HRMT Week 3 DQR
Christopher Jackson
Good morning Professor and Classmates,
One of the biggest issues that I have seen when it comes to personal attitudes is that people are mostly unable to separate work from real life problems. We go home angry at what the day was like at work, thus causing issues with our spouse at home, or the reverse in that we have complications at home that we bring to work and create bad energy in the workplace. I battled with this for a short time, because I couldn’t separate the two, professional and personal. It wasn’t that I was incapable of doing it, I just had no other person to verbally get it out too and I let it out in the wrong manner thus causing relationships to deteriorate.
It wasn’t until I personally started to realize that no matter what happens throughout the day, I must be able to leave it in the space that it came from. If my girlfriend and I have an argument, I need to be able to leave that at home and not bring it to my workplace. On the flip side, if I am having a bad day at work, it’s okay to talk about it with your significant other (in fact I would highly encourage you to do that and not bottle it up) but you should never take it out on them. We must be able to be conscience of the things we say and allow to tamper the energy we give off; I now believe that the energy of others for the most part can affect you. If you work in an office space of 4 people and you all work closely, one person having a bad day can affect the whole environment because of their attitude. It may not make you mad, but it will most likely make you avoid that person for the rest of the day which could result in more issues.
One of the biggest lessons that I have learned in this current position where I am an Active Duty Servicemember, working with high-ranking Generals/CSMs, Civilians, other branch servicemembers and retirees/veterans is that we all come from different backgrounds with different views and different ways of handling stresses. Some are married, some are widowed, some have kids, some have recently lost a close friend and all of these things can affect our attitudes. We have to try and manage that the best we can, its okay to talk about it with a closer co-worker you trust and know is genuine but we should never look to come into the office and exhort negative energy because of it.
Thank you for your time!
Response
Crystal Fujimoto
We all have the responsibility to keep our workplace positive and a healthy work environment. To do this the easiest way is to control yourself first, if you are a positive person then those around you will generally be positive as well. Rob Wormley wrote a blog post called “18 Simple ways to keep a positive attitude at work” and one of the tips that stood out was to simply be nice to other people. When you are nice and kind to others both in your personal and work life, it will bring you good karma and other people will be more likely to do nice things for you. It also gives off a positive mood since it shows that you care for other people enough that you are helpful or nice to them.
Another tip that Wormley had in his post was to decide how to face difficult situations or problems before you actually have to face them if you know you are going to experience them sooner or later. If you can prepare for this difficulty then you can try to figure out ways to not make it so bad or to avoid or fix the problem. I though that this was interesting since you cannot think of all the possible problems or difficult situations that happen at work or at home. I don’t think I will actually use this tip since it may cause me to be more negative, but for certain situations it might actually work. For example, if you know that the end of the day you will be really busy at work you can prepare during the morning to accommodate all the extra end of day tasks.
A couple of common-sense tips that Wormley wrote was to “stop complaining” and “fake it until you make it” these are useful but sometimes forgotten. If someone is stuck in a negative mood, they tend to complain a lot and make everyone else feel their pain. But if you can fake that everything is good and working well, eventually it will become better. Sometimes it may seem like fake positivity is two-faced or lying but sometimes it might actually work out and turn into real positivity, it all depends on how you fake it.
Reference:
Wormley, R. (2021, December 9). 18 Simple ways to keep a positive attitude at work. When I Work Blog. https://wheniwork.com/blog/18-simple-ways-to-keep-a-positive-attitude-at-work
Response
