Negativity Breeding Negativity

One thing I’ve noticed at work is that negativity breeds negativity. If you’re having a bad day, the people around you suddenly have bad days also. On the flip side: if you’re having a great day, the people around you are more likely to be upbeat and happy. Now, I know that this is hard to do, but you need to leave whatever baggage you have at the door when you go to work (all of this applies to school and classes also!). No matter what is happening in your life that day, as soon as you cross the threshold of your job you leave it all behind you. If you don’t leave it at the door you will have a less than ideal day. It will be straight-up crap. The less you are concerned with during a meeting, the more of that meeting you retain.

You can get your entire days work done in half the time if you just stop making personal calls, chit chatting, facebook, twitter, writing blog posts (whoops!*) the list goes on and on. But that’s secondary to the point I’m trying to make here and will be covered in a different post.

You need to stay positive. Last week one of my supervisors was having a not-so-great day. He would grumble responses to your questions; hold his head down as he walked, exasperated gasps every 2 minutes, it was just an overall negative image. The people who sit around me were all joking around earlier that day. I was in a chipper mood and it woke up the office. Everyone was having a great time and getting along until his day when to shit. As it did so did everyone else’s.

In a matter of minutes one person’s negativity caught like wildfire and destroyed the mood of the entire office. I know he didn’t mean for this to happen, but that’s the result of a pissed of supervisor; everyone under him follows suit. It’s a psychological thing. The way I see it is that when your boss is angry you are more afraid to enjoy yourself because you think that they will snap at you, or you start to think about what you did to make them angry at you. It most likely had nothing to do with you, but I know that is what I think every time someone in the office is mad.

It’s easy to have a happy office. It really is. If everyone just forgets their troubles while at work there won’t be any negativity to spread. It just has to start with one person. If you can be extra happy while at work the people around you will feed off of that happiness and hopefully spread it to others until the whole office is happy and no one is having a bad day. OK, I admit, it’s not that easy in practice, but as long as you try and live each day with a smile on your face you will see that more happiness will come your way. Whether it’s at work, school or home, if you keep a smile on your face and try not to let things get you down you will find that your life just got a hella-better.

Long days and pleasant nights,

Shoeless Joe

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*I write posts during my breaks at work.