The Office Jungle

The Survivor’s Guide to the Nylon Shagpile of Corporate Life

JUDI JAMES

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

PART I – STRENGTHS, LIMITATIONS AND AMBITION

1 Starting With You

2 Do You Hate Your Job?

3 Are You Being Stereotyped?

4 Targets and Objectives

5 Over the Barricades

6 The Skills of Fuzzy Logic

7 My Company Does … What, Exactly?

8 Handling Stress

9 Office Rage

PART II – HOW TO …

10 How to Communicate and Be Heard

11 How to Deal With Difficult People

12 How to Manage Your Time 107

13 How to Manage Perfect Toilet/Lift Etiquette

14 How to Handle Sex in the Office

15 How to Handle Office Politics

16 How to Deal With Bullying and Power-Posturing

17 How to Market Yourself in the Office

18 How to Look As Though You’re Working Hard When You’re Not

19 How to Lie Effectively

20 How to Meet and Greet Company Clients and Visitors

21 How to Juggle a Career and a Home Life

22 How to Survive the Corporate Lunch

23 How to Survive the Corporate Training Course

24 How to Survive the Office Party

PART III – WHAT TO DO IF …

25 What to Do If You Want to Kill Your Boss

26 What to Do If Your Boss Hates You

27 What to Do If You Want a Promotion

28 What to Do If You Want a Rise

29 What to Do If You Are Going to an Interview

30 So Where Do I Go From Here?

Index

About the Author

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

Survival in the workplace requires an altogether disparate array of talents from those required to be merely competent at your job. To subsist, and even flourish, in the business environment you must be Confident, possess Interpersonal, Communication and Presentation skills and be proficient in Self-marketing and Assertion, as well as having a hefty dollop of Grade ‘A’ Animal Cunning in your genetic make-up.

It’s these Seven Great Secret Skills – the lifeblood of resourceful corporate existence – that this book aims to teach you.

Trapped in the Shagpile

Of course you are an idealist at heart. You want the best for yourself and you want the most out of your career. Eyes afire with ambitions and objectives, you have your sights set firmly on the window of opportunities – while your feet lie trapped in the grubby, nylon shagpile of political intrigue and emotional in-fighting that still carpets most modern workplaces.

Marketing Strategies

Your talent and career potential are not worth the paper they’re written on if no one at work is aware of them. To sell your capabilities you must first sell yourself, no matter what your qualifications and existing job-level. To market yourself effectively, however, you may decide a little Product-Tinkering is warranted first.

Being Realistic

You’re going to study your aims and objectives. You’re going to be positive about achievements and action plans, but you’re not going down the happy-clappy path to self-enlightenment. You’re not going to finish this book feeling that you’ve tapped in to unlimited inner super-powers that you were previously unaware of.

What you are going to be, then, is realistic: realistic about your objectives and realistic about the amount of time and work you intend to put in to achieve them. You know you could be Master of the Universe if you could only acquire the necessary level of focus. But maybe you want a life as well as a job. This book is not about creating resolutions that deep down you know you’ll never have the energy or application to accomplish.

Role Ambiguity

As an increasing number of companies pare down their staff to the point of corporate anorexia and beyond, in an attempt to stay solvent, so the defining lines of role and task fade into fuzzy ambiguity.

There is a similar cosy comfort to be found in role-clarity as there is in easing on the same old pair of slippers each night. You know what to expect of them and they – pretty much – know what to expect of you.

Some firms trade on a hierarchical pecking-order, using terms like ‘Fee-earners’, ‘Non-fee-earners’ or ‘Support Staff’ to keep everyone tucked in their place. Current trends, though, are moving towards redefinition – which aims at role flexibility and open-mindedness.

This ambiguity can lead to an increased workload – but, remember, it also means a sudden renegotiation of exactly what’s up for grabs, and for whom. It often signifies a shattering of traditional barriers, leaving the door open for you to reach your full potential in your career.

Curry Sauce

Then there are the people you have to work with. Office work without people is like chicken without the tikka sauce. Your colleagues add spice and flavour to the day’s tasks – but, unfortunately, they can also give you indigestion.

Playground Politics

It’s a fact of corporate life that most of us are still the same squabbling, jealous, terrified, demanding, territorial little brats we were at school. It’s just that some of us have learnt to mask or curb our rawer emotions in an attempt to appear user-friendly and businesslike. That doesn’t mean to say we still don’t feel the same when something goes wrong, or even react the same when we feel we’re being cornered.

At work we become driven by a heady mix of hierarchical needs that include money, status, power and territory. If you doubt the territorial theory try asking a colleague to move their desk a mere inch to accommodate some equipment of your own – and then sit back to watch the fur fly.

Jekyll and Hyde

Everybody changes when they set foot inside their business premises – and not always for the better, either. But then this is part of the fun of your job.

Round up any random assortment of suits – throw in a few misfits, oddballs, psycho- and sociopaths – call them a team and given them a task to do that they don’t really understand, explained to them by people who don’t really know what they’re talking about, push them into an overcrowded environment to breathe recycled, regurgitated, thematically modulated air, stir in a little paranoia courtesy of rumoured redundancies and take-over bids and – bingo! You’re looking at all the wonderful, breathtaking drama, intrigue and crises that constitute modern corporate life.

PART I STRENGTHS, LIMITATIONS AND AMBITION

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:

1 Do something mildly eccentric or unusual:

Take up a new sport or hobby that is different.

Read something daring. If you read lightweight try heavyweight and vice versa.

Buy something new. Wear a new colour. Change your hairstyle, or the colour of your hair. See every new film the first week it comes out, and go to fringe theatre.

If you like classics buy Oasis and vice versa. Do anything different – but – when you mention these things or walk in wearing new clothes it’s important your colleagues think it was just a ‘so what?’ sort of thing you felt like doing, and not that it’s a life-changing exercise you’re doing in a desperate attempt to be interesting.

