10 Ways to Deal with the Sucky Side of Work
When work sucks, life sucks. You like to think work doesn’t define you, but it sure feels like it.
How much suck is too much?
How much:
Every job has a dark side. Maybe you love the “real” work and hate the paperwork. Perhaps one colleague drives you nuts, but most don’t.
I recently asked a group of supervisors, “How much bad can you tolerate before all of work feels dark?” They felt anything more than 30% dark makes all of work dark.
You should enjoy at least 70% (5.6 hours) of an 8 hour workday.
10 ways to deal with the sucky side of work:
- Make a list of the things you enjoy about work. Bad is stronger than good. Have you let a few bad things pollute the good?
- How does your current job align with life’s purpose?
- Spend more time being grateful. Attitude is about you not them.
- Accept what is. Ruthlessly evaluate where you are and, more importantly, where you’re going. Failures stop at pointing out negative realities.
- Define better and take imperfect steps to get there. Stop talking yourself out of doing things that might not work. If there’s reasonable certainty, go for it.
- Are there enough positive relationships to offset negatives?
- Control what you can. Frustration goes up when you focus on things you can’t control.
- Don’t be known as a whiner – be known as a positive solution-finder.
- Is your work respected by higher-ups?
- Don’t lose your job before you find a job. You have to eat.
How much suck is too much?
How can leaders help others enjoy work, even though it includes a dark side?
Facebook fans respond: On any given day, how much of your job should you enjoy in order to say that you enjoy your job?
Helpful stuff. I’m thinking I’m fortunate to be able to be at about 10%.
Congrats Bigal!
Dear Dan,
Last line grabbed the attention- Don’t lose your job before you find a job. You have to eat. Individual priority is the great motivation. People need support system to survive and job is one support system. It is important to seek strong support system. I do agree that every job has its dark side. It is important to leverage on positive side and explore for better option that has less dark side.
I think 10-20% such is ok and anything beyond that is too much. And most of the suck is created ones. They can be minimized by creating mechanism in place. More than that, execution of that mechanism is paramount. Many organisations claim to have mechanism in place but they do not have clarity on its execution. When it comes to execution, leaders become subjective. And such subjectivity becomes the dark side of the organisations. The best way to deal with sucky side of the work is to minimize subjectivity and increase objectivity. There should be scope to inspect, question and intervene the mechanism created.
Thanks Dr. Gupta. I appreciate the idea that we can create structures or processes to help us with the sucky side of work. It might be as simple as dedicating a portion of the day to get some of the sucky stuff done. Say, from 11 a.m. to noon, deal with the dark side and then go to lunch.
Dan,
Everything has its place. Organize and channel your energy to the most difficult “sucky” items and the rest will fall into place. We all know the world is not perfect and unfortunately neither are jobs, but they are a fact of life for most of us! Do your best and if need be move on, although the greener pastures may not be what is seems as you already know! Cheers
Thanks Tim. That last sentence kicks it. We might use today’s trouble to make another situation seem better than it is. The grass is always greener.
I get the feel from your comment that learning how to make your current situation better may be more important than finding another.
Yes I do believe perseverance will make things better and overcome sucky 99% of the time.
Another excellent post, Dan! Many of your points really resonate with me: 2, 3, 5, & 7! I’ve actually shared how we’re frustrated by what we cannot control in my seminars. It’s very true. Thnx for your insights!
An unskillful boss can trump all the positive aspects. I don’t think this is a negativity bias, at least not solely, but the fact that this relationship holds more sway and influence than any other aspect..
Great stuff, Dan! As Dr. Gupta says, every job has its dark side. Before retirement, I had a weekly list of “least preferred tasks” that I tried to get completed and out of the way as early in the week as possible, making the rest of the week much more pleasant and productive. I taught my people that completing dreaded but necessary tasks asap and then moving on reduces the suck. Sometimes the dread is worse than the task itself.
Dan, this not a rhetorical question: Is “bad” really stronger than good? Yes, one bad apple can spoil an entire bushel. And one gossipy, negative or naysaying staff member can do damage to the esprit de corps of an organization–and perhaps take its toll on the organization goal. One bad staff member can be a pain in the butt to a manager. And speaking of the side of work that really sucks, I’d hate to be a manager who wakes up in the morning and does not look forward to going to work because of an employee who is a habitual contrarian.
