What Skills Give You an Edge in the Workplace?

Originally Posted by Master-Classter

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learn to read the underlying messages behind what people are saying, what they really mean.. it's related to the point about seeing things from their perspective, but basically it's listening intelligently.

eg, SinnedK, when your boss said "You excited about the staff retreat?", he probably didn't really care if you were excited or not. What he probably meant was "you guys have been really sucking lately, I pushed hard to get some funding for a nice retreat and nobody seems to be giving me and appreciation for it, you're always so miserable around the office can this at least chear you up?"... or something like that... so hear that, and then respond the same way... "Oh yeah, I really appreciate that you guys are sending us on this retreat, it should be fun and I'm sure we'll learn a few good points from it. We're always working together but this will be some good time for the team to get to know each other in a more relaxed environment and I'm sure we'll bond better. So yeah, it sounds like it'll be a good time. How're you feeling about it"... notice the follow up question, the guy's obviously thinking about it and wants to tell someone what he's thinking.

+1

last year my company took all the sales people for a 4 day retreat, with spouses, to aruba. I had reports that bitched about how long a flight it was.

Originally Posted by Master-Classter

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learn to read the underlying messages behind what people are saying, what they really mean.. it's related to the point about seeing things from their perspective, but basically it's listening intelligently.

eg, SinnedK, when your boss said "You excited about the staff retreat?", he probably didn't really care if you were excited or not. What he probably meant was "you guys have been really sucking lately, I pushed hard to get some funding for a nice retreat and nobody seems to be giving me and appreciation for it, you're always so miserable around the office can this at least chear you up?"... or something like that... so hear that, and then respond the same way... "Oh yeah, I really appreciate that you guys are sending us on this retreat, it should be fun and I'm sure we'll learn a few good points from it. We're always working together but this will be some good time for the team to get to know each other in a more relaxed environment and I'm sure we'll bond better. So yeah, it sounds like it'll be a good time. How're you feeling about it"... notice the follow up question, the guy's obviously thinking about it and wants to tell someone what he's thinking.

I think you meant Celery,
i am not the one with social work issues... i am just advising on steps to improve. Nevertheless, your statement is right, the boss wants to bond, see some initiative, maybe improvements, get everyone to work well together and promote harmony, which is usually stumped by negative employees.

Originally Posted by sinnedk

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+1 that is true,

managers don't want to promote people who are negative, but cant fire them either. A negative person at work will pull down the whole dept and cause more ppl to be negative, thus making it harder to manage people and keep morale up. believe it or not these are real issues at work places...

My company does fire people who are negative and they say it publicly

Originally Posted by globetrotter

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+1

last year my company took all the sales people for a 4 day retreat, with spouses, to aruba. I had reports that bitched about how long a flight it was.

OMG that is marsupialed,

Originally Posted by globetrotter

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+1

last year my company took all the sales people for a 4 day retreat, with spouses, to aruba. I had reports that bitched about how long a flight it was.

lol, people

Originally Posted by texas_jack

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You sounds like the stereotypical negative coworker.

Not a fair assessment. I'm quite positive, I just don't lie and I don't try to suck up to anyone. But not everyone likes the truth, just because a cited an example of when my answer was a negative one doesn't mean I'm negative.

The only good thing that comes from being honest is that people know they can trust that I'm being genuine. When the boss was looking for new staff members, he had me sit in on interviews and give him feedback about what I thought. Because he knew that I wasn't going to pull punches when they were bad and I wasn't going to try to discredit them when they were good, and he especially liked that I didn't just give him a useless, "yeah, so and so sounds fine" answer.

So there's a positive example. But at the same time, I'm not his go to person.

Two of my female co-workers come in every morning, go stand in his doorway, bring him donuts and coffee and chat about his family with him. Both of them are not what I would consider stellar employees, one is an outright liar and tries to avoid doing work as often as possible and has made us look bad on more than one occasion. The other (#2) is a gossip, a slow learner, and goes around trying to dig dirt on people. But to the boss, they can do no wrong.

Here's a bittersweet example: Because the boss knows I'm capable and will give him real answers, he had me review multiple procedures in the office and come up with solutions to improve things. So I did. He then implements them and gives the credit to girl #2. I was happy that I helped bring about useful changes, but I got screwed in terms of recognition.