2 Ask questions:

For some reason people seem to like this. If not, at least it confuses them momentarily and makes them think. Ask colleagues, ‘Why do you do that?’ ‘Why do you do it like that?’ ‘What makes you think that?’ or ‘Why did you say that?’ These phrases are great because they sound controversial without being so. They make you sound like the deep thinker and philosopher who has options in mind, even if you won’t discuss them. Or they make the person talking over-explain themselves and sound like a prat.

3 Change a detail:

There’s no need to change your overall appearance, just work on a few of the finer details, such as colour, texture, cut or pattern. Parting your hair differently can be just as dramatic as a new cut. If you have long flowing hair wear it up for a while. If you have short back and sides try lengthening the sideburns. Shave off a beard or moustache. If you wear dull-looking suits try red socks or tights. Instead of the clichéd flashy tie try a pocket hankie or cufflinks or a buttonhole instead. If your desk is a barren wasteground tidy it up and buy some flowers.

Change is good for the soul, as well as beneficial to your impact at work. Your brain needs constant stimulation. For your own well-being never get caught in a rut. The worst type of stereotyping is the sort you do to yourself.

4 Targets and Objectives

Planning objectives isn’t an inflexible pastime. You don’t have to carve your goals in great tablets of stone – but you can write them down in pencil and make improvements and alterations as you go along.

One of the great truths of life is that if you don’t know where you’re going, you sure as hell won’t get there.

Blueprints

Make a list of three types of objectives:

• Short-Term Career

• Long-Term Career

• Life

Short-Term Career

This objective is self-explanatory. What direction do you see your job going in? What are your goals within your company? How do you want to be perceived and how ambitious are you?

Long-Term Career

This is harder to visualize. Do you see yourself running the company you work for one day? Or are you happy enough in the position you hold? Do you want to start your own business? Do your long-term plans include a complete change of path? Do you have something more scintillating in mind? Find out what you consider to be dreams and what you plan to turn into reality. Then set time-scales and action plans.

Life

This list should include ideas on marriage, family, housing and well-being. Do you intend staying in this country or moving abroad? Do you want to be rich – if so, how rich? Did you plan on running off to a commune one day and living off the land? Are there any hobbies you always wanted to take up? Do you aim to get fit? Give up smoking? Learn to speak Cantonese?

How to Be Happy

People see happiness as a basic right. Parents are fond of telling their kids: ‘All I want is for you to be happy.’ We tell ourselves: ‘I just want to be happy.’ Yet true happiness is a difficult thing to achieve, and words like ‘just’ and ‘all’ don’t make it any easier.

What makes you happy? The trouble is we don’t know. We think we have a good idea: ‘I would be happy if I could win money … change jobs … sell my house … get married … get divorced … get drunk …’ The list is endless. Yet a change in circumstance doesn’t always guarantee a change in mood. Take the Office Whinger, for instance. Can you think that anything anyone could do would make them happy on a long-term basis? If they won the pools they’d be complaining that one holiday seems very much like another after a while.

Most of us stumble through our working lives without ever understanding our own pecking order of requirements to be happy. Again, we have been too busy listening to other people tell us what we want. Money, status, being your own boss – these will all make some people happy but there’s many others they won’t suit.

The Buzz

You need to understand what gives you the biggest buzz during the working day. Often the results are surprising. We are all individuals when it comes to The Buzz.

Printed below is a list of some of the things that will give job satisfaction. Tick the ten that would give you the biggest buzz and then try and list them in order. Be honest with yourself and visualize each event happening to study your true feelings.

1 Clearing your desk of work.

2 Enjoying the company of colleagues.

3 The social life of work – drinks at the pub, outings, team sports, etc.

4 Making a product.

5 Selling a product.

6 Outdoing your colleagues.

7 Hearing the office gossip.

8 Getting paid.

9 Completing a task as a team.

10 Making a customer happy.

11 Being thanked by a customer in person.

12 Receiving a written note, a tip or a small gift from a customer.

13 Winning praise from your boss.

14 Hearing the company as a whole is doing well.

15 Winning public praise.

16 Winning a prize from the company for your work.

17 Seeing your name in the press or on TV.

18 Owning a company.

19 Gaining respect from others.

20 Gaining friendship from others.

21 Leaving the office at the end of the day.

22 Being promoted to a job with a higher-ranking title but for no extra pay.

23 Keeping your same title and duties but being given a pay rise.

24 Learning new skills.

25 Moaning about the boss.

ACTION PLAN:

1 Take time to learn about your own personal ‘buzz’ factor. What makes you happy in your career?

2 Then begin setting goals to achieve your objectives.Make lists and long-term plans.

5 Over the Barricades

‘You can achieve anything in this life if you only try hard enough.’ Would that this were true. Remember, you’re going to target more realistic solutions. You know you could be a multimillionaire if you really set your mind to it; but you also know you can be a lazy, undisciplined, little toe-rag deep down, too – however positive you manage to appear most of the time.

The Only Way is Up

Once you’ve worked out your objectives, the next step is to take a good look at any barricades that you feel are blocking your path to achieving them.

EXERCISE:

Settle down with a sturdy felt-tip and as much ire and angst as you can muster and fill a sheet of paper with all the things that you believe are barriers between yourself and true happiness, business success and achievement.

Anger and resentment are vital for this exercise, so let rip. If you’re such a decent type and feel the need of a little stimulation to get started, try a few of these options:

Unsupportive/pushy mother/father.

Bullied at school.

Bullied at work.

Unhelpful teachers.

Critical boss.

Unsupportive boss.

Unsupportive staff.

Kids/husband/wife/dog/gerbil in need of maintenance.

Sneering colleagues.

The glass-ceiling syndrome.

Sexism.

Racism.

Ageism.

The wrong government in power.

Constant change at work.

Fear of change.

Accent.

Appearance.

Lack of qualifications.

Too many qualifications.

Lack of confidence.

Managers who can’t manage.

Staff who can’t work.

