
Locate your dry cleaning wherever it is in one of the Standard Time Zones of the World. Image courtesy U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
Life at work can get pretty loopy sometimes — so loopy that the real trick can be not losing your mind. One way to maintain your perspective is to find the humor in the zaniness we call work. Here are some of the more ridiculous things some of us have to put up with every day.
- Sitting in endless meetings that are totally irrelevant to anything you actually do, while the rest of your responsibilities go down in flames.
- Flying somewhere, and looking forward mostly to the few hours of peace you get while you're actually on board the aircraft.
- Looking at the cafeteria menu, expecting to find something that you haven't eaten every day for the last six months and which is also both tasty and non-life-threatening.
- You and the other smokers having to stand outside the building entrance puffing fast enough to avoid frostbite in the winter, or to avoid melting in the summer.
- Having 80% of your daily exercise consist of sprinting through the wall of tobacco smoke that surrounds every entrance to your building.
- Having a medical plan that doesn't cover smoking cessation.
- Being forced to resort to Yahoo or Hotmail to get some email privacy.
- It's pretty loopy
to have a
medical plan
that doesn't cover
smoking cessationGetting so much email that you have to have somebody screen it, then to recover your privacy, setting up another email account for personal stuff, then getting too much email there, and wondering what the heck you can do now. - Getting mounds of email from people complaining about other people sending too much email.
- Carefully keeping confidential something everybody already knows, then getting asked if you do know anything about it, and having to deny all knowledge to someone who knows that you know.
- Hearing a rumor about yourself, knowing it's true, but wishing it were false.
- Hearing a rumor about yourself, knowing it's false, but wishing it were true.
- Telling subordinates that their jobs have been eliminated, knowing that they know it's a lie, while you simultaneously wonder how long it will be till your boss tells you the exact same thing.
- Hoping to get promoted into a job where you'll have the opportunity to tell subordinates that their jobs have been eliminated, knowing that they know it's a lie, etc., etc.
- Relying on a blog written by some guy who got downsized three years ago, as your best source of information about what's happening on the floor above yours.
- Having to stay home to get some work done.
- Waking up in the morning thinking you're in a city that you aren't actually in.
- Having dry cleaning in two or more time zones.
- Learning by conducting actual experiments that in the other hemisphere the water doesn't really go down the toilet the other way.
Probably there are some loopy goings-on where you work. One of them might be believing that there aren't any. Another might be reading lists of loopy goings-on at work. Top
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Related articles
More articles on Emotions at Work:
Never, Ever, Kill the Messenger
- If you're a manager in a project-oriented organization, you need to know the full, unvarnished Truth.
When you kill a messenger, you deliver a message of your own: Tell me the Truth at your peril. Killing
messengers has such predictable results that you have to question any report you receive — good
news or bad.
Appreciations
- When we take time to express to others our appreciation for what they do for us, a magical thing happens.
What We Don't Know About Each Other
- We know a lot about our co-workers, but we don't know everything. And since we don't know what we don't
know, we sometimes forget that we don't know it. And then the trouble begins.
Self-Serving Bias in Organizations
- We all want to believe that we can rely on the good judgment of decision makers when they make decisions
that affect organizational performance. But they're human, and they are therefore subject to a cognitive
bias known as self-serving bias. Here's a look at what can happen.
Toxic Conflict in Teams: Attacks
- In toxic conflict, people try to resolve their differences by eliminating each other's ability to provide
opposition. In the early stages of toxic conflict, the attacks often escape notice. Here's a catalog
of covert attack tactics.
See also Emotions at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming June 14: Pseudo-Collaborations
- Most workplace collaborations produce results of value. But some collaborations — pseudo-collaborations — are inherently incapable of producing value, due to performance management systems, or lack of authority, or lack of access to information. Available here and by RSS on June 14.
And on June 21: Asking Burning Questions
- When we suddenly realize that an important question needs answering, directly asking that question in a meeting might not be an effective way to focus the attention of the group. There are risks. Fortunately, there are also ways to manage those risks. Available here and by RSS on June 21.
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