If you’re unhappy at work, I’m sure that the thought “Man, I really should quit!” crosses your mind occasionally.

So why don’t you?

Even if you long desperately to quit, to get away from your horrible workplace, annoying co-workers or abusive managers, you may hesitate to actually do anything about it, because right on the heels of that impulse come a lot of other thoughts that hold you back from quitting.

Each of these excuses may sound to you like the voice of sanity, offering perfectly good reasons why it is in fact better to stay and endure that bad job just a little longer, but look a little closer, and they don’t really hold up. What they do instead is keep you trapped in a job that is slowly but surely wearing you down.

Here are 10 of the most common bad excuses for staying in a bad job.

#1 “Things might get better”

That jerk manager might be promoted out of there. That annoying co-worker could quit.That mound of overwork could suddenly disappear.

On the other hand, things might also get worse. Or they might not change at all. If you’ve already done your best to improve your job situations and nothing’s happened, just waiting around for things to improve by themselves make little sense.

#2 “My boss is such a jerk but if I quit now, he wins.”

Who cares. This is not about winning or losing, this is your life. Move on, already.

#3 “I’m not a quitter.”

Well guess what these somewhat successful people have in common: Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Tiger Woords, Reese Witherspoon, John McEnroe and John Steinbeck?

Yep, they all dropped out of Stanford.

The old saying that “Winners never quit and quitters never win” is just plain wrong and leaving a bad job is just common sense.

#4 “I’ll never get another job”

Well not if you stay in your current job while it slowly grinds you down, you won’t! Move on now while you still have some self-confidence, motivation and energy left.

#5 “If I quit I’ll lose my salary, status, company car, the recognition of my peers, etc.”

Yes, quitting a job carries a price and that makes it scary. We all know this intimately.

But few of us ask this question: What is the price of staying in a job that makes you unhappy?

That price can be very high. It can ruin your work life but also your marriage, your family life, your health, your self-esteem and your sanity. Not all at once, but a little bit every day.

#6 “Everywhere else is just as bad”

That’s just nonsense. There are plenty of great workplaces in every industry.

#7 “I’ve invested so much in this job already”

You may have sacrificed a lot of time, energy and dignity already in attempts to make things better. This will make it more difficult for you to call it quits.

I’m reminded of how Nigerian email scammers sucker in people. At first it’s a small investment, but then the amounts grow and grow. At each step the victim is reluctant to stop because that would mean losing all the money he’s spent so far.

Quit anyway. Staying on is just throwing good time after bad.

#8 “I’ll lose my health insurance.”

I have a lot of sympathy for this argument. Where I live (Denmark), everybody gets free health care regardless of their employment situation so I can’t imagine the leverage this must give employers.

One answer: Start looking for another job with similar health benefits.

Also: Ask yourself what good job related health insurance is if your job is actually making your sick - which bad jobs can absolutely do.

#9 “My job pays very well”

I have zero sympathy for this argument. I don’t care how well your job pays; if it makes you unhappy it’s not worth it.

Quite the contrary, if you make a lot of money now, use that financial security to quit and find a job that’ll make you happy.

#10 “Quitting will look bad on my CV”

Whereas staying for years in a job that grinds you down and goes nowhere will look excellent.

The upshot

Many of us would be much happier at work if we quit bad jobs sooner. I’ve talked to many people who have finally managed to quit a bad job and only wished they’d done it sooner. I have yet to meet a single person who quit a crappy job only to wish they’d stayed on longer.

You may have perfectly good reasons to stay in your crappy job - all I’m saying is that it pays to examine those reasons very closely to make sure that they hold up.

‘Cause it may just be the fear talking.

Your take

What do you think? Have you ever been stuck in a lousy workplace? What kept you from leaving? What finally made you quit? Please write a comment, I’d love to hear your take.

Related posts

• Find your quitting point
• Never stay in a bad job. Fix it or leave.
• How to find a job you’ll love
• Top 10 signs you’re unhappy at work

Here’s a recent question from CNN Money:

One of my employees is pretty capable, but she lacks people skills. No one in the office likes dealing with her. Recently she called me at home at 9 P.M. on a Friday, crying and saying she was typing up her résumé because the entire staff was against her.

I listened, and then hinted that it wasn’t the time or place to discuss this. Now office tension is high. Can I tell this woman that, because she said she was updating her résumé, I assume she’s given notice?
(source)

That’s a good question but here’s an even better one: if that employee’s behavior is so bad and her social skills so atrocious, why hasn’t the manager reacted a long time ago? This is one of the most important things we have managers for - to make sure that counter-productive behavior in the workplaces is stopped.

I read an interesting quote the other day (though I’ve forgotten where) that said that any behavior by employees that is not stopped by management becomes de facto legal.

Bad behavior includes gossiping, badmouthing co-workers, constant negativity, unconstructive criticisms, bullying, not helping co-workers and not sharing information. If managers see this and do nothing - it’s now OK.

And it shouldn’t be!

One manager from a company I’ve worked with, took this responsibility seriously. One of his employees, a lady in her 50s who’s been with the company for many years, had become habitually negative.