But “bad” and bad people don’t last–because “good” always comes to the rescue. Unfortunately
when bad people go wrong, how often do we have to be bad enough to be good enough for them. If we want it bad, we get it bad! The badder we want it, the badder we get it! Until “good” steps in and takes over–which, as you say, is up to us.
I agree with you, Dan, that “bad” is strong. Yet there are victories of soul and spirit: Even if we lose, we win! And it’s not true that good people finish last: Good people are winners before the game even starts!
Lastly, I even think there is reason for “bad”: Often a good scare is worth more to us than good advice.
Thanks Dan! Really needed this today as work has been quite sucky for some time. I know things will get better but in the bad times it seems like it never will.
“…Control what you can. Frustration goes up when you focus on things you can’t control…”
When is there enough control? If having only 30% out of your control (numbers as per good and bad) is enough to topple you, I’d say you have trouble.
Many of us cannot control even 50% of what goes on in our jobs, never mind 70%, and at the lower levels, even 50% might be an over-generous estimate.
As aluded to by a commentator about, it depends which bits you can control. If it’s 10% and that 10% is critical, you can probably feel in control and good about yourself. If you control 90% of your work life but that 90% is peripheral, you might well feel you have no influence.
Is your work respected by the higher-ups? For many people in junior leadership positions, your immediate supervisor might respect your work, but there’s a good chance anyone further up won’t even KNOW WHO YOU ARE, never mind respect your work. If you’re one cog in a watch, they don’t see you as different from all the other cogs…
Love these wonderful tips Dan!
Diana
#3 stands out for me! So much is attitude, isn’t it?
Your post today aligns with “where I live.” 🙂 I often ask my clients, “How is your attitude in your work right now? Is it ‘jazzed?’ At least at peace? On ‘life support?'”
If it is anything below ‘jazzed,’ we need to put the boat in the water right where we are, and row from there.
With every job I’ve ever had, there was always something I hated about it.
After a while, I got the idea that I take myself everywhere I go, and it was up to me to at least make peace with, and better yet, bring some fun to whatever I was doing—even the boring-grinding-grueling stuff.
Sometimes all it takes is asking, “What is in my highest interest over time?” Then, imagining what the outcome of my engaged action looks like.
Once, my attempt at turning boring work more fun using technology lead to a whole new career in technology-training. That led to work creating professional development training, and honing of my adult education/coaching chops. That led to the work I do now—which I love.
What am I saying? We have a choice to see anything that’s a thorn in our side as a chance to learn or grow. It might mean losing our self-importance. It might mean a change of self-awareness (“what thoughts are causing this discomfort?”). It might mean a whole new career born of an attempt to bring ease to a vexing challenge. My take is that we are always best served by turning in the direction of the solution.
I am happiest in my work, when I remember to bring meaning to it… even the seemingly unimportant stuff serves a purpose. It’s too easy to forget to do this, especially if we have had too little sleep, not enough renewal time, or too much bad news at once. Keeping mindful of our internal as well as external environment can help us come back to center.
On my best days, I see all the work as valuable and worth my time.
All the best,
Mark
Hi Dan
You ask “How can leaders help others enjoy work, even though it includes a dark side?”.
My answer to that is based on my experience in leading teams large and small and making (almost) every mistake possible along the way.
I think it’s a three step process
1) Setting expectations – every job has some sucky parts. Let’s try and quantify that to see if the problem is manageable or if we have a square peg/round hole problem.
2) Authentic acknowledgement – we’re all different. Some people love paperwork, and that’s ok. It’s a judgement free zone. Nobody has the right to tell others how to feel about something.
3) Hard minimization – minimize the parts of the job that are sucky. Let’s work together on shrinking the problem. Taking off your shoes can make the walk along the beach a lot more enjoyable!
Thanks.
Dave Pethick
Co-Founder, http://leading.io
Really love this post!!! Even though I am only a student right now, dealing with internship and coursework is drive me crazy especially during final week.(That’s why people call it the “dead week”) I always let frustration block my confidence and when that moment happens, I start questioning if I should do PR related work for my career. Your post is realistic and meaningful, I will hang in there for a little longer.