Denise Evangelides's friends look forward to telling her new jokes. The future horse-farmer makes new acquaintances at the stable and takes old buddies riding with her.
Karen Messina-Hirsch entertains friends with her culinary skills and they join her in the kitchen for impromptu lessons.One Thanksgiving Day, she suddenly hauled her carving knives out of theca and, on request, carved the hostess's veal breast to the 'oohs' and 'ahs' of an admiring audience. Heisler's new friends are media personalities. But her long-standing pals love to turn on the radio or TV set and find her friendly face smiling out at them.
Contrast those experiences with that of the vice president of a small cosmetics manufacturing firm in Chicago who finds his work tedious. He's so glad to shut the door on it each night that he never wants to discuss it after hours. This part of his life is increasingly closed off from other people. At parties and family gatherings, he assiduously avoids the topic of his business. When someone brings it up, he changes the subject. In the process, he makes himself unhappy. He constantly hungers for more creativity, intellectual stimulation and people contact. He feels trapped and unhappy. Since he works in a family business, he doesn't feel he has the luxury of changing jobs or careers. So he tries to build more stimulation into his daily life with extracurricular activities.
As a jazz composer, he's partly successful. But that doesn't entirely compensate for the 9-to-5 doldrums.To overcome them, he drew one of his zanier relatives into the family business to help with some sales and marketing responsibilities. By sharing the duties with a livelier, more outgoing person, the vice president found a way to enliven his own day and feel less lonely at his job. While it's an imperfect solution (he still doesn't like his work activities), it has alleviated a piece of the problem.
Essentially, happiness is the result of active effort. This has also been suggested by Alan Epstein in How to Be Happier Day by Day (1993, New York: Viking). There are things you can do each day to consciously build more satisfaction. If you want to have more fun at work, try out some of his ideas:
- Just for one day, say hello to everyone you meet. Don't avoid people in the hallways, on the elevators or in the rest rooms. Make small talk (or even big talk) with everyone you see.
- Do something completely out of character for you. If you're normally a complete extrovert, close the door to your office and catch up on paperwork silently. Or got the bookstore at noon and read during lunch time.
- Think about someone you admire. Then, take the time to learn more about the person.
- Plan a celebration for an occasion you wouldn't normally acknowledge. A thoughtful friend took the time to send her colleague flowers on the anniversary of her divorce with a short note that read: "Congratulations. You're better off without him."
- Let go of a chronic irritation. Try pretending your boss's voice doesn't get on your nerves. Or that you don't mind your secretary's endless phone chats wither friends.
- Trade roles with someone for a day-you do that person's job and let him or her do yours. (When I was growing up, the Garber twins liked to trick their teachers by switching classrooms. Ellen would pretend to be Carol and vice versa. If you're not a twin, you won't be able to pass yourself off as someone else, but you might get a kick out of handling someone else's duties for a day. Just try not to sabotage the work on their desk.)
- Compliment everyone you see. Try to be sincere. Don't tell the 300-pound delivery man he's looking thinner if he's obviously gained some weight. Instead, tell him you appreciate his efficiency (assuming he is efficient).
- Surprise someone with a present. A law-firm office manager liked to occasionally deck the associates' offices with daisies. It wasn't expensive and added a special festive touch to an otherwise-tense environment.
- Decorate your work space. At Baxter Healthcare's career center, manager Maureen Gold has a bulletin board filled with cartoons. Although job hunting may not be the funniest experience, there are enough spoofs about it to fill an entire wall. When candidates get weary, the cartoons help them laugh at their own situation.
- Have a personal business card made up that dramatizes your life. An insurance administrator in the process of changing careers had cards printed up that read: "future Gemologist." These got her past the hurdle of anonymity, lightened up her networking efforts considerably and made it easier for people to talk wither about her career goals.
- Leave a creative message on your own or someone else's answering machine. Two musicians with beautiful singing voices greeted all callers with a beautiful rendition of "We're not at home, we're not at home" that must have brought a smile to every caller's face.
- Look for the absurd in difficult situations. The day after he lost his job, an AT&T executive in Omaha, Nebraska, decided to serenade his former colleague son their way to work. As they approached the front door with their key cards, he was waiting with his guitar and a tin cup to begin his new life as a street musician.