She’d end most phone calls by slamming down the receiver and blurting “Idiot!” whether she’d been talking to a customer or a co-worker. She would criticize all suggestions and plans she was consulted on. Co-workers respected her knowledge and competence but didn’t dare ask her any questions because of her demeanor.

Finally the manager had a meeting with her. He explained exactly how he viewed her behavior and why it was making him and her co-workers unhappy at work. He then gave her the rest of the day off.

When she called in sick the next day, he was pretty sure he was going to lose that employee. She returned to work the day after and asked for a meeting with him. And this is when she amazed him.

She’d spent some time thinking about this and talking to her husband - and she’d come to agree that her behavior had become much too negative. The scary thing is that she hadn’t done any of this consciously - it had become a habit. One she now wanted to break.

She’s been working on it since and both the manager and her co-worker have noticed a marked shift in her behavior. So, by the way, has her husband.

This is exactly how managers should handle this type of situation. Employees who exhibit this type of bad behavior need attention and help to break out of it. If their behavior improves - excellent. Then it’s time to follow up and make sure the change is lasting. If it doesn’t help, then it’s time to fire that person.

Letting people stay in jobs where they don’t fit in, where they’re not happy and where they’re not pulling their weight is a mistake. Managers may think they’re doing them a favor… they’re not!

Remember, just one unhappy, unproductive employee can pull down the whole department. And what’s worse - this attitude is contagious. It spreads and infects others and if you’re not careful, you’ll end up with a hard-core little clique of dissatisfied, cynical employees who make everyone around them unhappy.

Your take

What do you think? Have you seen a manager take responsibility and address bad behavior in employees? Have you seen this behavior ignored and be allowed to spread?

Related posts

• Top 10 reasons why constant complaining in the workplace is so toxic
• Top 10 reasons why happiness at work is the ultimate productivity booster
• How to deal with anger at work

A while back I wrote a post about killing off job titles. I think they’re a waste of time and contribute nothing to our productivity, creativity or happiness at work. In fact, job titles can be the source of a lot of disputes and bickering in the workplace.

Matt Cardwell of Quicken Loans (a home loan lender based in the US) read this and liked it so much that he decided to issue a fatwa on job titles in his department. Here he explains why:

We never used to have titles on the Marketing Team at Quicken Loans because we always prided ourselves as having a marked anti-corporate and non-hierarchical culture. Actually, we did have titles, but everyone was called a “Marketing Manager.” So it was kind of a forced equality and no one EVER even talked about titles. But as the team grew from a few dozen people to over fifty, HR decided we needed some “consistency”, especially for purposes of external salary comping. So against our better judgment we relented and started creating a bunch of silly titles like: Marketing Coordinator, Marketing Program Manager, Project Manager, Jr. Project Manager, Sr. Project Manager, etc.

Well, it only took about 12 months for our brilliant decision to come back and bite us in the ass. Needless to say, it created all kinds of unnecessary noise within the team as people started to grumble about why a person who had only been here for 12 months just got promoted to Sr. Project Manager when another person who had been here for three years was still a Project Manager. I got so fed up with the divisiveness of it all that I just decided to banish titles altogether yesterday morning. So I went looking for some inspiration and Googled “job titles” or something to that effect and found your blog post from December. It was EXACTLY what I was looking for. So I dropped it into an email, added my two cents and started a revolt. Initially it was just within my 20 person eCommerce Marketing team, but it snowballed over the course of the afternoon to include most of the broader marketing team.

That is music to my ears and in response to Matt’s challenge, people got very creative. Here are some of the new titles:

• Royal Storyteller & Propaganda Minister
• Supreme Challenger of the Status Quo & Wicked Web Site Innovator
• Mastermind of Possibilities, Visual Linguist, and Czar of the High Fiber Revolution
• Flasher
• Conceptologist
• Pixelardo da Vinci

You can see more titles in my previous post on this.

How did Matt inspire people to do this? Here’s the email he sent out:

Okay, team, so I want each one of you to take 15 minutes today to really think hard about what YOU DO and what MAKES YOU HAPPY at work and create a title for yourself that expresses who you are and your impact on the business and your team mates. Forget about what Salary.com or some HR person said your title is or should be. Forget about what you get paid, how many years of experience you have, or what other people’s “titles” are in comparison to you. Tell us WHAT YOU DO and make that your new “title”.

As of this morning, traditional titles on the Website Marketing Team are DEAD. D-E-A-D. Somehow over the past year people have become WAY too caught up in who has what title. So we’re going to end the madness today.

If this scares you, makes you feel like we’ve taken something away or makes you wonder how your resume will look without that title-that-really- never-does-justice-to-you-and-your-talents-anyway, ask yourself when was the last time someone called you by your title? When was the last time Todd Lunsford or Bill Emerson or Dan Gilbert called you by your title? Worried about how this might impact future compensation? Don’t. Numbers and money follow, they do not lead. Kick ass at whatever you do, and the wealth will eventually flow to you. I’ve seen it happen again and again in my career … and especially here.