Poor communications at work.

Fire-fighting.

In-fighting.

Nobody understands me, only the dog … etc., etc.

List what you feel to be your personal barriers. Think randomly and brainstorm as much as possible. Then divide your barriers under three headings:

• Surmountable

• Self-inflicted

• Insurmountable

Then fit your problems under the appropriate headings.

Insurmountable

These will be barriers that you have decided are totally out of your control. By their very nature you can do nothing about them. You therefore have only one course of action left to take: Let them drop.

However annoying or unbearable they are, choosing to beat your head against them every day of your working life is self-inflicted torture.

One thing you always retain power over is your response to their stimulus.

Maybe you work with an impossible colleague. You can’t change them, but you can change your response. Decide not to get angry, upset or frustrated. This is difficult, but it is your prerogative – and it may result in you feeling calmer, and therefore more positive, at work. This gives a more positive outlook on the outcome of such actions.

Self-Inflicted

These will usually be personal problems, like shyness or lack of confidence. Or they might encompass problems like a roaring social life, resulting in regular tiredness or hangovers.

These you do have control over. Make the decision to change.

Surmountable

There are many business barriers that lie within your control. Look at your list and decide which are of a high priority, the issues which you can choose to do something about. Remember to be realistic. Set achievable targets and deadlines. Monitor your own progress and list the steps you need to take.

Dealing With Difficult Barriers

Many of your perceived barriers will include human blockers, such as your boss, colleagues, other staff – and even clients. People are difficult to deal with, and even more difficult to change, because – quite simply – they all think they’re right and believe that their chosen behaviour – however bizarre or repulsive – is justified.

Sometimes spotting the culprits and recognizing their negative behaviour can be the first step to solving the problem.

Here are a few human career-blockers that may benefit from the ministrations of Dyno-Rod:

The Arsonist

Fire-fighters tackle all the urgent, but relatively short-term, chores in the office while losing sight of longer-term goals.

The Arsonist could keep Swan Vesta in business with his or her poor sense of prioritizing, and consequent loud demands for relatively unimportant jobs to be treated as crucial.

The Red-Tape Retentive

These people trust no one and so insist that every job, even the smallest, be stamped, counter-stamped, signed and filed, thereby wasting man-hours and tree forests in their never-ending quest to wrap simple chores with a welter of red tape.

The Cheerful Chatterer

Time them – see how many of your precious hours they waste per week bending your ear and stretching your patience with their cheery banter. We all like a laugh but these people are the Bernard Mannings of the open-plan office. Leave enough space on your desk for them to rest as much as half a buttock and they’ll be with you for so long you’ll lose the will to live.

The Whinger

These are the doom and gloom merchants employed by every responsible firm to spread depression and paranoia among its workforce. They never unfold their arms because their hands have been stapled under their armpits and they can tut quicker than Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Their yawns are reminiscent of a hippopotamus’s death throes.

Life is pure monochrome for these people – no job will enthuse them or pay-rise impress them. Point out that the sun is shining and they’ll tell you there’s rain forecast for the weekend. Celebrate a promotion and they’ll be the first to inform you that you weren’t first choice for the job. Their pessimism is so contagious they will drain you of enthusiasm faster than liposuction drains fat. Their only pleasure in life comes from making others as miserable and sour-faced as themselves.

The Office Nark

These people will grass you up to the boss and claim they were doing you a favour. They have mouths as wide as the Blackwall Tunnel and will repeat even the most innocuous remark out of context, making it sound inflammatory and mutinous.

The Quicksand

Working in a pack, the Quicksand are there to ensure you sink and then stay at their level. Seemingly friendly they can turn feral at the sight of anyone trying to better themselves.

Like schoolkids, their favourite weapons are sarcasm and silence. Work late or arrive early and they’ll send you to Coventry. Dress smarter than usual and they’ll ask if you’re going for an interview. Fail to slag off the boss and they’ll accuse you of having an affair. They are the peck of salt on your shrivelling slug of ambition.

The Beta-Blocker

The Beta-Blocker constitutes a tangible threat to your career because he or she will block it deliberately – and unfortunately they are often the boss.

With a chip on his or her shoulder so great it should be called a plank they will do everything in their power to prevent you getting on or doing well.

This is called paranoia and is caused by their own insecurity. Beta-Blockers only delegate menial tasks or ones they know are impossible to deal with. If they make a cock-up they will blame it on subordinates. Their communication skills are poor and they will hold back information – which makes working for them like doing a jigsaw with half the pieces missing.

SOLUTIONS

Meeting these characters head-butt-on is guaranteed to cause trouble. Hurdles and barriers are better jumped over than rammed and flattened. Leaping is graceful and takes less energy than stomping, which looks ugly. Always remember:

• These people think they are right and are either unaware of their negative behaviour, or believe it is justified.

• You could well be a Blocker yourself. Did any of those descriptions sound familiar or make you blush?

• Aggression breeds aggression. Handle these people clumsily and you win only a Pyrrhic victory. Don’t forget there is an odd quirk in the British psyche that makes us stand up for the underdog; and Blockers are often adept at feigning wounded innocence when they feel they’re under attack.

• Whenever possible, nip bad behaviour in the bud. The sooner you deal with such people the better. Otherwise their behaviour becomes habitual and they will be shocked and offended if you attempt to modify it, however much tact is employed.

• Be assertive. Get them out of your path – but, where possible, without upsetting or belittling them. Tell them what you want, but at the same time empathize with their problems and needs. Treat them with respect – but be firm and honest, too.

Dealing With Your Own Barriers

It’s no good dealing with all those difficult, external barriers to success and happiness without taking a close look at how you deal with things, too.

Do you have a positive attitude towards what you wish to accomplish? Or do you dig your heels in and complain at the slightest obstacle? How much worse can you sometimes make a situation and how much time is wasted in the process? If you’re really honest with yourself, you might realize how frequently you moan to colleagues about your workload, blame others for your own shortcomings and behave unreasonably with those around you.

