Veb and Byz – good insights.
Lately, I’ve made a conscious effort to be positive. Not to the point of being a pollyanna, but not buying into the general grumbling and whining.
If I disagree with someone making general complaints, they’ll usually backpedal and talk about worse places they’ve worked. They’ll admit that the company is trying, it’s a good place to work, the pay’s good, the benefits are great.
A favorite expression at the plant is “another day in paradise”, and you have to roll your eyes while you say it. And lately, when you ask someone “how’s it going”, they’ll answer “it’s going.”
Everybody’s tired. We didn’t have a shutdown this year, so we have hundreds of new hires who can’t take vacation until next summer. It’s hot. The IT people are stressing some new programs that aren’t working. The payroll clerks expect to work every Saturday, because of computer problems.
The quality people are bummed because our product dropped in the Consumer Reports ratings this year. Most of the salaried people are still fuming because of the new earned-bonus/no-merit-increase policy. But thank God we don’t have time nor money to waste on warm fuzzy seminars. That’d be too much!
And we have new hires from eastern Europe and Mexico who’ve had work experiences that would curdle your custard. It’s all relative. Gives us some perspective. Lightens the load. Makes you feel like a jerk.
Like you said, if it’s really bad, most of us will look elsewhere.
But it’s necessary to vent sometimes too.