If you are concerned about someone not recognizing how important you are because you no longer have a standard title, then here’s your chance to create a title for yourself that will convey exactly how important you are. And because you are creating it, it will be all yours. No one else will have that title. Think of the conversations your new title will start with complete strangers. Think of the opportunities it can create for you in terms of expressing who you are, not what someone CALLS you.

“But what if I don’t like my description in three months …” you ask? What if what I do CHANGES? Well, then you can change your description. It’s that simple. No one ever stays the same … we are all growing … so let your “title” do the same when it’s time.

Here’s your chance. You have until the end of the day to let us all know who you are. Have fun, be creative, be humorous, but above all, be real and true. Remember, this will be on your e-mail signature, so please be aware of that.

I can’t wait to see what all of you come up with.

DEATH TO TITLES!

Matt

Matt Cardwell
Idea Salesman, Energy Focuser and People Unleasher
eCommerce Marketing Team
Quicken Loans
My title challenges your title to a duel. I predict a draw. - Me

I had to know more, so I emailed Matt with a few follow-up questions, and here’s an update from him on the fatwa on job titles:

You had a couple of questions around the titles Fatwa from your previous e-mail. One question was about whether we had abolished titles company-wide. So far only the Web Marketing Team and the Idea Lab (our creative team – basically an in-house agency for our advertising production) took up my challenge. Not surprisingly, the team that actually got the title “promotions” that started this whole thing opted not to join us in our little revolution. I threw the challenge out to them, but I haven’t really seen anyone take up the torch.

I do know that our CMO, Todd Lunsford was extremely supportive of the no-title revolution. As I mentioned, we really only started using titles recently for comping purposes. But even there, they are generally not very useful for the more specialized people on my team (usability pros, search engine optimizers, etc), because until very recently, Salary.com didn’t make distinctions between interactive marketers (which are in high demand) and traditional marketers. As an organization, we’ve been pretty ambivalent about titles. Most of our Sr. Leadership Team and many of our team members simply have no title on their email signature, or just identify themselves with their team. For example: Joe Smith, Web Marketing Team

So I think this will still spread … we won a couple battles, but we still have a war going on. It will come. And I’ll keep preaching.

This is fantastic! I’m adding Quicken Loans to my list of “Companies that get it.” And I’m not alone - they recently placed second in Fortune Magazine’s Best Company to Work list, one behind Google.

Your take

What’s your take? Is your workplace ready to issue its own fatwa on job titles? Or do you see some value in having a “real” title on your business card? Please write a comment, I’d really like to know.

Related posts

• Top 10 reasons why constant complaining in the workplace is so toxic
• Top 10 reasons why happiness at work is the ultimate productivity booster
• Five reasons to forget about money and focus on what makes you happy at work

Here’s an interesting question that I got yesterday:

My husband and I are currently sitting on the sofa, enjoying our day off and writing down our goals for 2008. While doing so, my husband has brought up the topic of work. Here is his statement in a nutshell: I think you are very angry about work in general and need professional help.

In searching for “help,” I came across your website.

Here’s my question: after being laid off in September and being forced to change careers from the mortgage industry to a more secure industry is there “help” out there for dealing with the anger I now have because I was forced to change careers at 39 years old and what can I do in the meantime so that my “anger” doesn’t spill into my new career?

Thank You,
Yvonne

This question is interesting for many reasons, most notably because this is obviously making Yvonne unhappy at work in her new job. If it’s come to the point where her husband believes she needs professional help, it’s probably also affecting her at home.

Also, Yvonne is far from alone. A lot of people face major changes at work. When they are laid off, when their company is bought by a competitor or when major reorganizations fundamentally change their working conditions. Large scale change has become a fact of corporate life and many of us react to it by getting mad.

Below you’ll find my top 5 tips for dealing with anger when when you’re going through major change at work.

I apologize in advance for venturing maybe a little too close to therapy-land in this post. I honestly don’t want to go all Dr. Phil on you guys, but dealing with anger is not possible without taking a look at what goes on inside your head. OK? OK!

5 steps for dealing with anger at work

Step 1: Accept that being angry is perfectly natural
When we’re faced with large changes in life and at work, we all have to go through the grief cycle, which has the following stages:

1. Denial: The initial stage: “It can’t be happening.”
2. Anger: “Why me? It’s not fair.”
3. Bargaining: “Just let me live to see my children graduate.”
4. Depression: “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”
5. Acceptance: “It’s going to be OK.”

I’m honestly not sure how scientifically established this model is, but I certainly find it very useful in the work I do with organizations that are going through major change.

Last year, I did some work with a branch of the Danish Tax Authority - an organization that has gone through enormous change and reorganization in the last year.

When I presented a simplified version of this model to them, I could see people breathing sighs of relief. One participant even exclaimed “NOW you tell us!” Many of them had been angry or depressed about these changes, but nobody had told them that this is normal. Consequently, many of them felt bad about what they were feeling - which of course only made them more angry or depressed.