Moaning is a tragic waste of useful energy and a sad misdirection of positive thought. Discussing problems with a colleague whose judgement you value can be useful – but only if the discussion is solution-oriented. Anything else is just hot air and gas.

Casting the Blame

The trouble is, you may enjoy blaming others because doing so robs you of choice. You are bad at maths because you had a lousy teacher. You can’t dance because your mother refused to pay for ballet classes when you were five. You are no good at presentations because the other kids at school sniggered at the stammer you had when you were seven.

This kind of thinking is lazy. As long as you can find someone else to dump your inadequacies on, why try to improve? By thinking like this you take your own problems and put them out of your hands. What you must do is regain control. Those ratty kids have gone, you can buy your own maths book now – and pay for your own ballet classes, too, if you want.

You decided to lug all that rubbish around with you for years, so you can also decide to shuck it off. These are the Emotional Carrier Bags you’ve allowed yourself to get burdened with and you go on filling them up with useless junk each and every passing day.

There’s simply no need to cart them around on your shoulders. Keeping them with you means over-reacting to otherwise manageable situations. Your boss asks to see you in his or her office and you immediately assume it’s something you did wrong. You make someone else do that presentation because you know you’re no good at that sort of thing. When someone criticizes your work you go into a strop because you were always getting picked on as a kid. You failed three chances of promotion so you don’t even bother trying for the fourth. When a client starts shouting you shout right back because nobody speaks to you like that …

Your emotional carriers are stuffed with all the little prickles, insults, tragedies, let-downs and resentments of your life. We resemble bag ladies, trundling supermarket trolleys laden with barely restrained feelings through our lives. They distort reactions and make you ineffectual when dealing with your colleagues and clients.

An example of the Carrier Bag syndrome at work could be the following scenario:

You arrive in the office late after a bad journey. Your emotional carrier bags are overflowing with suppressed, seething anger about something petty a colleague said two days ago, and the way an assistant screwed up a job. The train was late and the car was out of petrol when you reached the station.

You have an important presentation to make and you required a shared secretary to type up your notes. You: ‘I need these done within the hour, please.’ Sec: ‘Sorry, I’ve got Alan’s reports to work on first.’ You: ‘But this is urgent. Why does Alan’s stuff always have to take priority? How about getting my work done first, just for once? What do I have to do to get things done around here these days?’

Sec: ‘I can have it done for you by four o’clock.’ You: ‘Well, if that’s the soonest you can fit me in. Just remember it’s important – I don’t want you rushing it and then making mistakes.’

See what happens if you behave like this? You can create arguments that in turn create dissension. The need to show suppressed resentment and frustration will probably lead to the job being done badly.

Then there’s the emotional sulk situation: ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes.’ (Massively unconvincing tone.)

‘Well you don’t sound it. Is there something wrong?’

‘No.’ (A touch of anger in the voice.)

‘Are you sure? Was it something I did?’

‘Now why should you think that?’ (Laden with sarcasm.)

All these emotional triggers get used in business – to very little in the way of constructive effect:

Boss: ‘Would you mind working late tomorrow night – it’s very important.’

Colleague: ‘Sure.’ (No eye contact. Dull tone.) Boss: ‘Did you have other plans, or something?’ Colleague: ‘Nooo … that’s OK.’ (Unconvincing tone.) Colleague to others once he’s out of earshot: ‘That bastard’s making me work tomorrow night and he must know it’s my birthday!’

Hoovering Up the Insults

Remember any good compliments lately? No – because you were probably too busy wittering modest denials to even hear them properly. You will hear insults all right, though. Insults you accept as though they were gift-wrapped, studying them straightaway for instant depression, then stuffing them into your emotional carrier bags to brood over for many years to come.

Another similar dilemma you may suffer is hoovering up other people’s negative moods and behaviour. If a colleague arrives in a bad mood you wonder if it’s your fault and become broody. If the boss is rude to you, you might take it out on others. Sit you next to a moaner and you’ll start whingeing in harmony.

Avoiding all this is easy. All you have to learn to do is become a Teflon man or woman. The Teflon man/woman is non-stick. Others throw trashy, unprofessional emotions or insults out – and you just shrug them off. If they want to be rude or badly behaved that’s no one’s concern but their own. It doesn’t have to affect your own emotions, self-esteem or work standards.

This, of course, is fatally difficult to do, but it’s not impossible once you take the Teflon concept on board.

No matter how difficult a situation becomes, always tell yourself constantly, over and over again, that you have a choice. Nobody can force you to be angry or upset – or to see yourself in a bad light.

If this seems difficult to work with, imagine the scenario where the boss has asked to see you in his or her office. You feel worried – it must be something you’ve done wrong. Now, imagine three of you had been summoned in the same way. While you’re busy feeling guilty, take a look at the way the others might perceive the same verbal stimulus.

Your confident colleague could be thinking this was the promotion or salary increase she’s been expecting for months. The third colleague could have failed his driving test the day before and got home with the bad news to find his wife had run off with the examiner. He’ll be thinking he’s on a downward roll and possibly be expecting the sack.

You all had different reactions to the one comment, based on pre-determined emotions and expectations.

Unfortunately any negative expectations and reactions can have an effect on the outcome of a meeting.

People who expect the worst often discover that’s exactly what they get.

You have a choice in nearly every situation. Does that still sound hard to believe? What if you have to do your job well because otherwise you’d get the sack? You still have the choice. Just because one of the options sounds duff doesn’t mean to say it’s not an option. You have considered not doing your job, looked at the alternatives, i.e. sack and resulting penury, and decided to do the job well. That was your choice.

What if I held a gun to your head and told you to give me your wallet? You still have a choice. In a flash you will consider the options:

• Hand over the wallet = possibly not get shot.

• Keep the wallet = possibly be killed.

• Duck or run away = could end up with wallet and life, but could lose both if not quick enough.

