss, but - well, with an idea that perhaps one should complain to the people who can change things, and those people are sometimes yourself and your colleagues?
Tim Vang Said,
August 7, 2007 @ 10:19 am
Saw you on national television this morning… you did a GREAT job (as usual!)
Challenging Boss Said,
August 7, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
I’m working at a place where we have a… challenging boss. One could take the position that he is a horrible boss, and complain all the time, but the fact remains the guy does have a few redeeming qualities, and when we keep that firmly in mind, we all feel a lot better. And, we all like our jobs, the work we are doing, and the other people in the office. So? It’s not perfect, but there is power in positive thinking.
Cheryl Said,
August 7, 2007 @ 7:03 pm
I work in a public school in the US. Every single person in the city, county, state and nation has an opinion of public education and it is mostly negative. They vote. It is their children and grandchildren we provide services to. They write Letters to the Editor. They attend Board of Education meetings. Sometimes they are correct and we know it.
I guess I am adding here that the extremely negative information and gossip can come also from outside the system.
Speed links: Finding your dream job - Jarkko Laine - Insanely interested Said,
August 8, 2007 @ 10:52 am
[...] Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplace Maybe you are actually already working at your dream job, but you don’t realize it because of all the complaining that is in the air. [...]
Link Karma - 8 August 2007 Said,
August 8, 2007 @ 11:01 am
[...] Top 10 Reasons Why Complaining is so Toxic in The Workplace – Alexander over at Chief Happiness Officer shares some good reasons to stop the constant [...]
Intention; Think Positive and Release Negative Thoughts, using Buddhist Concepts. Said,
August 8, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
[...] recent blog post by the CHO, or Chief Happiness Officer looks at workplace complaining, or negativity, and 10 reasons why it’s considered toxic. Some reasons; [...]
Alexander Said,
August 9, 2007 @ 9:43 am
Jill: Thanks for the excellent link. I’m posting a blog post tomorrow with my thoughts on this.
Tim: Thank you my friend :o)
Challenging: That’s a great example and a wonderful way to apply this. There might be some more useful info here:
http://positivesharing.com/2007/01/how-to-deal-with-a-bad-boss/
Cheryl: Good point - and again you have constructive and destructive complaining from outside the workplace. And I see a lot of destructive complaining about schools these days.
Ask the CHO: Who has a right to complain Said,
August 10, 2007 @ 9:39 am
[...] Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplace [...]
Some weekend reading and thinking | More than a living Said,
August 10, 2007 @ 6:42 pm
[...] The Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplace “Looking back, I’m not sure that complaining to him would have worked - I think he was incorrigible - but one thing is for damn sure: Out bitching about it, fun though it may have been, did not improve things one little bit.” [...]
Build Your Life To Order ™ | Speedlinking - 12 August 2007 Said,
August 12, 2007 @ 6:44 pm
[...] Top 10 Reasons why Constant Complaining is so Toxic in the Workplace. Nice article by Alexander Kjerulf at Chief Happiness Officer. We all know people like this from our own workplace experience. They create a bad atmosphere and soon enough they alienate everyone except those that are just like them. Do NOT become one of these people in your workplace, simply refuse to join in with the negativity that sometimes flows through the work environment. [...]
Michel Said,
August 12, 2007 @ 8:14 pm
“Pollyanna, naive and unrealistic”
That describes this blog perfectly.
Weekend Wrapup 08/13/07 | So You Want To Teach? Said,
August 13, 2007 @ 12:16 pm
[...] Happiness Officer points out ten toxic results of complaining at work. I love this [...]
Complain and complain « 梦福樂爱 Said,
August 15, 2007 @ 9:12 pm
[...] Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplace [...]
chiefscribe Said,
August 19, 2007 @ 9:58 am
I don’t agree at all. Why are these people complaining in the first instance is the real question here! Is it because of the new Industrial Relations (IR) that have come to be part of the Australian work force. The bosses are not having their claim for pay increases or totally unreal bonuses down graded. Wait for the next large group of people seeking a $17.00 per week pay increase. Watch for the Employers coming out of the wood work stating that it would lead to job loses and inflation. Ok maybe, but when the boss gets an extra $500,000 per year that doesn’t have any effect upon job creation and inflation. Look at the Macquarie Bank Top Executives getting paid as much as AUS$32 Million per year. Now how can that be correct. Even Mr Busch (the Head Cop of the World) only gets tops US$1Milllion . No wonder workers complain.
