At work, there’s nothing quite as potent as the negativity of a colleague. You’ll know the type – they’re sour faced, always complaining, and can seemingly find nothing enjoyable in work …or life, for that matter.
It’d be easy to say they’re disengaged and unhappy at work. It’d make life simpler to believe that they just have something bigger going on outside of work, that makes them view the world in shades of blue. But I don’t think that’s the case for many of these people – I’d hazard a guess that they’ve made a habit of being negative.
Consider this – when a challenge arises at work, what do many people do? Complain about it. If there’s no time for lunch, what do people often do? Complain about it. If there’s a lot on the to-do list, what will you often hear? Complaints, complaints, complaints.
So many people are conditioned by their work environment to actively feel negative. The ‘Monday Morning Blues’ is a phrase coined for the misery of heading back to the office. We celebrate Fridays, because it means respite from that dreaded place for two whole days. Bank holidays are a blur of sozzled suits, clinking glasses and basking in the glow of a magical three day weekend away from work.
So many people enter the office groaning, and counting down the week advent-style. You’ll often see competative negativity, which I find somewhat odd – people boasting that they haven’t taken a single lunch break this week, because they’re that busy. Others competing with their lists of things to do and places to be, and many telling tales of late nights in the office – “I might as well MOVE IN, that’s how much time I spend in this damn place!”
As children, we see our parents returning from work exhausted, and as adults we witness our friends and family doing the same. At parties and barbecues we’ll ask what people have been upto – “Working, mostly,” many will sigh. It’s rarely said with zest and pride – and if it is, people are often suspicious or think you’ve had one too many mojitos.
It begs an interesting question – why are so many people happy to be unhappy? Why don’t they want to counter their negativity and make their working lives more positive? We spend so much of our time working – in fact, the average person spends a whopping 90,000 hours of their lifetime at work – so why on earth would we allow ourselves to remain miserable?
We’d love to here your thoughts on this – do you think negativity is a habit? Have you fallen victim to it on occassions, or are you making an effort to be more positive? Leave your comments in the box below, or tweet us.
