The Office Jungle

1 Starting With You

Before you begin studying career-related problems and hurdles, it’s vital you have a good understanding of yourself. You are the product we’re marketing. Without a solid idea of your own core values, objectives and ambitions it’s impossible to compile an effective action plan.

As the volume of your work increases, so the amount of time available for self-study diminishes. As soon as you wake up on a working day the pressures and deadlines you face are mainly business-driven. Your personal and professional self-perception may be affected by the same external influences.

If you are good at your job you will see yourself as a successful person. If your work receives criticism your confidence may droop. Your business targets might possibly be set by someone other than yourself. Sometimes your expectations of ambition, pleasure and even happiness will all be externally influenced.

From the day you were born you listened to other people telling you what you are like and what you can or can’t do. Small babies will react to the tone of a parent’s voice even when they don’t understand the words. Other animals will be the same. Tell your cat it’s stupid – but in a warm friendly voice – and it will purr happily. Shout the same thing and it will run off, scared.

Once you began to understand the words themselves you heard a constant stream of approval or disapproval of your actions from both your parents and family. Then your teachers muscled in on the act – and finally your boss and work colleagues.

It is now essential to your success in the workplace that you allow time to take stock of yourself now and again – reassess yourself and recharge the inner batteries. You need to find out your own likes and dislikes, your own standards of ambition and your own requirements for happiness and contentment. This assessment is vital in order to build your self-esteem.

Without self-esteem it is difficult to like and get on with yourself – let alone other people.

How the Hell Did I Get Here?

A good question – and one you probably ask yourself on a regular basis as you swing dolefully backward and forward on your flexi-recliner chair, gaping bug-eyed at the trance-inducing configurations on your screen-saver.

How did you get involved in your current business? Was it ever a childhood ambition? Surely only the most snivelling little baggy-socked nerd would have listed things like ‘Line Manager’, ‘PA’, or ‘Account Manager’ as his or her primary choice during career sessions? Didn’t you once want a proper job, as a train driver or traffic warden?

The point you missed as you stepped trembling on to the first rung of your career ladder was this: virtually whatever your choice of scintillating and dazzling job, the odds were a pound to a penny that at some stage you’d end up with your knees pressed beneath a paper-strewn work-station with your aching fingers clicking away a happy tattoo on a poor little mouse.

The Work Windfall

Did you choose your job then, or did you just fall into it by mistake? Do you see it as a stepping-stone to greater things, or a barrier to your career progression?

EXERCISE:

Let’s start by being honest – why exactly are you in your present job? Underline the statement or statements that get nearest to the truth, or fill in your own statement if none of the options is suitable (remember, this is not a quiz but a personal evaluation exercise):

1 I am here because I feel totally fulfilled.

2 I have worked my way up through my profession and this is the last step before retirement.

3 This is my own company and I enjoy the challenge.

4 I enjoy my present position, but have my eye on promotion within the company.

5 I am using this job as a stepping-stone to something better in another company.

6 I plan to hold down this job until I can branch out into a totally different career.

7 I am here because I have no choice – I need the money and see little alternative.

8 I took a job with this company as a stopgap but somehow seem to have been here for years.

9 This is the job I always wanted to do.

10 I had other plans but dreams rarely become reality.

11 I had no choice in my career and feel bored and resentful.

12 This was the job I wanted but certain factors make it less enjoyable than I had anticipated.

13 I hate my job but I am stuck with it.

14 I have no idea whatsoever.

The demands made on you at work may be immense – bosses expect loyalty, commitment and dedication, while the work you produce is supposed to be well-nigh flawless. Reassessing your options and ambition is like having a spring-clean. Knowing you’re unhappy in your job is not a step forward – but understanding the need to compromise is. So is planning objectives.

The human brain needs challenges and objectives for stimulation and happiness, but it’s hard to keep sight of those longer-term goals if you’re peering at them over a mountain of paperwork, e-mails and constantly-ringing telephones.

