How To Find Joy At Work When Work Sucks

Last installment of the Fundamentals of Joy at Work series is upon us. For those of you have been following the first four segments, you get the pitch here: Let's find ways to make your work life better and more joyful. Sounds great, right?

But what if work sucks? How do you find joy then?

As professionals, we've all been there. In fact, the inspiration for this series is the long suffering of my parents whose work life, for the most part, sucked. Their well being and mental health suffered as a result and so has mine. In the eulogy I delivered at my father's funeral in 2019, I told the story of how for Bobby Calhoun, everything was a football analogy. He once told me, "Career wise, I never made the Super Bowl hell, I never even made the playoffs but I always showed up to practice and gave my all on the field." It helped that my father was a die hard Chargers fan so he was very used to not making the playoffs, let alone the Super Bowl (IYKYK). And just like his beloved Chargers, work sucked a lot of the time. You don't get to the career Super Bowl when work sucks.

And why does work suck sometimes? Well, people. You and I. We can be really shitty to each other sometimes. Yes you. And yes me. We've all been guilty of it. I think you already know the punchline here: You have to give joy to get it. The last two installments of this series reviews the ways you can do that. But what do you do when you are just stuck with those other shitty people who haven't read this series? Well, that brings us to the last four work relationship values that will help you experience more joy at work.

1. Read the Room. Self awareness is a gift not only to yourself but it is definitely a gift to those around you. Listen to your gut when it comes to how your communication is being received and adjust accordingly. You can find me violating this value by speaking way too much, interrupting people and using an authoritative and fairly condescending tone of voice in delivery of my opinions. You see what I'm doing here? It starts with self awareness. It starts with admitting you have limitations and taking note of what those are. When you are in a room with someone who is painful un-self aware, help them out. Guide the conversation away from the dangerous territory they find themselves in. And if all you can do is survive being in that room, first congratulate yourself for your survival skills and then what you do next is dependent on what your role was in that room. If you are a leader, quickly go the person who stunk up the joint and provide constructive feedback privately. If the leader in the room was the one who stunk up the place, wait for your next 1:1 or private opportunity and ask if they would be open to your feedback then provide your perspective of how their message was received. Did you stink it up? It's ok. We all do it. Take note of why you think your communication didn't work, ask for feedback on how to improve. Make adjustments and keeping reading the room for non verbal feedback.
2. Give the Benefit of the Doubt First. Default to believing the best in others. Not because they deserve it, but because your deserve to have a paranoid free mind. Was she really giving me attitude in the Slack? Wow no greeting or pleasantries in his email? What is WRONG with them always talking to me before my coffee?? We all have an inner dialogue about the things other people say or type. One trick I have learned is that when I get irritated at what someone is saying to me at work, I take a beat, take a breath and give them the benefit of the doubt. I INSIST that SURELY this person is not being rude. I choose to believe that on the first "infraction" every time. For one thing, it's probably true. For another, it helps me regulate my emotions and respond more maturely which helps deescalate the situation. And let's say the person is being rude. By deescalating and taking a more chill approach, the potentially offending party either becomes diffused and we all have a nice day or they become infuriated. So regardless, you will certainly know very quickly which lane they are choosing to drive in. Which leads me to....
3. When Someone Shows You Who They Are, Believe Them. These are the famous words of Maya Angelou and what a sentence it is. Your initial benefit of the doubt was for you to default to a place of kindness and forgiveness. But joy is not created by letting someone fool you twice. There are relentless rude people in this world. They are unhappy. They are unable to access joy and in fact, some of them would like nothing more than for others to suffer as they are. Now, that's not exactly optimistic but it is realistic. We have all met people who have a bone to pick with us and even a prolonged vendetta. To those people I say: We are not each other's cup of tea and that's that about that. Once you give someone a chance, keep giving them chances but do what you can to compartmentalize their attitude problem. It is their own problem and it is not yours. Internalizing someone else's bad outlook does not serve you. They might not see your value or see your worth and that's too bad for them. But you cannot waste your time with such folks. They won't change and there is nothing you can do to change their minds. My advice here is to simply move on and spend your energy on folks who do see you.
4. State the Obvious. Then state it again. Over communication is not just about follow up and follow through, but about making sure we address any elephants in the room and clarify that we are on the same page. Meeting agendas are a great place for stating the obvious. First of all, make a meeting agenda and circulate it ahead of every meeting. That's right EVERY MEETING. In it, include what the purpose of the meeting is, key talking points and the reason each person is invited to the meeting. This will help everyone prepare and have a productive chat. Scheduling a meeting called "Marketing and Sales Sync Up" is not obvious enough. State the obvious. Give detail. For the love of all that's holy, don't assume we can read your mind and have the stats you need at the tips of our tongues. Must I make the assUme joke here?

Thank you for joining me on this Fundamentals of Joy At Work journey.

Joy is as much a practice of being positive as it is navigating the negative. IMHO, joy isn't the lack of negativity but the ability to recognize it and adjust accordingly. Will taking stock of your coworkers terrible attitude problem help you laugh like a goon all day? Maybe but probably not if it's that unpleasant. But holding the values of reading the room, giving the benefit of the doubt, believing who someone is when they show you, and stating the obvious will help you through the sucky moments and recalibrate back to your default joy. Work sucks sometimes, let's not pretend it doesn't. But it sucks a whole lot less when we get in touch with our fundamental values to create healthier, happier work relationships, a better career, better overall wellbeing and happy, fulfilling lives.

Now that this series is complete, I have some exciting new projects being released in the new year that I am happy to tease over the next month or so. Look out for more content and some existing life and career updates.

Until next time,

B