It’s important to accept your own anger as perfectly OK. Being angry is hard enough. Being angry while telling yourself “I really mustn’t be angry” is infinitely worse :o)

This does not give you blanket permission to throw tantrums right and left - it just means that being angry is OK, not that every display of anger is allowed.

Step 2: Find out what your anger does for you - good or bad
What does being angry do for you? Think back to previous situations where you have been angry at work and ask yourself how it affects eg.:

1. You
2. Your relationships with co-workers
3. The quality of your work
4. Your energy
5. Your well-being and health
6. How you feel outside of work
7. Your relationships with friends and family

For each of these, include both the good and the bad. Maybe being angry gives you a lot of clout and influence on the job… but it also means that co-workers tend to avoid you. Maybe being angry feels stressful… but it also saves you from being taken advantage of at work.

And here is a crucial question: What other emotions, questions and doubts are you free from dealing with because you’re angry? When your anger consumes you, which other painful or difficult considerations are you free from thinking about? What would you have to feel/think about/deal with/do something about if you were not angry?

Step 3: Find out what makes you angrier and less angry
What makes you angrier? Which thoughts, situations, people, conversations set you off?

Conversely, what makes you less angry? I’m sure you’re not angry every second of every day :o) What gives you peace - or at least distracts you from the anger?

Find out - then start doing less of what makes you angry and more of the things that calm you down.

Step 4: Focus on gratitude
What are you grateful for? As I mentioned above, anger is part of the grief cycle which is associated with loss. Gratitude is the polar opposite of loss, because it obviously comes from the good things you have in your life.

It’s simple. Every evening, sit down with a piece of paper (and maybe a glass of wine) and make two gratitude lists:

1. 3 things I was grateful for at work today
2. 3 things I was grateful for in life today

It can be big things or small things - obvious stuff or weird stuff. Whatever makes you feel happy and grateful.

If you need some inspiration, check out Scott Nutter who has been doing daily gratitude posts on his blog for 334 days running now.

Step 5: Shift your focus from “What was done to me” to “What I can do”
I know, I know - this is the basic staple of all self-help advice.

As in “When life gives you lemons make lemonade.”

As in “Life is 10% about what happens to you and 90% about how you deal with it.”

As in “You must take responsibility for your own situation, rather than be a victim of.”

That kind of advice can get pretty nauseating. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

3 things NOT to do

There are also some things you should avoid doing.

1: Don’t vent
Common knowledge holds that when you’re angry, you should vent to get it off your chest. Interestingly, studies indicate that venting just makes us even angrier.

2: Don’t try to justify your anger
When you’re feeling angry don’t waste time and energy justifying it - either to yourself or others.

Well that guy was a jerk at the staff meeting and the way I was treated in the last reorg was totally unfair and my manager still hasn’t apologized and some guy cut me off in traffic on the way home and…

You’re angry, that’s enough. You don’t have to list all the reasons why you’re angry. Again, that just makes you even angrier.

3: Don’t stay trapped in your job
There is an amazing amount of peace and calm to be found in the simple fact that “I’m free to leave and find another job.” Conversely, knowing that you’re trapped in your current job makes everything much worse.

Read my previous posts on How to lose your fear of being fired and the Top 10 advantages of low-rent living for more on this.

Your take

What about you? Have you tried being really angry because of major changes in your work life? How did it affect you? How did you handle it? Please write a comment, I’d really like to know!

Related posts

1. The Feel Factor - Why no workplace can afford to ignore what people feel
2. How not to let annoying people annoy you
3. How to turn around a bad day at work

Here’s how some companies do team building:

Employees [of Californian home security company] Alarm One Inc. were paddled with rival companies’ yard signs as part of a contest that pitted sales teams against each other, according to court documents.

The winners poked fun at the losers, throwing pies at them, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks.

The good news: The company got paddled in court when an employee sued them and had to cough up 1.7 million USD.

The bad news: A lot of team building events borrow elements from this approach, setting up artificial (and often meaningless) contests pitting coworkers against each other.

This is especially ironic because companies today want their employees to cooperate more, to work well in teams, to share knowledge and to work to achieve success together. That is why it makes absolutely no sense to send them on trainings that are mainly competitive in nature. Even when these events let people work together in smaller teams, competing against other teams, the focus still ends up being on competition, not cooperation.

There’s a simple reason why these events are almost always competitive: Competition = instant passion. Setting up a competition activates a primal urge in many people to win at all costs, making them very focused and active - which looks great to the organizers.

But there’s a huge downside to this - which means that not only are many team building events a huge waste of time, they can be actively harmful to teams.

Here are the top 5 problems with competitive team building events.

1: Competition does not create an experience of success
Yes, someone will win - most people won’t. If the entire focus is on competing and winning, most participants will leave with a sense that “we weren’t good enough.” That’s not really a good feeling to have created in your employees.

2: Competition brings out the worst in people

CEO Hal Rosenbluth was just about to hire an executive with all the right skills, the right personality and the perfect CV. His interviews went swimmingly and he’d said all the right things, but something about him still made Rosenbluth nervous, though he couldn’t put his finger on just what it was.

