Happy Hour is 9 to 5 (4 page)

In other words, satisfaction is how happy you are about your job while you think about how happy you are (which is rarely). Happiness at work is how happy you are the rest of the time while you’re actually doing your job, which is hopefully the vast majority of the time.

That makes happiness much more relevant than satisfaction. Also, there is no way you can energise or excite yourself or other people in your workplace around the theme of satisfaction. “Come on, everybody, let’s make this a workplace where we can all be satisfied with our jobs!” It’s not exactly the rallying cry of the century.

Seriously: do you want to spend your working life simply being satisfied? When you look back on 50 years spent in business, do you want to be able to say, “Well, I was perfectly satisfied”?

No! Make happiness your goal. As in, “Let’s make this a workplace where people are happy to work.” As in, “I’ve been working for 50 years now, and it absolutely rocks! To me work is challenging, stimulating and just plain fun.” It has way more potential and sends a much clearer and more interesting message:

Happiness at work = Exciting. Ambitious. Energising. Fun.

Job satisfaction = Booooooooring!

Happiness at work is something we do

Happiness at work does not come from mission statements, corporate values, white books, committees or workplace policies. It comes from the things you and I do, here and now.

It’s not something we can do tomorrow or next week or next fiscal quarter. Happiness is something you have now — or never.

Happiness at work is not eternal

You can’t be happy at work every day. No matter how much you love your job, there are still going to be bad days. And that’s cool — it’s always OK to have a bad day at work.

But, if the bad days start to mount up, or even outnumber the good, then it’s time to consider what that does to you — and what you can do about it.

It’s 50% about the job and 50% about you

The perfect job does not exist. There is no workplace out there that only has the things you like. There will always be a few boring tasks, a few co-workers you don’t like, a few rude customers, a few unpleasant managers.

If your plan is to be happy at work as soon as your work and your workplace are perfect and trouble-free, you will never get there. And if you did you’d probably be bored out of your skull.

Happiness at work is not about eliminating all the bad stuff from your job. It’s about being happy at work even though some of those bad things are present. It’s about building up your skills and your energy to fix the problems, and to create more and more positive experiences at work.

Happiness at work looks different on different people

One of the very first Happiness at Work Workshops I did was for the Scandinavian logistics department of a large American car manufacturer. At the end of the workshop I asked the participants to share their thoughts, and one gentleman in his 50s stood up to speak. He was formally dressed in a suit and tie (the only one in the group) and with his grey hair and glasses he looked every bit the accountant. Which in fact he was.

He’d been very quiet throughout the workshop, but now he stood up to address the group. He paused for a moment, “I want all of you to know,” he said in a sombre voice “that I’m not as unhappy as I look.” The room erupted in laughter.

The serious face, the sombre voice, the quiet demeanour and the formal manner — that’s how this man looked when he was happy at work.

Happiness at work does not necessarily mean running around ecstatically all day long. You can sit at your desk, quietly doing your work, and be discreetly happy. You can be sitting in a hectic meeting, arguing forcefully for your point of view, and be happy.

However, it pays to express your happiness at work, because:

1. The more your happiness shows, the more you spread it to others.
   
2. The more you express your happiness, the stronger it becomes inside you. If you hold your happiness in and never express it, it gradually dissipates. Express it clearly and visibly and it gets stronger and lasts longer.
   

While some people believe that you must be serious at work — in your speech, your clothes, and your demeanour — I disagree completely. There is no reason that you can’t be highly professional and really good at your job and at the same time show that you’re happy and energised.

Happiness at work is possible in almost every job

Some people think that it’s only possible to be happy in certain kinds of jobs — those fun, creative ones. This is simply not true. You see many unhappy people in supposedly fun professions, and many happy people with supposedly unpleasant jobs, like sewage workers or funeral directors.

So happiness can be found in most jobs. The one exception to this rule is working in companies that are unethical or make products that are bad for people or the environment. If your work actively contributes to making the world worse, that will make you unhappy. Let’s say your workplace makes land mines. Will that make you happy? I hope not!