ACTION PLAN:

1 Make time for yourself, and for self-assessment, rather than always listening to and relying upon other people’s opinions of your talents and abilities.

2 Find out how you got into your present job and target any areas of unfulfilment.

3 Develop your own positive inner voice and listen to it.

2 Do You Hate Your Job?

Let’s assume you hate your job and you have no choice but to stick with it. No – let’s go back a step. If you hate your job you should change it. You can’t? Then you are in the same situation as a lot of people, stuck in a job they loathe so that they can pay the bills.

Trapped

Of course you should still look around the jobs circuit, because knowing for sure that there is no escape from the routine you’re in could just send you over the edge. Job ads are fascinating because they allow us to fantasize. Keep trying, though. Someone has to get each job. If you give up applying you know you’ll do no better.

Back to the job you’re in. Why do you hate it? Possibly one, some or all of the following reasons:

1 It’s boring.

2 You hate your boss.

3 You’re overworked.

4 You’re taken for granted.

5 The job’s too easy.

6 The job’s too difficult.

7 The job’s too repetitive.

8 You hate your colleagues.

9 The journey’s too demanding.

10 You feel unfulfilled.

11 Your pay is too low.

12 You hate work.

Boredom

Being bored can induce stress, inertia and irritability. You may feel your life passing before your very eyes. Boredom can make you want to scream with frustration. It can occur through being both over- or under-employed, although many people fail to recognize the symptoms when they’re busy.

Long-term boredom has a flattening effect on the brain. When stimulation reaches a zenith we become docile and dull. We forget we used to be interesting people. Some of us even get interested in the terribly boring things we have to do at work.

This failure to differentiate the dull from the fascinating is a disease that leads to suffering at home, too. This is where you are most likely to inflict your Tales of the Expected on your nearest and dearest, rattling on for hours about someone from Audit who took the wrong mug from the kitchen to water his desk plant and the ramifications thereof, without ever once realizing that your partner and kids lost the will to live two minutes after you opened your mouth.

If you are bored in your job look around – is there anything a wee bit more stimulating in the offing? Avoiding the options of alcohol or an office affair, is there any work to be done that you feel you might find a challenge?

Or is there anything you could organize among your colleagues that might make the day go with a bit of a buzz? (Again – preferably not sex or boozing.)

If your feeling of frustration, boredom or being unfulfilled is long-term, try compiling an action plan to get yourself out of a rut.

ACTION PLAN:

1 Look around for another job.

2 Look around at your own job. Is there any promotion you might apply for? Are there any other duties you could volunteer to take on that may relieve the boredom a little?

3 Can you work flexi-hours? Could a change of timetable make any difference?

4 Is there anything you could organize with your colleagues? Team sports against groups from other companies? Charity events? A company magazine? If the job is dull some external stimulation like this may make things a tad more interesting.

5 Sandpit. Allow and plan for several times in the day when you do something you would like to do.

• Do you work alone? Could you play music as you work?

• Take time out for a good cup of coffee or treat yourself to some exotic flavoured tea.

• Eat a snack that you’d otherwise think of as a treat.

• Take a break to go window shopping at lunchtime.

• Swim in your lunch hour.

• Paint.

• Sketch.

• Play with stress balls.

6 Develop an exciting prospect outside your job. Do something that could make you rich or famous one day. Join your local dramatic society. Take guitar lessons. Write a novel or a cookery book. Sketch out a TV sitcom, based around the tedious characters you have to work with. Turn your colleagues into comic stereotypes in your mind. This will help you enjoy their little idiosyncrasies, rather than loathing them. Buy a metal detector. Learn about antiques and visit car boot sales – involve yourself in anything that leaves the door to a better life ajar.

3 Are You Being Stereotyped?

Stereotyping is rife in large companies, where it may be easier to assume a full, though fleeting, knowledge of each employee than to take time to be aware of each person as multi-faceted and capricious.

So square pegs get hammered into round holes, and employees who are good at their jobs suffer because others never perceive them in any other role.

