The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Happy Hour is 9 to 5

  • More reviews of my book. Apparently it’s really good :o)

    Alexander Kjerulf jumpingGreat reviews of my book Happy Hour is 9 to 5 are still coming in from all over the world. I still haven’t seen a bad review – or even a less-than-glowing one!

    Here are some examples:

    Frederik Petersen says:

    I can only recommend this book to everybody who wants an input to the positive and happy side of work-life – meaning there must be a great potential for this book -;)

    Phinias says:

    I sat down yesterday night after a rough week….I just finished it 30 minutes ago. I am planning a meeting with my boss to get her to start doing these exercises as soon as we can.

    Challa S.S.J.Ram Phani from Hyderabad, India says:

    It is really inspiring, interesting and highly readable and incredibly helpful to make my workplace happy to facilitate my fellow employees become more productive and happy not just 9 to 5, but before 9 and after 5 pm

    It is a great support to my mission of making my workplace better wherever I work.

    Fellow Dane Allan says:

    Once in a while on my daily hikes around the Internet, I strike gold.

    I did so today.

    Over at lulu.com where the book is for sale, cr_duckworth writes:

    I browsed through the book and ordered a copy for my boss after telling her how good it is!

    She LOVED it! She’s tried to keep as professional and fun of an atmosphere at work as possible, and now it’s even better!

    If you are management, BUY THIS BOOK
    If you are an employee, BUY THIS BOOK

    You cannot go wrong!

    Woo-hooooooo!!!

    UPDATE:
    Clint James has this to say:

    No, this isn’t a panacea for workplace woes, nor a magic happy pill, but a comprehensive guide on how to make a very important part of your life better. It affected me deeply.

    More reviews here. You can also add your own review!

    Buy the book or read it free online here.

  • Reception for my book this Thursday

    Happy Hour is 9 to 5If you’re fortunate enough to be in Copenhagen this week, please join me in celebrating my book!

    I’m having a reception at Café Enter on Thursday February 15th from 4PM-6PM, and you’re invited. Drop in any time and say hi. This is also a great change to buy an autographed copy of my book :o)

    The program is:
    4PM: The reception opens. Come and hang out with other fans of happiness at work.
    5PM: I’ll give a 15 minute presentation on what it’s like to write a book about happiness at work and how it’s been received the world over.
    6PM: The reception ends

    The café’s address is Guldbergsgade 29, right across from the Empire cinema (click here for a map).

    I hope to see you there!

  • Some more quotes from my book

    Happy Hour is 9 to 5Here are some more quotable quotes from my new book Happy Hour is 9 to 5.

    The uncontested, number-one reason why people are unhappy at work is bad management. Nothing has more power to turn a good work situation bad than a bad boss.
    —
    Some managers steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that they’re bad leaders, or even revel in the fact that they make people unhappy at work. These managers are usually beyond helping and may never learn and improve. Get away from them as fast as you can.
    —
    Let’s once and for all drop the cult of overwork and realize that it’s not the hours that count—it’s the results. More hours DO NOT equate to better results.
    —
    If you feel constantly behind and neglected, are being treated unfairly, ignored or bullied, or are going through large changes and fearing for the future, you can become stressed from working 40 hours a week. Or even 20. If this is the case, working less will not help at all. What’s more, you can’t fight stress—fighting stress just creates more stress.
    —
    Just 50 years ago people had many sources of identity. Religion, class, nationality, political affiliation, family roots, and geographical and cultural origins all went into defining who we are. Today most of these, if not all, have been subsumed by work. When you meet someone at a party, what’s the first question you typically ask them? Exactly: “So, what do you do????
    —
    What is the point of spending most of your life at a job that doesn’t make you happy? What would you feel like, lying on your deathbed, having achieved all the traditional signs of success—a huge house, flatscreen TVs in every room, lots of cars, a huge salary, a lofty title and a corner office—if your career never made you happy?
    —
    We don’t have to sacrifice happiness for the sake of success—a depressingly common assumption these days. In fact, the opposite is true: The happier you are, the more successful you will be.
    —
    So, according to our cultural roots, work is a curse, a punishment for original sin, and only for slaves. In short, life is hell—or “nasty, brutish and short,??? as Hobbes put it—work is hell, and we must endure it because we’re all sinners. It’s time to put that particular view of work behind us!
    —

    You can read the whole book free on line or buy it on paper ($29) or as a pdf ($19).

    Previous quotes from my book.

  • Some quotes from my book

    Happy Hour is 9 to 5I thought I’d pull out and publish some quotes from my brand new book about happiness at work:

    “Seriously: Do you want to spend your working life simply being satisfied? When you look back on 50 years spent in business, do you want to be able to say, “Well, I was satisfied???? No! Make happiness your goal. As in, “Let’s make this a workplace where people are happy to work.??? As in, “I’ve been working for 50 years now, and it absolutely rocks! To me work is challenging, stimulating and just plain fun.??? ”
    —
    “Imagine for a moment how it would feel to lie in bed on a Monday morning going “YES! I get to go to work this week!???”
    —
    “Studies consistently show that happy companies are way more productive, creative and service-oriented than unhappy ones. Therefore, the happy companies will beat the pants off the unhappy ones in the market place. The future of business is happy! It’s inevitable.”
    —
    “See, happiness at work is an emotion. It comes from inside of you, and like all other emotions it is difficult to define, but inescapable once it’s present. Or not present. Can you define love? Poets have tried for thousands of years and aren’t getting much closer. But when you’re feeling love, you’re acutely aware of it, even though you have no formal definition.”
    —
    “You can’t be happy at work every day. No matter how much you love your job, there are still going to be bad days. And that’s cool—it’s always OK to have a bad day at work.”
    —
    “Happiness at work is not about eliminating all the bad stuff from your job. It’s about being happy at work even though some of these bad things are present. It’s about building your skills and your energy to fix the problems, and to create more and more positive experiences at work.”
    —
    “The path to happiness at work starts with a simple decision: You must want to be happy. If you don’t commit to being happy at work, you won’t be. You won’t make the choices that make you happy. You won’t take the actions needed to get there. You won’t change the things that need to change.”
    —
    All of these are plucked from just the introduction and the first chapter. Hey – that book is pretty quotable :o) You can buy it or read the whole book free online.

  • How do you make your co-workers happy?

    Happy Hour is 9 to 5Next Tuesday I’ll be interviewed on startupspark.com and as a warm-up they’re running a little contest. The winner gets a copy of Happy Hour is 9 to 5, my brand new book about happiness at work.

    All you have to do, is go to their post about the contest, and write a comment explaining what you do to make your co-workers a little happier at work. Remember: Winner gets a book!

    I look forward to reading your answer :o)

  • First review of my book on lulu.com

    Happy Hour is 9 to 5My book has gotten it’s first review on lulu.com where it’s for sale. Can I brag for a second. Can I? Pleeeease?

    The review says:

    I browsed through the book and ordered a copy for my boss after telling her how good it is!

    She LOVED it! She’s tried to keep as professional and fun of an atmosphere at work as possible, and now it’s even better!

    If you are management, BUY THIS BOOK
    If you are an employee, BUY THIS BOOK

    You cannot go wrong!

    If that ain’t praise, I don’t know what is :o) Woo-hooooooo!!

    If you’ve read the book, you can do me a great favor by giving me your completely honest opinion. I really want to know what you think of it. You can rate or review it on lulu.com or here on the blog.

  • The great Christmas blogger book give-away

    Alexander KjerulfI will celebrate Christmas and the new year here on the blog by celebrating the blogging community.

    I’ve been blogging for almost four years and blogging has given me energy, inspiration, new friends, feedback and help.

    The spirit of blogging is, in my opinion, generosity. Therefore, it would give me great pleasure to give away 100 pdf-copies of my new book on happiness at work to the first 100 bloggers who ask for one.

    Happy Hour is 9 to 5Here are the rules:

    1. If you’re a blogger and would like a copy of the book in pdf, sign up by leaving a comment on this post. Make sure to enter both your email and the URL of your blog in the appropriate fields. I will (of course) not save or abuse your email in any way.

    There are no further rules!

    I wish you a spectacular Christmas!

    UPDATE: I’m flabbergasted!! In less than 24 hours 100 bloggers signed up to get a copy. Thanks to each and every one. I’ll mail the book out later today.

    UPDATE UPDATE: I mailed out the books at 6PM GMT Friday. If you signed up and the book doesn’t show up in your inbox soon there may be a problem with the email address in your comment. Send me a mail and I’ll re-send it to you.

  • The Economist cramps my style

    Here’s the author photo I had taken for my book about happiness at work:

    Alexander Kjerulf

    It was taken by Rune Heickendorf who takes some amazingly great pictures.

    And now my friend Lars alerts me to the cover of the new issue of The Economist:

    The Economist on happiness

    How much do you think I should sue them for?

    Seriously: It’s great to see how happiness is becoming a central theme in economics. There’s a growing realization that once your basic needs are covered, more money does not make you any happier. Therefore it makes sense for societies, politicians and economists to focus more on maximizing a nation’s happiness instead of its GDP. For a great book on that, read Richard Layard’s excellent book Happines – lessons from a new science.

  • I don’t mean to brag but…

    Happy Hour is 9 to 5David Maister, one of the world’s leading authorities on the management of professional service firms, read my book and says that:

    It’s very, very good. I learned a lot. It’s incredibly well written, full of insights, and there are exercises to improve your own happiness at work. You can’t ask for more than that!

    I’ve been smiling all morning at the thought of the words “Very, very good” and “Incredibly well written”. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

    Read the book free on line or buy it on paper or pdf.

  • Workbook

    WorkbookI have just uploaded a workbook containing the exercises for my brand new book Happy Hour is 9 to 5 – How to Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick Butt at Work.

    Download it here:

    These exercises will work fine even for people who haven’t read the book and you’re more than welcome to:

    • Email the workbook to as many people as you want.
    • Use it at work with your team, department or work group.
    • Modify the questions to fit your specific work situation.
    • Or whatever else you can think of. Knock yourself out.

    mp3’s for some of the exercises are coming very soon!

    Read the book free online here and buy it on paper or as a pdf here.