Rosenbluth’s solution was genius: He invited the applicant to a company softball game, and here the man showed his true colors. He was competitive to the point of being manic. He abused and yelled at both the opponents and his own team. He cursed the referees and kicked up dirt like a major league player.

And he did not get the job.

(From Hal Rosenbluth’s excellent book The Customer Comes Second).

Competing brings out the inner jerk in some people, making them manic and abusive. Some even try cheating in order to win. This is not exactly a great basis for future cooperation - it might be better if people left the event liking each other more than before because they’d seen each other at their best and most likable.

3: People learn less when they’re competing
Studies show that we learn less when we compete and more when we cooperate. Here’s an example from education:

In a comprehensive review of 245 classroom studies that found a significant achievement difference between cooperative and competitive environments, David Johnson and Roger Johnson of the University of Minnesota reported that 87 percent of the time the advantage went to the cooperative approach.

In visiting classrooms where cooperative learning is used, I like to ask students to describe the experience in their own words. One ten-year-old boy thought a moment and replied, “It’s like you have four brains.” By contrast, a competitor’s single brain often shuts off when given no reason to learn except to triumph over his or her classmates.

- Alfie Kohn (Source)

4: Competition lowers performance
And contrary to what most people think, most of us perform worse when we’re competing. This is especially true for complex tasks that require us to work with and learn from other people.

5: Waste of time
These events focus more on finding and rewarding winners than on making sure that people learn something that might actually be useful at work.

This creates a sense that the events are a waste of time, and employees come to resent them because they keep them from doing real, actual, useful work.

How to do team building that actually builds teams

Here’s what the result of a good team building event should be:

• A deeper understanding between co-workers
• Co-workers like each other better than before
• An experience of having performed well together
• A feeling that “we’re good at what we do”
• An increased desire to cooperate and help each other out
• Specific learnings that can be applied at work
• And maybe most of all: A sense that the event was “time well spent.”

This would actually be easy to achieve. We’d just have to change the event so that:

1. The event has common goals for all participants, making people cooperate, not compete
2. The event rewards those who get good results but also those who help others get good results and those who help make it a nice experience for everyone
3. You take plenty of time to let participants reflect on how the learnings from the event can be applied in their work

You may not get the same hectic moody you get from those intensely competitive events - but that’s actually a good thing.

What you would get instead is an event that is more fun for more people - and much more useful. That has to be a good thing!

Your take

What’s the best team building event you’ve ever tried? Or the worst? How did it help or hinder your team? What would your ideal team building event look like?

Please write a comment, I’d like to know what you think.

Related posts

• My review of Alfie Kohn’s book “No Contest”
• Jerks at work - and how to lose’em
• Why “motivation by pizza” doesn’t work

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:

• A real-life story on how being positive helps at work
• Go complain. Right now!
• Some negative phrases to avoid

Check out this comment from a reader in Hong Kong:

I’ve been visiting your site on and off for quite a while now.

I’ve been miserable at work and, although it took me almost a year, I eventually built up the courage, and I’ve finally quit my job!!

I think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!

I’m now working out my one-month notification period…then hopefully go on a vacation to Europe with my family…then travel to Beijing to visit my love….

And most of all, I’ve found a new job too! No one knows how it’ll go, but a change is definitely due and I’m looking forward to a fresh start.

Your site has definitely pushed me on.

:) One happy Office Lady in Hong Kong

First of all: Wooo-hooooo! Good for you, Office Lady, and good luck in the new job!

This of course raises an interesting question: How do you know it’s time to quit a bad job?

Should you quit at the first sign of trouble? As in “The cafeteria doesn’t have Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee and besides the boss gave me a funny look at the last staff meeting - I’m outta here!”

Or do you only quit when all hope is gone. “Yes, I know my boss is a total jerk, my salary is lousy and my co-workers just covered my cubicle in mayonnaise-smeared saran wrap for the third time this week. But you never know - things might get better tomorrow!”

When is it time to quit? It’s a question I keep getting - and no wonder. Leaving a job has become one of life’s biggest decisions. It’s something that may affect every aspect of your life including your finances, your work life, your identity, your family and possibly even your social status and friendships.

I’ve quit three different jobs in my career and in every single case my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. In two of those cases I quit without having the next job lined up - it was simply time for me to move on NOW!

It seems most of us tend to stay in bad jobs waaaaay too long. I have talked to any number of people who have told me some variation of “I quit my job last year and my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.” However, not a single person has ever told me that “I quit my job last year and it was a huge mistake. I should definitely have stayed on.”

This does not mean that it’s always the right decision to quit, but it does show that when in doubt, most of us stay on in bad jobs. Perhaps longer than is good for us.

We’ve been told that quitting your job is bad because:

• It makes you look less dependable to your next employer.
• It costs you money.
• It reduces your status.
• Quitting means giving up - and that’s bad. You should stay and slog it out.

And this may all be true or not, but here’s a question you must also ask yourself: What will staying in a bad job cost you? Because make no mistake: A bad work situation can cost you your energy, motivation, self-worth and even your health. Worst case, it can kill you.

Worst of all, staying in a bad job where you repeatedly feel demeaned or useless robs you of precisely those things you need to move on and find a new job. To actually get up and go out and find new work or finding the courage to quit without having the next job lined up takes energy, motivation, passion and confidence.

How do you know..?

Which brings us back to the original question: How do you know?

First of all: You will never know for sure. It’s not like you can calculate the exact optimal moment to quit your job. It will always be a judgment call, and like any other major decision in life, it’s not so much about making the right decision - it’s more about making a decision and then making it the right decision.

Secondly: You probably do know. Call it intuition, gut feeling, inner wisdom - if it’s time to quit, then somewhere inside of you a voice is probably going “I hate my job. It’s time to quit.” The trick is to listen to that voice.

That voice is often very quiet and very easy to quell. You’re maybe at work, in the middle of a meeting or an important task when suddenly you get the feeling that you really, really need to find a new job. That’s certainly not productive in the moment - right then you need to focus on whatever it is you’re doing. Also, as mentioned above, having to quit is a scary proposition. So you ignore that feeling and focus on work.

I firmly believe that you’re doing no one a favor by staying if you’re not happy at work. Not yourself, not your family and certainly not the company. The rare exception is the case where your or your families survival or fundamental welfare is at stake. If quitting a bad job means your family becomes homeless, the choice is clear - you stay until you have a better job lined up.

Barring this, it’s simple: If your job does not make you happy you should first try to fix it. If there’s no realistic hope that you ever will, it’s time to get out of Dodge.

The upshot

So here are my top six tips for finding your quitting point:

1. Give up the idea that you can know for sure whether or not it’s time to quit. It’s always going to be a leap.
2. Listen to your intuition. Your gut may know before your mind.
3. Remember what quitting can cost you - but also remember what staying in a bad job can cost you!
4. Remember that the longer you stay in a bad job, the harder it gets to leave.
5. Most people stay too long in bad jobs - mostly because they fear the uncertainty that comes with quitting.
6. Most people, once they’ve quit, find that their situation improves. Maybe not immediately, but certainly after a few months.

What about you? Have you tried quitting a job? What was your quitting point? What happened - did you end up regretting it or being happy that you finally quit? Write a comment - I’d really like to know!

Related:

• How to lose your fear of losing your job
• Some killer questions to ask in your next job interview
• How to find a job you’ll love
• Never stay in a bad job. Fix it or leave.
• How to turn around a bad day

Imagine you’re in a job interview and everything is looking great - the job looks interesting, the salary and perks are about right, people seem nice.

What you really need to know now is, “Is this a nice place to work?” Are people happy at work here? Are the managers good? Are the co-workers nice? Or is this company a branch office of one of the nastier levels of hell?

You could always ask them straight out at the interview. “Say… I was wondering… Is this a good place to work?”

But you pretty much know what they’ll say, don’t you? “Why certainly, dear applicant, this company is fully committed to the well-being of its employees. We strive to maintain a high level of employee satisfaction and employees are our number one asset.”

Riiiight!

So what questions can you ask to cut through the corporate b.s. and learn whether this is an actual, honest-to-god, nice workplace?

Here’s what you can do: Ask the people interviewing you about their best experiences working for the company. Questions like:

• What’s been your best experience working at this company?
• When do you have the most fun at work ?
• Who do you enjoy working with the most here? What do you like about them?
• Which manager do you admire the most in this company? What do you admire about that person?
• What’s the greatest thing your manager has done for his/her people?

You can ask the person interviewing you. If your future boss is at the interview, ask her. An even better option, if at all possible, is to get a chance to ask some of your potential co-workers. Some companies make this possible, and that’s the best way to learn more about the company.

What’s so great about those questions?

1. Because you’re asking about people’s own experiences, these questions are hard to dodge or to answer with platitudes and corporate flim-flam.
2. These are all positive questions. Even if the person interviewing you is a serial complainer, you will get some information on what’s great about this company.
3. If they think these questions are just waaaay off base and inappropriate, that’s probably a good sign that they’re not into the whole “happy at work” thing :o)
4. Answering positive questions like these puts people in a good mood, which means they’re more likely to like you and consequently more likely to hire you.

Care to try it?

Let me come clean here: I’ve only been to two job interviews in my life - both at the very beginning of my career! I’ve been an entrepreneur for almost 15 years, so I have never tried to use them in this way myself.

However, I have used the same type of questions in sales meetings (which are not too different from job interviews when you think about it), where they work very well.

These questions will give you a much better idea of what a company and its people are really like. If good stories and great experiences start flowing and the word “fun” comes up a lot, that’s an indication of a great workplace.

If they look at you like “That’s the weirdest question I’ve ever heard” it may not be.

So: What do you think? Would it work for you? Have you done something like this already? Write a comment!

Related:

• How to find a job you’ll love
• How to lose your fear of being fired
• Never stay in a bad job! Fix it or leave!

Lisa was falling behind at work. Every morning she woke up nervous about the workday ahead of her. Every evening she went home thinking of all the tasks she hadn’t gotten around to.