Now, take a good long look at your surmountable barriers. How many are you going to bother taking a pop at? And how much effort are you willing to put in? Be realistic.

Be positive too, though. Don’t listen to that voice in your head that’s always telling you it’s not worth the hassle. Changes do get made and things do get achieved. ‘Why bother – it’ll never do any good’ is the war-cry of the defeatist. You’re basing this pattern of thinking on unrealistic evaluations. Assess and re-assess situations, but do it logically, not emotionally. Don’t second-guess other peoples’ reactions to your ideas or suggestions in a negative way.

Draw up written, step-by-step plans for dealing with each of your barriers. They can be long-term or short-term and should consist of as many alternative steps as you can list, so that you have different methods if your first strategy fails.

For instance, imagine you’ve decided to tackle the problem about working for a manager who can’t manage. One line of action might be to book an appointment for a long meeting with him or her to discuss the problem in an assertive, non-emotional way.

Or – you can plan a transfer to another boss.

Or – how about planning to replace them yourself?

Or – maybe change jobs?

This is of course simplification – but it gives an idea of the shape your plans might take.

ACTION PLAN:

1 Make a list of all the things you feel are preventing you from achieving what you want to achieve. Decide which of these things you plan to overcome and write out a realistic blueprint of action. Make time limits, too, if you feel brave enough.

2 Identify and dispose of the emotional carrier bags you’re lugging around at work. They will only work against you.

6 The Skills of Fuzzy Logic

Three of your biggest time-wasters and problem-creators in the culture of office work are:

1 Pointless and ineffectual moaning and whingeing.

2 Constant criticism for mistakes made.

3 Looking around to cast the blame when something goes wrong.

Banish these from your shagpile – they are counter-productive and outdated working methods.

Moaning

Is the following an accurate description of you? You are a compulsive serial victim with an extremely unpleasant passive/aggressive sado-masochistic streak. To put it another way, you are hooked on the pity of others but lack the guts to tackle the problems you’re moaning about.

You are invariably boring and depressing, using your own personal Tannoy of a mouth to tell everyone within a ten-mile radius how bad your lot is; everyone, that is, but the one person it might be useful to tell – the one who’s caused your problem in the first place.

Long-suffering colleagues waste lungfuls of air offering advice and making suggestions about positive action to you, but then they haven’t got the hang of the ‘role’ you’re demanding they play, have they? The role of a Greek chorus, wailing along in sympathy – an ear without a voice.

Did you not notice how their eyes glazed over when you approached their desks for the first good moan of the day? Did you ever wonder whether perhaps you weren’t enjoying your long-term martyrdom? But then you feel guilty for thinking like that.

The trouble is, whingeing makes you feel better, doesn’t it? But it’s only short term. Wouldn’t it be healthier to crave respect and admiration in the workplace, rather than pity?

When you – the Moaner – do finally decide to act do you go off like a geyser? Instead of tackling a problem while it’s relatively bite-size, do you wait until it’s choking you, until out bursts all the bile, anger and resentment that’s been brewing up for months, or even years?

‘I never said anything about this before, but …’ is the introductory catchphrase to your annual verbal Vesuvius – and then you wonder why your colleagues all turn and run for the exits.

Don’t Moan – Act

Moaning is bad for your self-esteem.

It lacks any sense of loyalty.

It bores people rigid – if your only way of being entertaining is via moaning you are a very sad type of person indeed. Moaning makes you an object of pity.

It uses up energy and time for no discernible purpose. Moans often get related back through a third party. Complaining by proxy is never a good career move.

The Culture of the Negative

You may be a boss who relishes pointing out other people’s mistakes. Maybe you think it’s what you’re there for – to make sure your staff turn out immaculate work as a result of your own gimlet-eyed surveillance?

Did it ever occur to you that you could be the cause of many of those mistakes your staff are making by your own flawed behaviour, though?

The trouble is, our brain has difficulty processing the word – Don’t. It only receives the command. Try this little experiment.

Sit eating lunch or having a quiet coffee with a colleague whose back is facing the office door. Look up and then say to them in confidential tones: ‘Don’t look round now, but …’ You won’t even get any further because their head will be spinning on an axis like the priest’s in The Exorcist. They’ll look round so fast they won’t even catch your last words. All their brain received was the suggestion, not the negative. If you told them to keep looking at you they would have found it easier to obey because the command was positive.

This is why constant criticism can be the antithesis to productive, accurate work. Tell a colleague to be sure not to make a mistake on some work you’ve given them and their brain will only hear the suggestion to make a mistake. If you constantly point out mistakes you only tell staff what they’re doing wrong, not what to do that is right.

People who only get told what they’ve done wrong form an edgy and insecure workforce. Staff who get praised when they get things right will blossom because they know when they’re on the right track.

It’s not just directors and managers who need to remember this. You will happily have a moan at colleagues now and again – but when did you last remember to thank or praise them? Remember, you’re looking at objectives here. Yelling at someone when they screw up may make you feel good in the short-term but it’s not guaranteed to ensure they do better next time – in fact, often the opposite. Genuine praise and thanks are incentives towards improved behaviour.

Thanks a Million

Watch out for insincere-sounding praise, though. Some bosses thank their team too profusely for doing well – when the team know their work was only average. This type of phoneyness will only lose you respect, rather than gain it.

Casting the Nets

The British love apportioning blame. When any misfortune is announced on the news, hours are spent casting blame around in a series of denials and counter-denials that lead to all sides getting so entrenched in self-righteous refutation that nobody remembers to pick up the tab for the problem – making the victim’s suffering worse.

Similar shenanigans will go on in business. As soon as there’s a blunder of any size the cry will go up: ‘Who’s fault was that?’

Again, the message here should be to prioritize your objectives.

Blaming others is like throwing a hot brick about that nobody will want to catch. Accusations lead to denials and arguments. Arguments rarely reach a peaceful solution.

