Members in the Media
From: The New York Times

How Offices Become Complaint Departments

The New York Times:

There is the ideal life, and then there is life as it really exists. We have various ways of expressing discontent over this inevitable gap, and one of the most common is complaining.

The workplace is no exception. The office is too hot or too cold. Brenda has been making personal calls all day. The boss is making me work on a Saturday. More seriously: that manager is a bully. I think that person’s behavior was unethical. My salary is much lower than everyone else’s.

Imagine a workplace with no complaining at all, and a totalitarian government comes to mind. “If we suppress our dissatisfaction, it will come out in other ways, and it will reduce our cognitive function,” says Sigal Barsade, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who studies emotions in the workplace.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

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