how to have a rubbish attitude at work

I met the rubbish collector pictured at the edge of a bitterly cold pier on a miserable winter’s day, and his positive attitude at work lit up the gloom. 

It also got me thinking about various jobs that I’ve held in the past and how easy it was to complain about them.  Boring, repetitive, full of red tape, overly busy, uncreative… I could go on – and did!

But, as the rubbish collector reminded me – jobs are like relationships.  They’re not perfect.  They need attention or they go stale.  They’re a two-way street.

One of the biggest influencers on job satisfaction is not the ‘rubbish’ you deal with at work, but the attitude you bring.  It’s easy to rattle off what’s wrong with the ‘other party’ (eavesdrop in any bar after work on a Friday and you’ll hear plenty of work-related whinging).

Harder, but far more proactive, is to look for areas where you could improve your relationship with your job.  What are you doing to nuture and grow in the role?  Are you letting things stagnate, while you become resentful?  Are you working chaotically?  Are you avoiding a problem with a team-mate?

As another year wraps up, our thoughts start turning to ‘what next?’  A new job often features in New Year’s Resolutions.  Whether or not that is on the cards for you, it can be healthy to look at how you can inject some new energy into your current role.

Ask this in terms of the ‘Be/Do/Have’ model:  ‘Who do I need to be, and what do I need to do, to have a more satisfying work life?’

For every one of the ‘problems’ you find with your work, look for a solution that involves you doing something differently.   It’s not about identifying areas where your work is ‘bland’ (a dead-end approach that only feeds negativity), but areas where you are BEING bland:

• How can you change your approach in a difficult relationship with a colleague?
• What’s missing in your understanding of a complex task that, if you mastered it, would help you move forward faster?
• Which specific training courses or changes in method would provide you with the quickest shortcuts in the routine areas of your job?
• Which of your skills are being under-utilised, and how could you change that?
• What could you do to be better organised and more efficient with your time?
• Where are you under-performing and why?
• How are you managing your work-life balance?

In coaching, we talk about ‘cause and effect’.  In any situation, we can choose to see ourselves as ‘causing’ our outcomes (through our attitudes, choices and actions) or being ‘at effect’ (passively waiting for things to happen ‘to us’, avoiding blame and making excuses).

Seeing ourselves as the ‘cause’ of outcomes (good and bad) means the ball is in our court much more often – which gives us far more freedom and responsibility and many more opportunities to change the way things are.

Perhaps it will take more than a few strings of tinsel to improve your lot at work, but that’s a great first step.

What would be the next step after that?

And the next?