Imagine you lived beneath a dam. One day you notice the dam is leaking. Where is your immediate action best employed:

1 Plugging the hole?

2 Going round screaming ‘Who did that?’ until you all drown?

ACTION PLAN:

1 Act, don’t moan.

2 Give ‘Do’ rather than ‘Don’t’ commands in business. ‘Do this job well’ is a more positive stimulus to the brain than: ‘Don’t make any mistakes’.

3 Avoid spending non-productive time attempting to find out who’s to blame when a job goes wrong – sort it out first, instead. Then sort out how to prevent it happening again. Only then start getting needly if you feel you must.

7 My Company Does … What Exactly?

It is an amazing and sad fact of modern corporate life that many members of an office’s staff will possess only a meagre knowledge of the very company that employs them. Always avoid being one of them.

As corporations expand merge and get taken over by larger firms, a feeling of disinterest and disorientation may grow. The company becomes departmentalized, with often minimal co-operation between those departments. Sometimes rivalry, or even hostility, arises between one department and another. Competition grows internally and staff feel played off against one another.

Knowledge Equals Power

To succeed in your job, whatever your role, you should aim to understand as much as you can about the company itself. Knowledge equals empowerment. The more you know, the better your chances of advancing in your chosen career. (This is not the same thing as knowing your job.)

EXERCISE:

Try answering the following questions:

1 What is the full official name of the company you work for? If there are initials in the title what do those initials stand for?

2 What is the exact address of its headquarters.

3 How many branches does it have overseas and where are they?

4 Who is the owner of the company or who are the directors?

5 What exactly does your company do?

6 What is your company’s main product/service?

7 How is that product/service marketed?

8 Who buys it?

9 In what sort of numbers do they buy it?

10 Do clients buy your products/services because they have to or because they are persuaded to?

11 How good is your product/service – what sort of reputation does it have in the market?

12 Name your company’s main rivals.

13 How do their products/services differ from your own?

14 What image would you say your company would like to present to its clients/customers?

15 Can you describe the prime objectives of your company?

16 How long has your company existed?

17 What role does your department play within your company?

18 If your department were to be surgically removed from your company would the place close down?

19 If your company were to close down tomorrow, would its clients/customers be any worse off for no longer having your product/service available?

20 Is your company running at a profit or loss?

It’s important for your own career that you identify your role in the company as a whole.

The success of your job relies on the success of your company.

Everyone in a business should be pulling in the same direction – but that very rarely happens when the business is large and unwieldy and communication channels faulty. So how much can you do to ensure this doesn’t happen, or repair any damage that has already occurred?

When communications in a company break down, the first thing everyone does is ignore it and the second is to start casting the hot brick of blame once it has been brought to their attention.

Staff blame their managers for never telling them what’s going on. Managers claim they call weekly meetings or issue magazines or handouts but nobody ever attends those meetings or reads the literature. Anyway, we decided to lose the blame culture, didn’t we?

So – before you start saying it’s out of your hands, take time to make a list of anything you could do to improve matters …

The Facts of Life

You need to understand the culture of your own company and the changes that are going on within it.

Change can be frightening and stressful, but your stress will be lessened if you take any opportunity offered to attend open discussions. Without a formal communication process you will end up relying on rumours and office gossip – which is like learning the facts of life from a classmate.

Whenever possible become involved in your company as well as your job. Such involvement will act as a good base when raising your profile, too. If the communication lines are not in place treat this as a barrier to your objectives and see whether it is a surmountable hurdle. Could you ask for the information? Could you set up the meetings?

Baffling though the concept may be, a lot of people will do things if they are asked properly. If someone has information you need or want you could try asking them to tell you. If this sounds simple, it’s because it is – though you may still tend to prefer to go via the round-about system of muttering and complaining.

One – and possibly the easiest – way to find out more about your company is to ask. Saying: ‘I would like to learn more about this company, do you have any literature or information, please?’ is showing an attitude that would rarely get discouraged. This will be perceived by the more aware manager as: ‘A member of staff showing an interest’. At best they will settle down, dewy-eyed, to light up that favourite old briar pipe while you squat breathless at their knees to hear: ‘The History of Flemming and Potts PLC’. Or at worst they’ll accuse you of spying and have you escorted from the premises. It’s worth the risk, though, and there’s usually a video or brochure kicking around somewhere which they can toss in your direction for starters.

Most reception areas are littered with company publications for the perusal of their clients and customers. It’s an interesting concept that in five minutes a visitor to the company can often discover more about a firm than an employee who has worked there for five years.

Read

Most large companies command a high-profile position in the press these days. Study the financial section of your newspaper on a regular basis and look for any mention of not only your own company, but of your main competitors, too. If your company is listed on the stock market, keep a weather eye on the state of the share price – this can often be a strong indicator of the current mood of your firm.

Even smaller companies should have literature they produce for clients. Have a browse some time – most brochures are very good at stating clearly the aims of the company and describing its particular product or service.

Ensure you read bulletin boards and any company literature which is circulated, such as the in-house magazines. Don’t just skim these for any articles you feel are relevant to your department or job, read through the entire material to gain an insight into all aspects of your company’s news.

If you become departmentalized you will be so bogged down with your own job that you will lose track of the way your company does business, and your prioritizing will become illogical. You could find yourself becoming irritated with clients who hold you up from your daily chores. When you answer an outside phone line you may sound offhand and unhelpful, even before you’ve discovered the identity of the caller.

Meetings Without Tears

If informative meetings for staff are called do your best to attend them. If you can’t go because you have other commitments, ask someone who is going to take notes for you. Always show an interest – it encourages managers out of their little hidey-holes.

Never view these get-togethers as an opportunity for a grumble, either. Bosses are like tortoises – the first whiff of aggro and they’ll retreat back into their shells. Many managers will actually avoid calling staff meetings because they tend to degenerate into unruly mud-slinging sessions.

