There are few things in life that are more sad than watching someone who is unhappy with his or her job. I know you’ve known these people: sometimes they are overtly unhappy, and sometimes they hold in the emotions except for occasional outbursts, sarcastic comments and rudeness to others. Occasionally you will run across someone who is almost violently upset with their boss, their job or their circumstances (of course, these people are usually unhappy with everything in their lives).
Think about it for a minute. There are 24 hours in a day, and seven days a week, totaling 168 hours. Now if that person works a 40 hour week and he’s unhappy for that 40 hours, he’s spending almost 25% of his life on something he dislikes or hates or disagrees with. That’s a phenomenal amount of time to spend on something you hate.
So why not turn your job into something that you like instead of being miserable?
Create your job – Instead of just “doing what you are told” (letting your job control you), how about taking control of your job? You do have the power, whether you believe it or not, to turn your job into whatever you desire.
Manage up, down and around you – Most people think management only goes down, from supervisor to employee. This is not true and by managing up the ladder you can gain more control over your destiny and your job. How do you do this? One simple way is to put solutions on your bosses desk instead of problems. By putting a solution there, you’ve almost guaranteed that your solution will be used instead of your boss coming up with one of his own (which you probably won’t like as much).
Take walks – Believe it or not, a simple short walk around the block at lunch can do wonders for one’s attitude. If you can, take a few ten minute breaks during the day and just walk, look at the trees and birds (or whatever) and you will feel better. Staring at a computer screen or whatever all day long tends to make you introverted and miserable. Getting out and looking around can brighten you up a lot.
Understand the organizational structure – I know it seems boring and irrelevant, but if you understand where you are positioned in the organization than you will know who has power and who doesn’t (and who can help you and who cannot). You will also gain some idea of which directions you can move to get promotions and such.
Don’t bring your work home – This is a tough one, but do everything in your power to keep yourself from bringing your work home with you. It’s very important to keep a separation between your home life and your work life. If you don’t do this, you may awake one day to find your wife has left, your kids have grown and moved, and you will be miserable.
Make the right friends – Look around the organization for positive people, those who have a good viewpoint, are friendly and helpful and who wear a smile. Make friends with these people. It will do wonders for your viewpoint.
Stop doing anything “stupid” – If you are doing anything really dumb (like stealing or drinking at lunch), then stop doing it. Immediately. Just stop doing it.
Dump the hostile people whom you call “friends” – You know the gossip at the water cooler? That’s not the right friend for you. In fact, the gossip is possibly one of the people making you miserable. Instead of wasting your time with the back stabbers, gossips and work-haters, why not make friends with people who can actually help your career?
Fix your diet – Believe it or not, you are what you eat. So why not eat some good food once in a while. Instead of that sugary donut, why not have a salad and sandwich. Good food not only is good for you, it often tastes just as good as those cookies.
Be ethical – This is one of the most important things of all that you can do. Remain ethical in spite of all of the temptations. Generally, the people who are most miserable on the job are the one who have caused the most harm to their jobs.
Be productive – Do you want to be very happy with the job? Then be productive. Do your job and do it well. Generally people who actually do the work (as opposed to spinning their wheels or chatting or whatever) are happier because they are contributing members of their groups.
Smile – I know it sounds trite, but sometimes all you have to do to be happy is to, well, be happy. Just smile. Turn that frown upside down (as some song says). If you just be happy, then the world will start to seem like a less hostile place.
Author: Sushma Mathias- USA
