This blog reflects on life at work at comments on the latest news that shapes my 9-5 working day in a Corporate Communications consultancy.

About Me

I am a born and bred South African who has always loved to read and write. As a child my mother used to read to me and my siblings, from classics like the “Lord of the Rings” but later also from her own stories. She would write children’s stories and then use us as her test audience, but I loved to hear what she had written long after my siblings had tired of it. So I grew up in an environment of reading and writing, which inspired my love of these things. I hope to write a great book some day, and have learnt first hand the determination and will that it takes. My love of English inspired me to continue my study of it at university. I majored in Law and English in a BA degree at UCT where I found that I took to English much more than law. I enjoyed learning about South Africa’s history and the development of our liberal Constitution, which increasingly made me committed to the hope this country has for the future. Ideally, I’d like to find myself in a job where I am able to write; that allows a good mix of time spent with people and being able to work on my own.

Monday, 10 September 2007

Creating a happy office

My rework of the motto: "Be the change you want to see in the world", is "Be the smileyness you want to see in your office".

When people are busy, it's easy for them to become stressed and irritable. But I'd like to try my best to create a pleasant working environment and always make the effort to smile, greet people and"lighten the load of the world" in general.

On the office 'treadmill', there's one thing after another to get done, and it's tempting to lose your way and get bogged down with tasks. During WOW we talked a lot about being excellent, creating relational capital, and having a work experience that amounts to more than just getting a string of tasks done. How do we make our working lives more memorable than a to do list, and try to live the FISH philosophy?

I have some ideas:
- make the effort to find out how people are - you can spend a lot of time in an office with someone but still never really get to know them
- keep your sense of humour
- see things in perspective (just because you have 5 things to do before the end of the day doesn't mean you can't stop to share a joke with a colleague)

Do members of the WOW group have other ideas, and do they encounter similar problems?

1 comment:

Thomas Michael Blaser said...

Maybe take the hint from the service industry stuff. Also check Roy's blog about the Disney service excellence seminar. I try to have the same attitude to my co-workers as if they were clients. Be personal, take the opportunity to offer to assist, take the time for a little small talk if you happen to be around the bush, inquire about their well-being, share info about where to get nice croissants, which movie is good to watch, tell when something great happened to you (people love to hear upbeat, uplifting stories), tell a personal story about your family and loved ones, and so on. In a sense, this is also building your brand and or your character. You develop your personality and show that you are a leader, keeping the positive energy.