To give the right impression, it’s important that positive noises are made by staff at these meetings. Instead of arriving with a long list of grievances and complaints under your arm, try taking some positive ideas and suggestions along, too.

If you are a manager never underestimate the power of effective communications within your own company. Staff will do a job just because they are told to, but they will do that job much better if they understand why they are doing it and what the overall objectives are.

Making Yourself Visible

Raising your profile within your company is essential for promotion. It’s easy for you to become faceless. Often when you deal with colleagues they’re just a voice on a phone. It’s human nature to distrust what you can’t see, so if they take a long time answering your query or don’t give priority to your requests you may begin to view them as deliberately obstructive.

It is vital, then, that you make time to meet one another – especially if you work in a large firm. Encouraging all-staff seminars where a representative from each department explains their group’s job, objectives and problems, leads to more regular co-operation as well as a sense of unity. Otherwise, you wait till the office Christmas party and, upon seeing that ‘invisible’ colleague in a state of merry drunkenness, have your worst fears confirmed that they’re a wastrel and a layabout.

Socialize

Many firms use social events as useful team-building occasions. Whereas you would probably balk at the idea of attending a boringly presented company seminar outside office hours, you might be keener to join in organized sporting events or outings.

Team sports against rival companies aren’t only a method of letting off steam, they are also a valuable way to get various departments galvanized into co-operative gangs. Seeing colleagues outside the office environment forces you to view them in a fresher, less stereotypical light, too.

ACTION PLAN:

1 Make time to find out more about the company you work for. Information-gather, attend meetings and read company literature.

2 Plan ways to improve communications between colleagues and departments.

3 Raise your profile within your company.

8 Handling Stress

In the fifties you’d have suffered with your nerves and got told to pull yourself together. In the sixties you’d have seen your doctor and been given Valium. In the seventies you were told you were uptight and the cure was to become more laid-back. In the eighties we were diagnosed as suffering from stress and executive burn-out and marinated in aromatherapy oils while we cogitated in our flotation tanks.

Stress is still very much the buzzword of the nineties workplace. Its symptoms are so comfortingly diverse it lends itself to effortless self-diagnosis. You lose your temper? Stress. Forget to do something important? Stress. Have a headache? Stress. Hair-loss, over-eating, spots, gross stupidity, sweating, screaming, weeping or impotence can all nestle beneath the banner of stress-induced symptoms.

Strung Up and Stressed Out

If you think it’s your job causing the stress remember that unemployment is generally considered to be far more stressful. So is spending all that horrible money if you win the lottery. In fact, our brains seem capable of producing adequate stress secretions in virtually any situation.

Holidays are great stress inducers – all that packing and planning combined with those delayed flights and hotels built around sewage farms. Alternatively, if you decide to stay at home and do nothing you can get hit by delayed stress. Haven’t you heard of people who only get ill at weekends or during the week’s holiday they took? Maybe they’d been managing their stress too well on a daily basis and it decided to go on a little holiday too.

Triggers

There is no one trigger for stress, just as there is no one cure.

For really ideal stress-inducing conditions, though, look no further than the average office. The office is the perfect place to succumb to stress – and to moan about it, too. There’s the ‘too-much-work’ stress, the ‘boss-or-colleague-from-hell’ stress, the ‘juggling-home-and-business-life’ stress, and of course the general stress malaise of being cooped up in an unhealthy atmosphere with little in the way of exercise for long periods of time.

Culture Vulture

Are offices healthy places to work? Not particularly – but then, where is? Get a job in a gym and you’ll probably suffer sprains and strains from all the equipment, plus respiratory problems after years of breathing the exhaust fumes from too many pairs of sweaty trainers.

Stress can also make you more susceptible to any illnesses that are doing the rounds. Feeling generally unwell can induce stress.

Don’t despair, though – the good news is there’s a lot you can do to fight back. You can overcome this obstacle just like all the other problems of office life. All it needs is a little fine tuning and the same businesslike planning you apply to the rest of your job. For a start, look at the practical things that cause stress.

Eight Top Tips for a Healthier Office

Caroline Blaazer is a senior consultant at The Industrial Society, and an expert in health and safety at work. Here are her top tips for keeping your own work area as healthy as possible:

1 Adjust the screen of your VDU. The angle and direction of your screen are important to good posture. Remember you should be looking slightly down on it.

Also adjust the colour, definition and contrast. A screen that is too bright can be harsh on the eyes. Then use screen wipes to clean dust off your screen. Static on screens causes dust build-up.

2 Adjust your chair. The right height of chair is also vital to your posture. Remember to move about after forty-five minutes or so, and avoid letting your feet dangle as it is bad for the circulation of the legs.

3 Avoid Repetitive Strain Injury. Take the strain from your upper arms when you type and don’t rest your wrists on the desk. Caroline says the muscles in the upper arms are far better developed for coping with the strain of typing. Laptops are difficult, though, because it’s hard not to hunch over them.

Take a break every forty-five minutes and have a coffee or a walk around. Caroline advises clenching your fists, rotating your shoulders and looking into the distance as a vital muscle-reliever. ‘The musculo-skeletal system is not designed to take static loading,’ according to Caroline, ‘and you need to avoid the chance of it seizing up.’

A good tip would be to have a timer on your desk, set to bleep at each forty-five minute interval, in case you become too entrenched in your work.

Managers should be grateful when staff take small breaks like this as working quickly without pause tends to make work less accurate.

4 Get your eyes tested. Caroline suggests every two years, or as often as the optician guides you. Too many people get caught peering at their screen or paperwork.

5 Rearrange your work-station. When people allow their workplace to get cluttered, desk chaos ensues, together with associated stresses and strains such as painful backache which is aggravated as you reach for the phone, in the same awkward way, for the fiftieth time that morning. Caroline advises that you have the phone on your left side if you are right-handed, which leaves the right free to write messages.

According to Caroline, ‘Most office desks aren’t designed for a VDU and its cables. You could buy a bracket to store your keyboard out of the way when you’re writing, which will give you more space.’

