Are you happy?
- Justin H
- Nov 8, 2016
- 3 min read
On this historic day, in one of the most divided campaigns in history, we as a people have a choice; one that allows us to express our opinion within the core freedoms of our country. Election day is one that has an ability to validate an individual’s opinion regarding a population (Democrats/Republicans/Independents/Fruit Loops) based on whatever notions they might have regarding that population, while giving the individual a sense of civic duty and personal victory when they express that opinion in their vote.
This blog isn’t about that…
Instead, this post is about company and personal morale. You see, I bring up the election because I’ve always taught (and had an expectation of) the following rule within my company: No open discussions of politics or religion. The key word there is open. There’s something about having a group conversation that gets people worked up whereas in a private setting, a conversation between two people doesn’t have the same effect. Those two topics can quickly make friends or at least friendly associates have an untenable and unworkable relationship if their opinions are strongly opposed. Feelings get hurt, people get unhappy. When that occurs, a second anecdotal but seemingly true (at least to me) thing happens…Misery loves company.
When people are unhappy, they complain. Sometimes they don’t even realize they do it aloud, other times it’s not vocal and instead expressed as body language or work output. Their attitude can permeate an environment, spread like a disease across an office and once happy employees can suddenly become malcontent and complainers themselves. Because attitude is infectious and can spread in this way, once it’s discovered, finding the source can certainly be a challenge, especially if the originator is not one of the more vocal instigators.
Personally, I am all for giving employees second and third chances to turn their attitude around, work towards a compromise on whatever is making that employee unhappy and changing it to see if they adapt and become, if not happy (feelings can stay hurt because memory works like that), at least more content. However, if compromise and coaching conversations haven’t worked, for the overall health of the company and its employees, it may get necessary to cut out that bad seed to let the rest of the fruit prosper. It’s not a fun decision to make, but it’s the right one at times.
I was watching a show just a couple nights ago with my wife on Netflix called iZombie (hilarious and unique, check it out if you like cop dramas AND zombies) and in one of the episodes, they are investigating a death of a business owner. The business this person ran is called Positivity Cafe, and in every scene with the employees of this business, they are universally upbeat and smiling. Without giving too much away about the episode, the coffee shop won the city’s Best Cup of Coffee by a local magazine three years in a row. The business across the street used the same exact bean in the same exact way and prepared the cup in the same exact fashion because the other business was a partner of Positivity Cafe before they fell out. The difference between the two cups? In Positivity, they put some pretty amazing coffee art on the cup like this. Just imagining such a scene in my company, with everyone cheerful and smiling, makes me giggle because I know the personality types here, and some of the smiles would be obviously forced and fake.
But even if it’s fake, wouldn’t it be nice to work in a place where everyone is smiling all the time?
Justin Huereña Staff Blogger
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