Lisa is a 35-year old engineer and project manager at a Danish IT company. With business booming, keeping up had become a struggle - she felt she had to run really fast, to just to stay in place.

With her in-box overflowing and people all around her clamoring for assistance on their projects, she started to look at various productivity tools and systems and quickly settled on the one she’d use. As is typical for Lisa, once she’s decided to do something, she does it, and with new ways of tracking time, improved todo-lists and prioritizing her work, she did notice that she was getting more work done.

But she still felt, that she could be more productive. While she was thinking about her next step, it struck her: Some of what she did, she hated doing.

While she generally enjoyed her job, especially helping people plan their projects and advising them on the best ways to move forward, some of her tasks were administrative in nature. Tracking progress, updating various statics, generating reports, etc… . They didn’t take up that much of her time - but they were a lot less fun. Let’s face it: to Lisa, they were boring as hell.

She talked to her boss about it, and they decided to give those tasks to a project secretary. This freed up a little time for Lisa, but mostly it allowed her to work on those parts of her job that she really liked. Consequently Lisa became a lot happier at work - and THAT’S when her productivity sky-rocketed. Now she had the energy to connect with her people and the creativity to think up and implement new ideas. Instead of feeling stressed and harried, she was optimistic and positive.

While her productivity system had definitely helped her get more done, the productivity boost she got from being happy at work was many times bigger. Lisa is now working way less hours - and getting much more done. And most importantly, she’s enjoying work a lot more!

If you want to get more done at work, the productivity gurus out there will tell you that it’s all about having the right system. You need to prioritize your tasks, you must keep detailed logs of how you spend your time, todo-lists are of course essential, you must learn to structure your calendar and much, much more.

But that’s not where you should start. You should start by liking what you do.

The single most efficient way to increase your productivity is to be happy at work. No system, tool or methodology in the world can beat the productivity boost you get from really, really enjoying your work.

I’m not knocking all the traditional productivity advice out there - it’s not that it’s bad or deficient. It’s just that when you apply it in a job that basically doesn’t make you happy, you’re trying to fix something at a surface level when the problem goes much deeper.

Here are the 10 most important reasons why happiness at work is the #1 productivity booster.

1: Happy people work better with others
Happy people are a lot more fun to be around and consequently have better relations at work. This translates into:

• Better teamwork with your colleagues
• Better employee relations if you’re a manager
• More satisfied customers if you’re in a service job
• Improved sales if you’re a sales person

2: Happy people are more creative
If your productivity depends on being able to come up with new ideas, you need to be happy at work. Check out the research of Teresa Amibile for proof. She says:

If people are in a good mood on a given day, they’re more likely to have creative ideas that day, as well as the next day, even if we take into account their mood that next day.

There seems to be a cognitive process that gets set up when people are feeling good that leads to more flexible, fluent, and original thinking, and there’s actually a carryover, an incubation effect, to the next day.

3: Happy people fix problems instead of complaining about them
When you don’t like your job, every molehill looks like a mountain. It becomes difficult to fix any problem without agonizing over it or complaining about it first. When you’re happy at work and you run into a snafu - you just fix it.

4: Happy people have more energy
Happy people have more energy and are therefore more efficient at everything they do.

5: Happy people are more optimistic
Happy people have a more positive, optimistic outlook, and as research shows (particularly Martin Seligman’s work in positive psychology), optimists are way more successful and productive. It’s the old saying “Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re probably right” all over again.

6: Happy people are way more motivated
Low motivation means low productivity, and the only sustainable, reliable way to be motivated at work is to be happy and like what you do. I wrote about this in a previous post called Why “motivation by pizza” doesn’t work.

7: Happy people get sick less often
Getting sick is a productivity killer and if you don’t like your job you’re more prone to contract a long list of diseases including ulcers, cancer and diabetes. You’re also more prone to workplace stress and burnout.

One study assessed the impact of job strain on the health of 21,290 female nurses in the US and found that the women most at risk of ill health were those who didn’t like their jobs. The impact on their health was a great as that associated with smoking and sedentary lifestyles (source).

8: Happy people learn faster
When you’re happy and relaxed, you’re much more open to learning new things at work and thereby increasing your productivity.

9: Happy people worry less about making mistakes - and consequently make fewer mistakes
When you’re happy at work the occasional mistake doesn’t bother you much. You pick yourself up, learn from it and move on. You also don’t mind admitting to others that you screwed up - you simply take responsibility, apologize and fix it. This relaxed attitude means that less mistakes are made, and that you’re more likely to learn from them.

10: Happy people make better decisions
Unhappy people operate in permanent crisis mode. Their focus narrows, they lose sight of the big picture, their survival instincts kick in and they’re more likely to make short-term, here-and-now choices. Conversely, happy people make better, more informed decisions and are better able to prioritize their work.

The upshot

Think back to a situation where you felt that you were at peak performance. A situation where your output was among the highest and best it’s ever been. I’m willing to bet that you were working at something that made you happy. Something that you loved doing.

There’s a clear link between happiness at work and productivity. This only leaves the question of causation: Does being productive make us happy or does being happy make us productive? The answer is, of course, yes! The link goes both ways.

