Won’t You Be My Frienemy?

The old adage ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ seems to have become an unfortunate by product of today’s work environment.

The workplace is always wild mix of personalities.  The quiet to the quixotic, the domineering to the domestic, no two people are the same.   Yet management models do their darnedest to smush us all into identifiable geneses for easy judgment.

So we cozy up with people that we frankly don’t care about to further our careers, sometimes leaving the important people behind.  How can that be healthy?

A healthy work environment would allow people to get the job done; judgment would be based on performance and merit.  I really don’t enjoy working with people that I don’t trust, I can’t feel free to collaborate with, or want to spend time with.

So, no, I’m going to be honest.  Maybe start a quiet revolution.

I won’t be your frienemy.

De-Stressing

I received an article in my email today about 22 Affordable Ways to De-Stress.  To be honest I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.  You see, today was a very bad day.  Murphy, of the Murphy’s Law fame, had visited me with a vengeance.  Leaving me ready to raise my white flag in defeat.

I’ll recap some of the recommended methods of de-stressing that I thought could prove to be a little dangerous for a person on the edge:

1. Visit the Shooting Range – Who hasn’t had an urge to destroy something, it is usualy a passing fancy that I know that I can’t act on.  But never in my wildest dreams would I give a stressed out individual a gun.  Even to shoot at a poor defenseless target.  You never know when the shooter might just snap.

2. Cook a Delicious Dinner with the Items you have in your Fridge – In principle this sounds good.  But the typical stressed out person usually has many questionable things in their refrigerator that no amount of cooking will kill the bacteria that will likely send you to the emergency room.  Instead, take yourself out to your favorite restaurant or have a potluck with friends.

3. Make “To-Do” Lists and Actively Check Items Off – In theory, this might sound like you are accomplishing things. But if I were to have one more list on top of the myriad of lists that I have and keep track of for other people, I would have to take the gun from number 1 and find the author of this article.

4. Take a Long Drive – I can only see this working if you don’t live in a heavily populated area.  Commuter traffic is enough to make a person mental.  Five minutes on the road with people behind the wheel on cell phones makes me tighter than a snare drum.  Nope, no long drive for me.

I know that the author(s) of this article were only trying to help. De-Stressing in today’s workplace is a highly personal process but extremely necessary.

My only advice is find your center and take the time to relax.  Do whatever it takes, you will be a better person for it.

Just keep away from fire arms.

Random Acts

Every once in awhile you find yourself the recipient of a random act of kindness, not for anything in particular just for doing your job. Yesterday, was a day for random acts of kindness for me. Both to give and receive.

To Give:

I received a frantic call from one of my fellow Admins in our New York office with an AP question. This was an arena I could find a solution to her problem, the people I needed were all around me. With help from my network, her issues were swiftly solved. I made sure to that my friend who spearheaded the fix, by emailing a quick ‘good job’ email to her boss. This is something I would do for anyone who has gone out of their way to help me. My friend said to me she was only doing her job, to me she moved a mountain. I had to make sure that her effort was acknowledged.

To Receive:

The same day, someone came to me looking for a typewriter. We have one on the floor, but it hasn’t been used since I started with the company. She had forms that had to be manually filled out. We plugged in the dinosaur and found out that the ribbon was dry as a bone. I looked at the form and realized that I could make an ADOBE form out of the form if we scan the document. Really, it was an easy fix. It took a few minutes to do and a few tweaks after that to perfect it. And Voila! No need for a typewriter. I was just doing my job.

This is what she sent my boss:

“Hi XXXX

Every once in a while, even though great people perform above the bar daily, someone really exceeds expectations, and I wanted you to know that XXXX “saved the day” for me. All I needed was a working typewriter to fill out a form for some of our XXXXXXX employees. She was right on it….looking to ease my burden of having to use a typewriter. She created a form with Adobe……something I didn’t even know was possible.

She is always great with requests and today she exceeded my expectations and helped with making the process more efficient….She saved the day!
And she taught me something!
We’re fortunate to have her.

Just wanted to let you know…..”

It’s moments like this that make my day.

Hear No Evil

As an admin, I find myself in a curious place.  People think I have WAY more power and influence than I really have.  That being said, I hear things.  Confidential things, which I keep confidential, think of me as a father/mother confessor.  Personal things, sometimes I’m thinking ‘Are you kidding me? Really? You’re sharing that with me? A stranger?’.  Thinks that make me want to wash my brain out, ick! 

 

But with all the things I hear, I have to act like I hear nothing.    That I don’t hear the squabble between co-workers a couple of aisles over, the co-worker lovers spat in the kitchenette, the plans for the business unit. 

 

At times that I have to make a judgment call and alert a manager or HR rep to a situation, because it is the right thing to do.  Sometimes I have to give carefully framed advice that will not harm the company nor the person to whom I’m talking to. 

 

I feel like I’m a camp counselor in a camp for grown-ups with no inhibitors.