Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Seven Ways to Be Happier at Work

Telecommute. Sometimes a good way to find happiness is to just stay home. Would you enjoy playing tennis with friends during the day? Rolling on the floor with Fido? Watching daytime soaps or CNBC's stock ticker? Who cares as long as the daily work gets done? Pitch your boss on telecommuting. If he or she resists, offer to go on a short leash; for example, agree to submit twice-a-day work progress reports.


Propose a special project. Love to travel? Propose doing a feasibility study on opening a branch in Hawaii. (Site visits essential, of course.) Love to talk with people? Offer to create a collection of how-to-succeed-at-work tips and tricks derived from interviewing employees in the company and maybe even at your competitors.
Become a mentor. Let it be known that you enjoy mentoring people. You'll likely find yourself with at least one or two people who'd appreciate having someone with whom to hash out work problems.

Tweak your job description. Do you like some aspects of your job and hate others? See if you can trade tasks with a co-worker. Your drudgery might be another's relaxation; your weakness, another's métier. For example, I know a lawyer who loved holding forth in a courtroom but couldn't stand the detailed research work. He found another lawyer in the firm who felt the opposite, so they agreed that, where possible, they'd trade work.

Make your workspace feel more like home. Want to put an oriental rug under your desk? Your favorite small painting on your cube wall? An aromatherapy zen fountain on your desk? Many workplaces have no issue with such personalizing.

Use at-your-desk stress busters. Just a minute of slow, deep breaths, or tightening and loosening sets of muscles from neck to feet can reenergize you. Or try a five-minute at-your-desk yoga session.

Make a close friend. Find someone with whom you can become close. That can take the edge off work stresses. Ask your potential bud out to lunch and talk about things more intimate than the ballgame score -- everyone has important hopes, dreams and fears. Unearth those and share your own, and you're halfway to developing the sort of intimate relationship that can soften the edges of even the hardest workplace.

Still not happy at work? Maybe it's time to look for a better job.

Columnist Nemko, PhD, is a career coach and author of Cool Careers For Dummies.
Copyrighted, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.

What Your Workspace Says About You

"Everything in your office sends a message, whether you want it to or not," says Lisa Marie Luccioni, an adjunct professor of communication at the University of Cincinnati..

You'd rather be fishing (or skiing, or skydiving, or building birdhouses). Evidence: Pictures and artifacts from your hobby on every surface.
There's a delicate balance between sharing your interests and giving the impression that you're daydreaming all day about jumping out of planes or skiing, according to Barbara Pachter, business etiquette expert and the author of "New Rules at Work": "Pictures of your hobby are good conversation starters, but if you have too many of them, it makes people wonder whether you're really daydreaming about fly-fishing."

They can hang around. Evidence: A full candy dish, aspirin in the drawer, well-tended plants, pictures of children and babies.
"Things like an open door, candy, a comfortable guest chair, and photos of people--but not pictures of objects--signal an extroverted workspace that people will feel free to linger in," says Sam Gosling, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas.
They shouldn't hang around. Evidence: Flimsy guest chair, guest chair covered in files, or no guest chair. Your desk faces away from guests. Minimal or no decoration.
"Even if your office has photos or artwork, but they're images of things and not people, [people] can make an assumption you're more introverted and might not want them to linger," Gosling says.

You demand respect. Evidence: Multiple degrees on the wall, awards on the shelf, pictures of you and important people, magazines featuring articles about you. The plaque on your desk says your full name and title, and lists your advanced degrees.
"Name plaques form a strong impression. If it says just your first name, people assume you're friendly and approachable. If it has a formal title, they think you want to be respected for your rank," Luccioni says.

You've just been hired, you've just been fired, or you'd like to leave soon. Or you'd rather be temping. Evidence: Files in boxes, no decorations, no books, no plants, no pictures, and no name plaque.

They should avoid doing business with you. Evidence: Messy piles of papers on every surface. Half-eaten donuts atop teetering stacks of binders. Carpet stains.
Experts agree that a messy office can seriously damage your reputation as a conscientious person. "It's hard to function in a messy office, and people assume your office chaos will spill over to their project and their files will be lost in your mess," Pachter says.
Gosling pointed to research that shows people read much more than they should into a messy office. "People think that someone with a messy office is less agreeable, which may not be accurate. My guess is, people assume a mess is inconsiderate."

You don't take the whole "work thing" too seriously. Evidence: Humorous posters, ironic bumper stickers, whimsical images, and toys.

Conscious Decorating
Experts have several suggestions on making sure your workspace matches the image you want to project.
Err on the conservative side. Especially if clients visit you or if you're in a high-traffic area, you want to make sure people don't stop in their tracks to gawk at your collection of teddy bears or tiki torches.
Be careful with controversial items. "Consider the cost:reward ratio of putting up something like a political campaign poster," Luccioni says. "You might find kindred spirits, or you might offend people and get a first meeting off to a bad start." All experts say anything potentially racist, sexist, or homophobic, or otherwise disparaging of a group, is a no-no.
Check your employee handbook, or ask HR. Your company probably has some guidelines on decorating your work space. They might not even permit any decoration, which makes the issue moot.
Follow industry norms. Some industries demand a strict image of seriousness, while others are more laid-back. A poster with a funny or counterculture slogan would be more appropriate in the office of an advertising copywriter than the office a defense attorney.
Consider the physical arrangement. "A desk can act as a barrier and give formality, which is good for reviews but can be intimidating," Luccioni says. She adds that a small circular table allows everyone to meet on an equal basis. A power difference, if you want that, can be achieved by giving guests smaller, flimsier chairs.
And if you tend to make snap judgments about others' offices, try to look at the bigger picture, Gosling recommends.
"Any one item can have many different purposes. If someone has a plant, maybe they have a green thumb, maybe they're into feng shui, or maybe the plant was left over from the last person in that office. If you see someone with a super neat desk, how do you know whether they're truly neat, or whether they swept everything into a drawer before you stopped by?"

Wanna live in US?

 Here is top 25 places in US if you wanna live there.. more info just click: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2010/top100/
 
 
Rank City Population
1 Eden Prairie, MN 64,000
2 Columbia/Ellicott City, MD 155,000
3 Newton, MA 82,000
4 Bellevue, WA 124,000
5 McKinney, TX 125,000
6 Fort Collins, CO 141,000
7 Overland Park, KS 175,000
8 Fishers, IN 69,000
9 Ames, IA 60,000
10 Rogers, AR 57,000
11 Plymouth, MN 76,000
12 Highlands Ranch, CO 98,000
13 Woodbury, MN 58,000
14 Carmel, IN 67,000
15 Eagan, MN 64,000
16 Allen, TX 84,000
17 Shawnee, KS 61,000
18 South Jordan, UT 51,000
19 Broomfield, CO 55,000
20 Apple Valley, MN 50,000
21 Missouri City, TX 75,000
22 Irvine, CA 208,000
23 Cary, NC 130,000
24 Rowlett, TX 58,000
25 Gaithersburg, MD 59,000