Kevin Carson Said,
August 19, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
Sometimes complaining to your coworkers is the most constructive form of complaining, because when management discourages feedback, employee disgruntlement (and rising costs and lowered productivity from it) may be the only form of feedback that will register with them. The mutual complaining among employees also creates a sense of comraderie against management and puts people more in the mood to withdraw their consent to management authority and wage guerrilla war in all sorts of interesting ways.
Perhaps the most constructive form of criticism, though, is to the customer: what the Wobblies call “open mouth sabotage.” In a non-union workplace, where management takes draconian measures against perceived insubordination (where I work, a group of employees writing a joint letter to management were told by their immediate supervisor that it would be grounds for termination, because it constituted “organizing”), the employer’s good name in the community and with customers may be the only leverage you have over him. So any time I have a patient I feel I can trust, I let them know in detail all the inside dirt on the administration’s mismanagement, and how a one-time community hospital has been run into the ground by its new corporate owners. I also encourage them to voice their own concerns with understaffing and poor quality of care when they fill out their exit surveys.
Interestingly, the patient satisfaction surveys came back last year with lots of written comments about understaffing and the patient care load on nursing staff. And not long afterward, one of the talking points management passed down for ward staff meetings was “don’t ever tell a patient they’re not getting a bath, or whatever, because of understaffing–it undermines the confidence they’re entitled to feel.” So apparently it does get through.
Alexander Said,
August 20, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
chiefscribe: You point to some large scale trends that are seriously affecting our happiness at work. And I’m definitely not saying that employees should not complain - my point is this: What does your complaining do for you?
If it makes you and others feel better, if it increases solidarity and if it can inspire people to take action, then complain away.
However, if we’re not careful, chronic workplace complaining has the opposite effect - it makes people feel worse, it saps their energy and strength and makes them give up in advance.
Kevin: Great point. Again, complaining that leads to action is good. Complaining that leads to inaction is bad.
Interestingly, in the example you mention, complaining to the customers seems to have led to results, or at least to management finally realizing that there is a problem.
In that case, I have to marvel at much effort it must take for management to remain ignorant of this level of dissatisfaction among their people. Are these managers clueless or actively disinterested?
Greg Krauska Said,
August 20, 2007 @ 4:04 pm
Alex, great post. Research shows that the most successful companies are 5:1 positive in their internal interaction. The “1″ is not mere complaining, though. It may be dealing with the brutal facts when there is a genuine challenge in the organization. While it is not always easy, given (as noted above) bosses, coworkers, parents, etc., clearly each of us has a choice.
Kevin Carson Said,
August 20, 2007 @ 9:03 pm
“Are these managers clueless or actively disinterested?”
A little of both, I think. They seem to be genuinely unaware, thanks to the MBA culture, of just how pennywise/pound foolish their “cost cutting” measures are.
But even if they knew understaffing cost more in falls, errors, infections, etc., than they were saving in labor, they would probably choose to disregard it: it would mean that the main target for appropriate cost-cutting would be their own management featherbedding and capital projects undertaken for prestige value rather than functionality–and they certainly won’t dismantle their own bureaucratic empires for the sake of the shareholders!
The person who implemented the most draconian wave of downsizings was originally an outside consultant, brought in and made head of HR. She also was in charge of introducing Fish! Philosophy, believe it or not. She was utterly amoral, IMO. And when all the negative feedback started coming in with the employee satisfaction surveys and so forth, she got fired–they made a scapegoat of her when she was doing exactly what the MBAs brought in to do. So they’re probably as Macchiavellian as she was; they just combine amorality with cluelessness about what actually works. When you have that combination of mean and stupid, you get some real problems.
chiefscribe Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
Kevin Carson, It is called survival at all & any costs. The MBA’s are MBA’s only because that is what society has demanded. They are not necessarily any better that my original employer in the work place I entered into way back in 1968!! Gone are the days of people leaving school aged 15 years with the bare minimum education. To get a employment position paying any thing like half decent money (I say about $50,000 per annum) the prospective employer demands of you to have uni education in basket weaving or the like. Why do you have to have wasted 4 years of your productive life to be a half decent Adminstration/HR person? This ongoing pressure does nothing for a hay working environment? I have An Advance Diploma in both Goverfnment & Administration. Both awarded to me by the Australian Government as a result of the employment I was undertaking over a period of 25 years, but I was producing a product for the Boss the whole time. That made me happy because I was being paid for every day and didn’t get left with a HECS that I then had to repay to the Australian Government.