The back legs of your keyboard should also be flipped out to provide a comfortable angle of working.

6 Plants. Plants in the office will moisten the air, which can otherwise get very dry. Humidifiers will also help with this problem, at the same time as soaking up some of the dust.

7 Lights. It’s possible to have too much light in an office, especially if you have bright, natural light competing with harsh ceiling lights. Caroline suggests removing one tube from fluorescent lights to soften them. Daylight can cause glare, which is why a filter in front of the VDU screen can be useful.

Caroline suggests up-lighting as the kindest to lights must always be fixed.

8 Decoration. Ideally, wall paint should be matt, as glare from a shiny desk or gloss walls can cause fatigue and stress. Caroline recommends light, rather than dark colours for walls, as dark walls will tend to appear closer to you and therefore more confining.

Best Behaviour

Stress symptoms lose some of their menace once you are able to identify them. Like most of the problems we are discussing in this book, the first step is to understand exactly what you are dealing with before you begin to combat it.

Perhaps the worst scenario is to suffer from stress in a state of bewilderment. If you have any of the following symptoms the first thing to understand is that you are horribly normal.

Stress affects the body in a way that is necessary for survival under extreme conditions. When the human animal feels threatened its body reacts in a way to turn it into a lean, mean fighting-machine. The heart beats faster, the senses are on alert, while unnecessary functions for fight or flight – like digestion – close down. We sweat more to cool ourselves down and our breathing becomes shallow and swifter. If all these symptoms are triggered by a lion attack – fine. If your trigger happens to be some toe-rag leaving the photocopier set on multiple while you only wanted one sheet, you may find the profuse sweating, pulsating headaches, imminent diarrhoea and shaking hands a little over-the-top for your immediate needs.

Happy Stress

It’s important to understand that there is such a thing as good stress. We like to be busy and we enjoy being challenged. When the stress you’re working under is manageable you’ll find you feel on top of the world. Your brain is working quickly and clearly. Your judgement is sound, you have more energy because your interest is stimulated, and you often feel healthier than normal. Fine.

The Pig-Out

So far you’re climbing up the sunny face of the stress curve. Then you reach the summit. Things are a bit too busy and you have a feeling you’re not completely in control any more. This is where the stress levels start to become a nuisance. You feel more tired for no real physical effort, you are touchier and snappy when things go wrong. You may go off your food or begin comfort-eating. Your brain seems sluggish and you find decisions a problem. You may also become forgetful and start mislaying things.

Going for the Burn

If this sort of stress is allowed to fester unchallenged it may skid off-piste from summit to downhill slalom, where it can swiftly run out of control.

It is at this stage that the symptoms start to get serious. Nausea, palpitations, indigestion, dizziness and exhaustion may be the physical manifestations. Then there are the tears that appear for no apparent reason, the smoking or drinking that can become heavier, the inability to cope, the headaches, and the general exaggeration of moods – so that vague irritability becomes screaming temper tantrums and nervousness escalates into dread and panic attacks.

Stress Busting

For a big production like a business presentation you may be able to surf your stress, enjoying and employing the adrenalin buzz to make your speech sparkier and wittier.

For everyday use, though, you need to cut free. To do this takes time and application. It also needs trust in the cures, which isn’t easy because many of the options appear barmy.

Stressed-out executives walk a high-wire of jittery mirth. Yoga, mood-music and chanting can induce paroxysms of cynical, ill-concealed laughter. Lying, stretched out, on the floor rediscovering your aura can lead to convulsive attacks of the giggles that can make the stress symptoms seem almost preferable.

If you are addicted to the adrenalin of stress you will find relaxation techniques difficult. In a busy job you will suffer from the ‘four-second’ syndrome, the instant-gratification, instant-results disease that makes you impatient when you aren’t making constructive use of your time, even for four seconds.

Lying on floors listening to whale noises or womb sounds is not for the cynical. Some of the following may be, as they are easy, fast-working and practical.

Loony Tunes

• Sit still. You are achieving nothing by your impression of a whirlwind.

• Find any slow, mediocre ditty you think relaxing and listen to it. Nothing stimulating can pass muster for this, though it’s important it’s stuff you quite like, too. If rain-forest sounds make you jittery, try Mahler or Burt Bacharach. Avoid the Blues or you may slide from stressed to depressed. Play this stuff when you feel stressed-out. Take a Walkman to work, if you feel it would help.

Facial Scrubs

• Sit still.

• Place your elbows on the desk and start massaging your face. Nothing with a psycho-spin to startle your colleagues, just a little eyebrow- or earlobe-rubbing here and there. Maybe a gentle pinch to the bridge of the nose. Or a cool caress along the temples. Slacken the jaw muscles an inch or two along the way.

Pulse Out

• Sit still.

• Place your fingers lightly on your pulse and close your eyes. Listen to your heartbeat. Then do everything you can to slow it down – relax your body. Empty your mind. Breathe deep and slow. The buzz of satisfaction you’ll receive when you realize you have regained control over your own bodily functions will be enormous.

Age in Context

• Sit still.

• Relax your body and close your eyes.

• Visualize. You are a very old person, now retired. There is no office any more, no work – just the annual nursing-home outing to Blackpool to look forward to. Look back on your life. Then think – does this problem I’m stressed about really matter that much? Will it matter to me when I’m reading the Peoples’ Friend and smelling of TCP? Will it? Will it really?

Comfort Zones

• Sit still.

• Do something silly that you enjoyed as a child. Children are expert at formulating their own stress-busting. Cartoons are good. So are lollipops. Find a book you used to enjoy as a kid and drag it out of your bag and read it when the going gets tough. Do this in private if you have a low embarrassment threshold.

Or, do it with enough élan at work and you may even find colleagues will treat you with renewed respect, believing they’re working for a true eccentric genius. Or, at the very least they’ll give you a wide berth in future, which could solve all your stress problems in one fell swoop.

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