What I'm Hearing...Complaining about Co-Workers

This morning I heard that CareerBuilder recently released the results of a survey about interacting with co-workers. Their latest findings suggest that complaining about your co-workers - why is he always on Facebook?, why does she get more vacation time than me? - is a sure fire way to fall out of favor with your boss.

Intuitively, this makes sense. Few people like a whiner or a tattler.

Of course, if the person is commenting on something involving personal safety, the organization's financial well-being, etc., then bring on the commentary. Otherwise, most likely the person on the receiving end of things doesn't want to hear it.

Instead of being pulled down into office discussions, wouldn't a better route be to outshine that co-worker and make your supervisor notice you for the great things you do, rather than the squeaky wheel effect? I'm wondering why someone would opt for the latter approach - baggage from childhood? Insecurity in the job? Something else?

I'm interested to hear your thoughts. I'm sure that at some point we've all worked with someone who frustrated us.

How to Make 2008 Great---Employment Branding

First we link you to our Astronology for this week about Employment Branding: click here

If you're not already signed up for Astronology, make sure to click on that link and do it ASAP

Next, from Yahoo! Finance and US News and World Report, an article about what to do with a boss like Michael Scott from The Office: click here

And here's something that would eternally annoy all your co-workers: click here

What I’m Hearing…The Cubicle Police

We’ve all dealt with them. Co-workers who do things that annoy us while we’re trying to be productive. But what can we do? Rules of polite society prevent us from speaking our minds.

In the current issue of Time Out New York, they decided to do go where we can’t. Click here to enjoy an amusing article where TONY’s police officer Laura Leu combed the hallways at ad agency Young and Rubicam to tackle Internet surfing, smelly lunches, animal décor, and joke forwarding. Have fun, and take comfort knowing you’re not alone!