Kevin Carson Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 10:06 pm
Very good point, chiefscribe. Credentialism performs an essential function from the standpoint of the system: it acts as a sort of tollgate preventing those with skills from passing them on to others in an informal manner, and preventing as well the direct transformation of one’s labor power into consumption without paying tolls to the gatekeepers.
Ivan Illich gave the example of self-built housing. As late as the 1940s, in Massachusetts, some one third of new housing was self-built. At the time he wrote Tools for Conviviality, in the 1970s, modular construction and other user-friendly technologies made self-building far, far easier than it had been thirty years before, and yet the “safety” codes pushed through by contractors to cartelize the industry essentially outlawed it–unless you wanted to move outside the city limits into a relatively unregulated county. And obviously, earthships and other unorthodox building techniques are ruled out inside city limits by all sorts of design and aesthetic ordinances.
Anti-jitney laws restricting cab service to medallions perform a similar function. Ditto laws passed by the “professional” licensing cartels prohibiting physicians’ assistants from providing even simple forms of care without an MD’s supervison, and preventing dental assistants from even cleaning teeth on their own without dental supervision.
Forcing people to spend extra years in higher education, when they’d only need a few months of on-the-job training to pick up the relevant skill, performs another useful function: it provides a labor force which has learned that the way to advance in life is to find out what the authority figure behind the desk wants, and then do it, accepting meaningless tasks without question so long as they are assigned by the “proper authorities.” So you wind up with a labor force trained in the bureaucratic toadyism, ready to jump through all the hoops for a salary increase or another line item on the resume, just like the schoolkid did it for a gold star on his paper.
It’s also very good for inculating a meritocratic ideology, that more education is the key to everything. Those who get into top managerial and technical positions develop an attitude that anyone who didn’t make it through the meritocracy is just shiftless and lazy. That’s the fallacy of composition. As Joe Bageant pointed out, the Empire needs only about 20% of its population for managerial, technical, and administrative jobs. But it encourages half the population to go to college and fight each other ruthlessly for the limited number of openings, and proclaims the official ideology that everyone can be a manager or technician if everybody goes to college. “If you work hard enough building pyramids, you too can be Pharaoh someday!” And naturally, this is just another aspect of the broader ideological technique of diverting working and middle class resentment toward the “lazy” and “irresponsible” underclass, rather than the plutocracy.
Somebody hates me. Yaaaay! Said,
August 22, 2007 @ 10:00 am
[...] blog comment like this one is another good example. They’re very rare, but they do crop up [...]
Renee Said,
August 24, 2007 @ 4:57 pm
Thank you for this article, Alexander! For me, you have hit the nail on the head. I am the person living in your opening paragraph, and on top of that our company is shutting down in 3 months, which adds even more angst! Our boss has been out of town the past week, which has really been an eye opener to the amount of complaing that really goes on. Things have been a lot more positive since his departure, and now that he’ll be returning on Monday, I’m determined to enjoy and make the best of these last three months we have left. Thank you for the motivation! You’ve made perfect sense to me.
Catheirne Essel Said,
August 24, 2007 @ 5:47 pm
i enjoyed your tips and will like to other some of your books. how do i order them
Judith Munson Said,
August 24, 2007 @ 7:02 pm
Great column! Lots of ideas to ponder. I believe there is destructive complaining along with constructive complaining. The destructive way will certainly bring down an organization if left unaddressed. Done in a gracious and proper manner, constructive complaining can be useful to not only to the company’s bottom line, but also the morale of the employees and the increased productivity it brings.
I look forward to reading more of your articles/columns.
chiefscribe Said,
August 24, 2007 @ 9:09 pm
I know that the USA is a God fearing country, but you guys are just unbelievable. I can see you all saying helleula praise be to you and all that rot. I am complaining about you bunch of do gooders in the above comments. Or are you all out of work Sunday School teachers from the childrens section of your local Mormans church?
