Congeniality at workplace!

Workplaces are full of high pressure. We have deadlines to beat, stress, work, targets and more work. One is bound to get overwhelmed with all the load, responsibilities and expectations.

It’s tough but such is life. It is ‘Normal’.

Now added to this you sometimes get colleagues who expect you to help them out with their work. Maybe they lack some skill, maybe they are new in your organization and still adapting, or it could be any other reason, but sometimes if not often, colleagues do seek out help or guidance from their fellow colleagues. You are already loaded with your work, you are tired or need your own space to concentrate, you have your deliverables to think about, and in between comes a nonstop pestering voice intruding in to your work space. You are expected to drop your work and assist or guide the person. Your management also expects all help to be extended to that person and maybe you would not even mind or would understandingly oblige, but it would depend on the attitude of the seeker.

If the person is not tactful and congenial, if the required degree of politeness is not present or request for help sounds more like an order or words that are spoken are uncultured or uncouth, then it is futile to expect any assistance/ guidance whatsoever from any person.

No wonder the first etiquettes we are taught in school is to wish people politely and say your ‘Please’, ‘Thank you’ and ‘Sorry’ appropriately. How you make the other person feel is extremely important, not only at your work place but in every relationship of your life.

Once at a coffee shop a friend joined us all miffed and red faced. Upon inquiry she revealed that her colleague had handed her some work of stapling several documents citing the reason that stapling was much lower than her pay scale and menial for her to do. My friend was delirious, she said ‘so does that mean I am fit for menial work?’. Though frankly speaking work is work and no work is menial. However, the haughtiness and conceited behaviour left a hugely negative mark on my friend which she would undoubtedly carry with her.

In many work places you might find people who have a complaint about everything and every person.

Nothing in the system works and no one listens to them or advises appropriately, tears tears nag nag…. if only the world would run according to them, everything would turn out fine. ??

Then you have people, who whether knowing or unknowingly use downgrading words or sentences leaving colleagues exasperated!!!!

I once had a colleague who was so lazy to get up from her seat that she would yell out our Boss’s name from her desk expecting him to come to her instead of her going to him!!!!!Incredulous!

You have just obliged a colleague to help him/her with some of their work and they tell your boss that they are sending you to do certain tasks!!!! Hello! You were being obliged! Who are you to ‘send’ anyone???? Single words wrongly used or placed can make or ruin your work relationships.

Sometimes I feel language workshops should be conducted at work places as most times people are unaware of the havoc they are causing to someone else’s self-respect and esteem.

Even without workshops can’t we sit and ponder for a bit? Does it hurt to be polite? To appreciate a fellow colleague and openly acknowledge and praise them? To be charming? To smile? To thank? To request politely and then leave a thank you note on getting the help? and so on…

Every person in an organization has his or her own place. All are important, with equal respect. If people are mutually respectful, then everyday stress becomes easier to manage as the general environment becomes friendly and positive.

Our current Office HR encourages gifting ‘Star Cards’ appreciating and praising fellow colleagues if they have gone out of their way to support or help you and it is such a pleasure to get or gift those cards. The smiles they bring are priceless!

Congeniality and etiquettes usher in an aura of class and encourage a feeling of togetherness and belonging, of mutual appreciation. It is bonding in a way.

For together we grow, together we laugh, supporting and learning, …respectfully, till the last!