Warning Signs

You may feel that you have been stereotyped by your boss or colleagues. Warning signs may be subtle, but the following indicators should be noted:

1 You are never stretched in terms of capabilities.

2 When you ask your boss for something more challenging to tackle he or she smiles as though you are joking.

3 You turn up for work early or on time but people are so used to your tardiness that they fail to notice you’re there.

4 You moan so frequently that colleagues assume you’re being sarcastic when you say something positive.

5 There are noticeable gaps in business discussions when colleagues turn their eyes to you, expecting you to come up with the same old lines or viewpoints.

6 Your tastes or views are assumed in your absence, i.e.: ‘We assumed you would vote this way …’, ‘We took it for granted you would of course disagree with this point …’ or ‘I knew this was just the sort of thing you would like …’

Embracing Change

Introduce yourself to the concept of change. Look at it as something positive, rather than negative. If any changes are mooted in the office never, ever, be the one that tuts and goes: ‘Oh yeah?’ Find some potentially positive viewpoint and state it.

Mastering Self-Respect

Are you stuck in a rut? Are people right when they stereotype you? How much of this problem is of your own making?

When we are passive people take us for granted, they can’t help themselves. Doormats get walked on because people assume that’s what they’re there for. If you feel you are being stereotyped and taken for granted, it’s up to you to break out of that cycle. Think about how much scope you give yourself. Do you allow yourself to change and adopt new ideas? Or are you a creature of habit? Do you stereotype yourself, sending yourself negative signals whenever you consider trying something new?

If someone shows you a new outfit do you hear yourself think ‘That’s not me’ before you’ve had time to consider it? If you turn the dial on the radio do you immediately judge certain music after only a few bars or notes and keep turning until you’ve reached something more to your normal taste? Do you dismiss things out of hand without trying them first?

Stepping Out of the Rut

To stop being stereotyped you’re going to have to change, both visually and in your behaviour patterns. To instil those changes, though, you must discover your current patterns. This is difficult because it means taking an objective peep at yourself. For instance, you need to discover the following:

• How often you moan.

• How much you gossip.

• How often you exceed deadlines.

• When you agree to do things you don’t want to do.

• If you make any ‘serial’ mistakes in your job.

• Whether you have a loud or stupid laugh or giggle.

• How much your colleagues feel they can depend on you, either to do a job well or to screw the job up.

• Whether you appear to listen when people talk to you.

• How much of their conversation you take in when you do listen.

• How much you can work on your own initiative.

• Whether you are known as any of the following:

The Office Gossip.

The ‘Mumsy’ type that everyone can take their

problems to.

The Flirt.

The Joker.

As Daft as a Brush.

Too Young to be given Responsibility.

The One that’s always down the Pub.

The Bore.

The Aggressive Domineering Type.

The Pushover.

The Nervy One.

The Groper.

The Moody One.

The Disorganized One, etc.

Offices provide just the right environment for being stereotyped. Be seen crying and you’re forever known as ‘The One that Blubs’. Lose your temper and you get the ‘Time-of-the-Month’ label. Make a mistake and you’re ‘Not to be Trusted’.

Stepping out of the stereotype is quite easy once you understand your problem. As long as you don’t swing too far in the opposite direction, that is – in which case you will no longer be known as ‘The Boring One’, but ‘The Boring One in the Red Jacket and Electric-Pink Tie’. Or ‘The Quiet One who Never Stops Talking’.

If, for instance, your complaint is that no one at work takes you seriously, then take a good, long look in the mirror. Do your clothes and hairstyle look fun and lightweight? Do you screech when you’re talking and flap your hands when you’re stressed? Do you talk yourself down, or apologize when you make a point?

How about the ‘Mumsy’ label? Do you keep a drawer at work that looks more like a medicine cabinet? When you ask colleagues how they are, do you sound as if you mean it? Do you nod too much to encourage the airing of problems? Are your platitudes growing whiskers? Do you wear floral dresses, cords, tweed or hand-knits?

There are several useful steps you can take to avoid being taken for granted:

ACTION PLAN: