But whether your complaint is a bad boss, too much bureaucracy, office politics, boring work or all of the above, you don't have to suffer in silence (or not so silently). You can take steps to improve your situation, even if you need to stay put at least for now.
Once you begin intervening on your own behalf, you'll start feeling less like a victim of circumstance and more like a professional with influence and control over your own destiny. The following strategies should help move your thinking in the right direction.
Stop Watching the Clock How?
For starters, keep your eyes and ears open for new projects that interest you. Or, better yet, invent a project that solves an organizational problem and gets your juices going. A retail store manager used her company's national sales meeting to get a better handle on what was going on throughout the company. Since her interests were advertising and marketing, she focused extra attention on talking with people from those departments to learn more about their needs and goals. When she learned they wanted to investigate the home shopping market, she volunteered to do the research. This gave her a chance to study an interesting new trend, demonstrate her creativity and initiative, showcase her research and writing skills and establish contacts with the right people. And, should the company decide to move ahead with the idea, she's also positioned herself to be a part of it.
This required the manager to do some extra work. But because she hopes to use the new knowledge to make a job change within the company, she considers the effort worth it. Some doors may now open that were previously closed.
In general, try to take a synergistic approach that involves other people in healthy and productive ways, recommends psychologist Laurie Anderson in Oak Park, Illinois. For example, if you need to free up your schedule to make room for new duties, try delegating tedious responsibilities to an employee who'd appreciate them.
"What's boring to you may be developmental to someone else," Anderson says. "Try looking for someone in the organization who'd like to learn the things that no longer interest you." Anderson tells the story of a staffing professional who was burned out on recruitment and a trainer who'd overdosed on training. The two split their jobs in half and traded responsibilities, so both could enjoy new growth.
The staffing professional was surprised to find how much she liked training. In fact, she liked it so much she decided to become a trainer full time a career direction she'd never anticipated.
Developing creative, synergistic solutions not only moves you out of a stuck position, it also enables you to build stronger alliances through shared responsibilities.
Learn to Take a Compliment
It always feels good to know that you and the work you do are appreciated by others. Unfortunately, compliments tend to be few and far between while criticism is never in short supply. Why is there such a discrepancy? A president of a well- known commercial bank notes, "Every time I tell someone they're doing a good job, they ask me for more money. Then they end up getting mad when I tell them I can't give them a raise right now."
The president is caught in a classic Catch-22. No matter what he does, he'll be the bad guy either for not noticing and praising employees' work or for praising it without simultaneously reaching into the company coffers for more funds. Unless he starts handing out raises and bonuses along with his compliments, he can't win.
The same no-win situation tends to surround performance appraisals. Many managers are reluctant to overpraise their subordinates because of the money demands that inevitably follow. As one shipping supervisor complained: "If I'm doing such a great job, how come I only got a 3 percent raise?" There are two sides to every story. Managers should praise people for a job well done, even if they aren't planning to follow up with financial rewards. Meanwhile, employees should learn how to accept compliments for what they are: a show of appreciation.
Unhook the compliment from the salary demand so you can feel good about the praise rather than angry about the money. As a professional, you can't think like an hourly employee who gets something extra for every bit of extra effort. That was a hard line to draw for a successful litigation attorney who left the "fast track" for the "Mommy track" when her third child was born.
As a partner, she'd shared equity in the firm's profits. On the Mommy track, she remained a partner in name, but was paid an hourly consulting fee instead. In the sixth year of that arrangement, she took on a big case that demanded more than her usual three-day workweek. She pitched in willingly since her kids were in school all day, and achieved an outstanding result.
Her partners were so thrilled, they celebrated with a champagne lunch, toasted her accomplishments and praised her abilities to the skies.
Within weeks of the verdict, she decided to renegotiate her deal. If she was going to work as hard as the partners, she wanted her equity partnership reinstated. The partners listened, acknowledged her accomplishment, and questioned whether she was ready to commit once again to a full-time partnership. When she balked, they balked. Finally, they compromised by increasing her hourly consulting fee. Although better than nothing, the outcome didn't please her. "What's the point of knocking myself out for these guys, when no one appreciates my contribution?" she grumbled.
After this response, you can be sure the partners won't be so lavish with their praise next time around.