I won't detail my entire working career, but it's not as simple as saying that I'm a stereotypical negative co-worker. I am really bad at office politics, completely inept. So put away your jump to conclusion mat, I'm not going to beat down a copier any time soon.

It doesn't matter what "you are" only what you seem like and from the way you describe yourself you sound like a negative coworker.

Originally Posted by globetrotter

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+1

last year my company took all the sales people for a 4 day retreat, with spouses, to aruba. I had reports that bitched about how long a flight it was.


I don't think I'd complain about that in any way whatsoever. Our retreat is one day in town in an office building (just not ours) near a Whole Foods where we're gonna be able to choose from various workshops like, "Formatting with Word", "Etiquette", and "HR Policy Review".

I really hope you guys weren't thinking that I was boo'ing something awesome.


For our annual "state of the company" address we went to the city aquarium where we had rented a conference room (the aquarium was CLOSED, so no visiting the fishys) so we could hear about how we were doing so far this year. We could have just stayed at work and used our own facilities instead of making people go out of their way to hear the same thing we hear at our monthly staff meetings.

In the corporate and professional world, communication generally and writing specifically. If you can write you will always have a job.

Originally Posted by texas_jack

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It doesn't matter what "you are" only what you seem like and from the way you describe yourself you sound like a negative coworker.

Okay fair enough, perceptions matter and I know that. So may I have some advice on how to change that?

Originally Posted by celery

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Not a fair assessment. I'm quite positive, I just don't lie and I don't try to suck up to anyone. But not everyone likes the truth, just because a cited an example of when my answer was a negative one doesn't mean I'm negative.
The only good thing that comes from being honest is that people know they can trust that I'm being genuine. When the boss was looking for new staff members, he had me sit in on interviews and give him feedback about what I thought. Because he knew that I wasn't going to pull punches when they were bad and I wasn't going to try to discredit them when they were good, and he especially liked that I didn't just give him a useless, "yeah, so and so sounds fine" answer.
So there's a positive example. But at the same time, I'm not his go to person.
Two of my female co-workers come in every morning, go stand in his doorway, bring him donuts and coffee and chat about his family with him. Both of them are not what I would consider stellar employees, one is an outright liar and tries to avoid doing work as often as possible and has made us look bad on more than one occasion. The other (#2) is a gossip, a slow learner, and goes around trying to dig dirt on people. But to the boss, they can do no wrong.
Here's a bittersweet example: Because the boss knows I'm capable and will give him real answers, he had me review multiple procedures in the office and come up with solutions to improve things. So I did. He then implements them and gives the credit to girl #2. I was happy that I helped bring about useful changes, but I got screwed in terms of recognition.
I won't detail my entire working career, but it's not as simple as saying that I'm a stereotypical negative co-worker. I am really bad at office politics, completely inept. So put away your jump to conclusion mat, I'm not going to beat down a copier any time soon.

Didn't mean to make assumptions, just sounded negative from previous post. But i think 2 things come to mind...
1. your boss gives preferential treatment to women
2. even if he doesn't give preferential treatment to women, the 2 co-workers have a connection with the guy, small talk and knowledge of one's family shows they care and make him feel important. which is what most people want.

In effect what happens, those gals probably know they aren't the best, but they got the boss to trust them. thus, they also know that if emergencies happen they will need to come through and will avoid lay offs. Now i am not saying bring the guy coffee and donuts, screw that! But be honest and sincere, relate and get to know him, get him to trust you. But do this slowly not all in one day, just start being chatty. Also make sure it doenst slow down your work or performance. BTW these situations are in the book i mentioned earlier.

A good way to get on the boss' good side and maybe get your recognition is to be a self starter. Ask him for an extra project or if you know there is something he is struggling with, no matter how small, find him a good solution. Basically make his job easier.

And if its about money, go to a different firm that can recognize your skill.

For a math geek, I write exceptionally well. I've drafted letters, proposals, reports, etc for management several levels above me. They request it.

I'm also good at getting big diverse teams together to make big **** happen.

Those are probably the two key skills that pay the bills. Everything else I can do is horribly undervalued.

^ +1 Being able to get **** done is also key. It's amazing how many people cannot do that.

+1

Originally Posted by JoelF

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^ +1 Being able to get **** done is also key. It's amazing how many people cannot do that.

+1