But the link is strongest from happiness to productivity - which means that it if you want to be more productive, the very best thing you can do is focus on being happy with what you do?

So how do you get to be happy at work? There are two ways, really:

1. Get happy in the job you have. There are about a million things you can do to improve your work situation - provided you choose to do something, rather than wait for someone else to come along and do it for you.
2. Find a new job where you can be happy. If your current job is not fixable, don’t wait - move on now!

Related:

• How to find a job you’ll love
• How to lose your fear of being fired
• The feel factor - why no workplace can afford to ignore how people feel
• Kathy Sierra’s brilliant post on why it’s great to be happy

When your office was furnished, did the shopping list go something like this:

• One desk. Gray.
• One ergonomic office chair. Black.
• One waste paper basket. Gray plastic.
• One filing cabinet. Gray.

You know - the usual stuff. Typical. Traditional. Booooooring!

I’m not going to claim that a fancy desk or a weird chair is going to magically improve your creativity and productivity - but I am damn sure, that all that sameness and eternal corporate grayness, does nothing good for your ability to come up with great new ideas.

Here are some ways to spruce up a workplace that may actually inject some color and fun into your work environment.

Got Milk?

The Milk desk is a new design to match your Apple gear with it’s white surface and rounded edges.

It lowers and raises electrically, it has ways to hide the cable clutter, and it also has four compartments at one end that can be configured for storage, trash or, yes, as an aquarium.

Partition magic

Softwall is a great way to flexibly partition a room. It’s made of paper with a felt core, and I love it because it doesn’t eat all the light in the room (if you go for the white one).

It can be twisted into just about any shape or rolled up when you don’t need it and it dampens sound more than most room partitioners. Plus it looks amazing!

The wing desk

Or how about a desk made from the wing of a DC3 plane?

The saddle chair

The starting point for the Haag Capisco is just your average, garden-variety office chair - but they’ve moved on from there. The saddle seat gives you a more erect posture and doesn’t cut of the blood flow to your legs.

The seat and back are constructed so you can sit sideways or reversed on it and still support your arms. And the whole thing tilts back into a very comfortable reclined position.

I’ve had one of these myself - they rock.

Bean bags

Bean bags look great and can be used in a million different positions. Four bags and a coffee table and you have a great meeting room!

I’m partial to the the Sumo Omni (pictured above) myself. Disclosure: They once sent me a free one to review here on the blog.

Bibliochaise

Where do you keep all your reference manuals and handbooks? Close to where you can sit and read them, of course! Meet the Bibliochaise.

Stokke Garden

It’s a tree. It’s a sculpture. It’s… I don’t know what it is, but I like it.

Since I first saw these, I’ve wanted one and only the huge price tag has kept from picking one up. It looks strange, but is actually supremely comfortable and allows you to sit/lie in many positions. I know, I’ve spent quite some time in a showroom testing one thoroughly :o)

The meeting bed.

When your business is innovation, your office can’t really look like any other corporate wasteland. London-based innovation agency ?WhatIf! know that - as evidenced by e.g. the life-sized plastic cow statue painted like Spiderman in the lobby and the big red couch/bed they use for meetings:

Conference bike

This has got to be the coolest idea in a long time. 7 people pedal along, one of them steers. It’s the conference bike and I want one!! I also mentioned this in my post on seeeeeriously cool workplaces.

Art tables

I was sitting in my usual café writing this blogpost when I spotted a lady at the next table looking through some pictures of weird and beautiful desks.

Of course I had to ask her what the story was. Turns out she’s an artist and these are one-off tables she created, first for exhibitions and then later on as usable art pieces. She has no website but if you want to know more, you can contact here at marierw -at- gmail -dot- com.

A balance act

This is more a metaphor than a piece of furniture - but it’s pretty cool all the same.

The idea is that three people can have a meeting where they must work together to hold their balance during the meeting. Like we must each contribute to a conversation, to make it balanced. Impractical - but cool! More here.

Wood wall

Or how about an entire wall covered in cordwood? Not only is it amazingly beautiful, it’s also great for the acoustics and it gives the wall a great texture.

I saw my friends at Connecta and their roommates build this from a huge stack of cord woodon the floor to the finished wall. Superb!!

The upshot

So is it the furniture that determines whether a company is creative and fun or staid and boring? Of course not! But the type and variety of furniture does reflect the mood at the company. If you have row upon row of identical, gray desks and chairs then odds are this is not the place wild ideas are born.

And why exactly is it that everyone must have the same desk and chair? Why not let people choose for themselves, and give them a chance to create an environment that suits them. The resulting variety may be confusing to those who think that business is about structure, order and control… but it’s sure to be more stimulating and fun for those of us who think that work is about being happy.

There are more pictures of cool furniture in this flickr set.

Also check out my post on 10 seeeeeriously cool workplaces:

Or check out some other past favorites from the blog:

• Top 10 reasons why happiness at work is the ultimate productivity booster
• Top 10 mistakes managers of geeks make
• How to deal with a bad boss