Office Politics

The microcosm that is an office has the ability to depict all of human emotion an behaviour over the course of a single day. I always have my notebook to hand, jotting down the days events. 

Six months ago I took a reality check and realised that my job was going nowhere. Many of us have these career revelations and it can be incredibly difficult to crowbar ourselves out of a comfortable position that we've held for years. Allowing comfort to take the place of progression can be a dangerous substitute, and so I took a huge risk by handing in my notice before I'd even found another job. Turns out that my risk paid off; I found another job quite soon after penning my resignation, and now six months into my new position I've found my feet doing something different.For me changing career has also meant a change in environment; moving from classroom to office. The change hasn't been without it's learning curves, some of which are steeper than others, but I have enjoyed almost every moment. Email etiquette, or rather the lack of it. Endless jargon and three letter acronyms. The occasional complete disregard for hygiene in the toilets... There have been many things I've encountered for the first time, one of which has made quite an impression. The 'Mood Hoover' has been quite a revelation to me, and possibly the largest 'learning curve' I've had to adapt to.

   Mood Hoover :Someone who sucks all the good feelings out a room. They are obsessed with doom and gloom and that is where there conversations are focued.Oh no, here comes the mood hoover to share his misery.

One of these personalise can be hazardous to deal with, as no matter how optimism you throw their way, the mood hover will suck up and destroy all the positivity you create. It is this exact nature which makes them so dangerous to the working environment. Continuous negativity blocks change, a vital ingredient to the working environment. Working with a mood hoover not only affects your mental well being, but impedes team progression. And when managers struggle to get processes changed for the better, everyone suffers - employees and service users. But who's to blame for these deleterious attitudes? The assumption bad management is at play is all to easy an assumption, passing the buck is a trait of the mood hoover personality that should be handled with caution. In fact the causes of stagnant growth lay closer to home, and prove why people who perpetuate negativity are more than just frustrating.

Happy people are more intelligent, energetic, creative and productive.

An emerging area of study looking at our happiness and the affect it has on our working lives has shown some surprisingly obvious home truths. Happy people are much better employees. Let's go one step further, happy people make much better friends. Thats not to suggest we aren't allowed a down day, but if you surround yourself with positive, optimistic friends, our lives become more positive and optimistic. So if happy workers make better work, and mood hovers are the polar opposite of this, who's to blame for the mood hoover's way? Well... They are. Studies show that only 10% of our long term happiness is predicted by our environment. The other 90%, the overwhelming amount of our happiness, is predicted by how our brains perceive the world.

Viewing problems in life is a sure fire way to lead you into misery. It will most definitely make you a less productive and uncreative employee. I strive to look at life as a series of opportunities. Tasks that need solutions, puzzles that need to be solved. I know I'm not convincing anyone when I say 'don't view life in terms of problems'. Life is a series of problems, strung together by attempting to find solutions. If, however, we focus on the appearance of those problems we resign ourselves to a lifetime of obstacles. Instead see the opportunity to make things better,  see the change to change things the way you want them to be changed