The Glade 4.0

Morale is down, I get that.

Somehow (not sure how I let this happen) I seem to have become the go-to man for ***** and whining about this company, work in general, and folks' jobs. In particular, the three biggest ***** are in the offices on either side of me, and across the hall.

I now work in a nexus of negativity.

I'm good at blowing it off, but it's gotten so bad it's become disruptive to my day and is actually bringing me down a bit. Worse, I've caught myself a couple of times getting sucked in and ***** myself.

This isn't staff - I'm sure they complain, just not to me - it's other managers, WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

I'm inclined to tell them to "stop whining and get back to work", but as tense and touchy as these folks are, it's probably best to come up with a subtler solution.

Here's my plan:

Following the "swear jar" idea, I'm going to bring in a small piggy bank I have at home, write "Negative Nancy Demands a Quarter" on the side, and tell people to pay the pig. I won't display the pig prominently, as that will just be a negative image. At worst, I'll get my coffee paid for. At best, maybe people will get the point without me having to take them to task specifically.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Better ideas?

Why should managers know better?

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Everyone complains to their peer group. They are dumping it on you because they can't bark uphill nor downhill.

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If they're other managers, don't you have like, the ability to call a meeting or something? This is literally turning into an issue that is affecting your work, which you are supposed to recognize and stop! That's what managers do! Tell them to stop being stop *****, and if they need to vent, you're not the one to go to.

Unfortunately, I know the personalities, and I know how that would go.

But yes, that was also my first thought.

I'm sorry you work with people incapable of acting professional

Just make sure there's no one in your office actually named Nancy (or worse - someone named Nancy who's also rather fat)!

There are a few questions that need to be asked:

Are their complaints things that are worthy of complaining about?

If they are then what can you do as a manager to minimize or deflect these things?

If they aren't then you need to get new employees because these are the type who will complain about everything and make everyone around them feel like you do thus dragging down your team.

If they are just complaining about their work problems that are the nature of their work they might be complaining because you keep fixing their problems. Give them information on how to fix their problems and tell them you expect them to be fixed by a given date - set a time to discuss the progress they are making on fixing their problem. Eventually they won't come to you with problems they can fix themselves.

You HAVE to put a lid on that kind of stuff. Has your company done any psych profiling of the employees that you have access to?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

They are legitimate issues, yes - however, complaining solves nothing so I would argue that nothing is worthy of complaining about.



I'd fix the source if I could - I have issue with the same stuff from time to time. As for deflecting it, GTFO of my office is my current plan (nicely).



They aren't on my team. As I said in the OP - other managers.



I think this is the cause. I don't complain (much), I fix problems. When they complain, I tell them how to fix their problem. So, here they come with the next one.

Ok, first of all, are they complaining or are they *****?

***** is good - it's a way of blowing off steam and reducing stress. ***** can usually be identified because it relates to complaints that are legitimate, but are also just part of the cost of doing business, or are too minor to really warrant serious effort to fix. Soldiers, for example, may ***** that the Sergeant Major doesn't allow them to walk across the HQ lawn. While this is petty and silly of him, it's generally a pretty minor issue.

Complaining is when there's an issue that really does warrant effort to fix. It may still be minor, but the defining factor is that there would be a nontrivial improvement to the organization from resolving the issue.

First, complaining obviously solves nothing in and of itself, but it can raise awareness of an issue so that a solution can be found. Generally, most things that get complained (rather than *****) about are worth complaining about. However, it's fair to expect that the complaining itself not become constant or burdensome. If complaining about something becomes excessive, the thing to do is not to tell people not to be "negative"; there's nothing wrong with being negative about things that are negative. We call that realism. The thing to do with excessive complainers is ask them for a (realistic) solution. If they have one, great. If not, the thing to do may be to assign them to come up with a realistic solution before further complaints are entertained.

Second, if they can't come up with a solution (note that asking them to implement the solution is not the same thing; generally that's someone higher ups job than the complainer. If the complainer were the proper person to implement, it would have already happened), find out why. The answer may be that they just don't want to because they like to complain. In that case you're either dealing with *****, or you're dealing with a truly negative person, not just a person who is being negative. Negative people need to be neutralized somehow.

If they can't come up with a solution because their solutions are impractical, they don't understand the underlying or peripheral issues well enough, lack experience, or any of a myriad of other issues, then that probably means that someone else needs to be addressing the problem.

It's reasonable to tell people to quit their complaining becuase you're tired of hearing about it, but not becuase "complaining doesn't solve anything". That's not its purpose. The reason for complaining is issue identification, and just because someone identifies a problem does not automatically make it their job to solve it.

For example, let's say people are consistently getting paid 3 or 4 days late. Telling them not to complain about this because "complaining doesn't solve anything" is bad because that's how you find out there's a consistent pay problem, and also because it tells people you think "negativity" is somehow worse than not getting paid on time. It also would be unfair to tell someone who doesn't handle pay to solve the problem. You have a personnel department for that (even if the personnel department is the boss). Tell them to solve it. Then tell everyone else it's being addressed, and quit complaining about it so much.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I got bug eyes for what is pretty standard practice?

If they don't have them or if you don't have access to them there are plenty of management books that offer a self quiz to assign yourself to roughly one of four worker types. The quicker everyone figures out what they are the better you can all work alongside each other. (Unless your the only one of your type and it conflicts with others without intermediary support which then sucks to be you).

Also - exactly what DE said about complaining - you need people willing to do this in order to find the negatives and flaws in your systems, processes, and people. Without knowing your flaws you cannot know how to prepare as well as you could for the future or to improve from the current.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

If your company is giving you access to employee psych profiles then I am about 98% sure they are breaking the law.

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Nothing illegal about a company stating you have to take a test to see where you map on Meyers-Briggs. Nothing illegal about giving that information to people who manage you so that human resources can be better used, managed, and arranged.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Personality assessment != psychological profile.

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Sorry, I know people swear by them, but if you need a Meyer-Briggs test to tell you how existing employees will get along, you're doing something wrong.

DE: They are typically complaining about legitimate issues. But, they aren't really trying to solve the problem. These are typically issues that are commonplace that they can deal with (example: none of the younger staff ever check their own work before submitting it! Look what so-and-so submitted to me...), or they are issues that I cannot solve but they're just looking for my job sucks camaraderie (example: aren't you sick of all the stupid paperwork we have to do to accomplish X task???).

The only benefit is, like you say, blowing off steam. But, their benefit is to my detriment. Blow off steam in someone else's office. Find an internet forum or something to ***** on.

Not how they get along - how you can arrange their interactions for least conflict and how you can motivate them to accomplish goals.

If all it is at the end of the day is unproductive ***** draw a smiley face on your door and tell them to ***** at that instead of coming in - or get them all stress balls. Their monkey - not yours.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That's "*****" not complaining. People do it. If you don't want it in your office, the best thing to do is probably just to tell them that. The issue isn't that it doesn't solve the problem; it's that you don't like it and find it distracting.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."