I am now HAPPY now that I have said that. I am now going to wait to be told by Big Brother that this is a happy thread not a complaining thread!
blissbyte.com » Blog Archive » What’s your Intention? Said,
September 25, 2007 @ 3:52 pm
[...] recent blog post by the CHO, or Chief Happiness Officer looks at workplace complaining, or negativity, and 10 reasons why it’s considered toxic. Some reasons; [...]
phil Said,
February 4, 2008 @ 11:15 pm
This was a very good article. I agree with most of it. I am usually very quiet at work, I keep to myself but am very friendly, accomodating to people that I work with and have never had a complaint in about 3 years working at my place of business. Last week, I came in to talk with my boss about something that bothered me (not a complaint about a person, but something policy related) I asked if I could come talk to him once or twice a year when something bothered me and he basically said unless it is something that HE deems worthy, he would bitch me out of the office. He tends to overreact sometimes and he said to me “I get more complaints about YOU than any other person in the back” OBVIOUSLY this did not make me feel too good and I am not sure why he would say that, other than a snap attack. I am feeling very back-stabbed as I have NEVER complained about anyone back here…HELP!
More death to job titles Said,
March 3, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
[...] Top 10 reasons why constant complaining in the workplace is so toxic [...]
Dealing with unpopular employees Said,
March 28, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
[...] Top 10 reasons why constant complaining in the workplace is so toxic [...]
tbeck Said,
March 30, 2008 @ 12:52 am
It seems as if this article was written by management. The old “Divide and Conquer” theory. After expressing our concerns with unfair treatment in the workplace to HR we were told that “HR works for management” so that leaves any non-union workplace with no support.
I agree that complaining among co workers creates a certain unity. The current trend(at least in the US) is more work, less pay. I think one of the biggest problems any workplace has is ‘too many chiefs, not enough indians’. Normally, the non-productive(not all)’chiefs’ have absolutely no clue what the productive ‘indians’ responsibilities are. It’s funny that our company is amazingly productive when there are no ‘Chief’s’ present. I’m guessing that we could cut the complaining when we ‘cut the fat’.
chiefscribe Said,
March 30, 2008 @ 1:09 am
I totally agree with tbeck of the 30Mar08. HR personnel are in my opinion snakes that can never be trusted with workers rights, conditions of service or salary rates.
Management would really like Australian workers to revert to the Rate of pay that the majority of Chinese in China receive (e.g. US$180 per month with only 2 days off in the entire month).
Why is it ok for CEO’s (e.g macQuarie Bank in australia to pay its top 2 management AUS$29Million &AUS$32Million respectively) to receive over the top Salary & bonuses but for the average Australian worker of AUS$52,000 per year to seek an extra AUS$20 per week is just out of the question.
The Big end of twon gets greedier off the hard work and unpaid basic workers and that’s the way management like it.
And don’t even try and justify that old chestnut that if you don’t pay CEO’s top of the range dollars then you get monkeys. The same goes for basic workers except Management and their Associations fight to not pay any worker one cent more.
SHAME SHAME SHAN for all Bosses.
Toxic workgroup survivor Said,
April 14, 2008 @ 6:15 am
I used to work in a toxic workgroup, and I recognized it for what it was right from Day One. Their little clique of complainers undermined upper management and wasted a lot of time. I refused to participate when things turned pointlessly negative, and when I found myself in a one-on-one conversation with a whiner I’d put an end to it by urging them to stop talking to *me* and call up whoever had ticked them off this latest time.
This saved my sanity, but the price was being excluded from useful information. I had to develop my own network of positive people who I could vent to (about the gossipers, of course!) but since this wasn’t a competitive sport for us we kept it brief and mainly just chatted at work. Useful information usually came to me eventually through my own circle or through official channels. Still, it was annoying to be cut out of the loop.
blue delphinium Said,
April 17, 2008 @ 7:23 am
why do non-complainers like to complain about complainers so much? It detracts us from our critical thinking process and our duty to present the other side of the Truth for the greater good of all. All you non complainers do is whine about us and bitch, bitch, bitch. Jeez. All that sunshine and lollipop living has made you cranky.
Stephen Hopson Interview with Alexander Kjerulf, Chief Happiness Officer from Denmark, Part II of II Said,
May 7, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
[...] Top 10 Reasons Constant Complaining is so Toxic [...]