Anyone can be happy at work

That’s right, anyone! Happiness at work is not only for people with fun, creative jobs. It’s not the prerogative of managers and executives. It’s not limited to the highly paid and the powerful.

Any person who chooses to be happy at work and then does something about it can go from, “Oh crap, it’s Monday, I have another week at work ahead of me,” to “Yes! It’s Monday! I have another week at work ahead of me!”

Happiness at work starts with a choice

“Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.”

— Stephen Covey

Do you know someone who seems to have given up on happiness at work? Someone who has accepted that work is bad, that this won’t change, and who has now chosen simply to survive rather than try to improve their situation?

The path to happiness at work starts with a simple decision: you must want to be happy. If you don’t commit to being happy at work, you won’t be. You won’t make the choices that make you happy. You won’t take the actions needed to get there. You won’t change the things that need to change.

On the other hand, if you say, “Yes, I choose to be happy at work and to do what it takes to get there.” then things will start to happen. Just making that decision won’t magically make you happy — but it must be the starting point.

And something interesting happens when you decide on happiness: you take charge. When you decide to become happy at work and to do the things necessary to get there, you’ve put yourself in charge of your career and your work situation. You’re no longer dependent upon the whims of your manager, co-workers or workplace.

You don’t need to make this decision right now. Read this book and then think about how your life would be different if you were happy at work… Let’s start with a look at what it takes to become happy at work.

2. What makes us happy at work?

On paper, Maria’s new job had it all: a financially successful organisation, interesting tasks, an impressive salary, cool offices, a French chef, a gym, free fruit, massages, and a view out of her office window that took your breath away.

Maria is an easy-going, attractive woman in her forties with a broad business background, but even in her first month at the new job she noticed that things were very wrong. As wealthy as the organisation was, it still completely lacked human and social values. The workplace was plagued by distrust, infighting, slander, backstabbing, sexual harassment, a lack of respect, repression, and veiled threats.

She spent the second month in her new job pondering how she could change things. By the third month Maria realised that she probably wouldn’t be able to change much and that she might easily get crushed trying. She quit without having found a new job.

Maria is now a publishing editor and is also responsible for HR and the work environment at her new workplace. Her salary is much lower, but her quality of life is much, much higher, and she told me: “I’m now a believer when it comes to happiness at work, and want to help spread the happy message.”

While all the traditional trappings of a good job don’t hurt, they’re just not enough. As Maria’s story shows, it doesn’t matter how nice your office is, how large your salary is or how good the food is if the mood at the company is bad.

Some of the things we strive for at work — the title, the salary, the perks — aren’t really the things that make us happy. I’m not saying that a high salary will make you unhappy (at least, that never happened to me!) but it won’t necessarily make you happy either.

Many people think that it’s the job itself that matters most; that as long as they can get their dream job, they’ll be fine. “If I can just find work as a doctor/teacher/builder/photographer/etc., I’m sure I will be happy” they seem to say. But often they’re wrong, because it’s really not about the job very much. The perfect job does not exist.

Chris is a travel journalist who gets to travel to all the best resorts and travel destinations in the world, and try out the best restaurants and hotels. You have to admit, that sounds like really nice work, and when I met him, my first thought was naturally, “How can I kill this guy and get his job!” But the truth was, Chris wasn’t that excited about it, because he never really got to enjoy his travels. He had to eat dinner in 4 or 5 different restaurants in one night. He had to visit 3 or 4 different hotels a day and could never relax in any of them. He also had to travel a lot and the endless plane rides soon became a boring chore to him.

On the other hand, I once talked to Peter, a sanitation worker (a few years ago he would have been called a trash man or bin man) who absolutely loves his job. Peter has to get up at 4 in the morning, but that also means that he is finished by noon and has the rest of the day off. He enjoys working outdoors, he has a great time with his co-workers on the garbage truck, and he likes doing a great job and helping people out.