1. Your company is not making money – Ok this is to make you feel better only.  Everyone in the company is not getting a good bonus this year.  Therefore, do not feel bad about it because you are not the only one.  Especially in a recession, when companies are feeling the threat of poor business or even closing down, you should feel fortunate that there is some form of reward in this period.
2. Your company is plain stingy about performance reward – Ok, now if the economy is good and everyone is making money.  Your company is making money as well.  But your reward is not fantastic at all even in these good times.  Now that is unreasonable.  They company do not really appreciate the hard work the employees have put in.  If that is the situation you are in, it may be time to find another company that rewards you accordingly.
3. Your manager just does not appreciate your work – Tough luck on this one.  Your manager is that type that doesn’t appreciate your work.  What you had been doing for the past one year is nothing but plain work to do them.  It is a job to them and that doesn’t mean anything to him.  There are two ways to work about this.  First, is to really understand your manager thoroughly and find out the things that are important to him, and work on those things instead!  That is, pin-pointing to what he wants and deliver it to appeal to him.  Second, if this is how your manager functions as a leader that does not appreciate his employees, it’s time to update your resume and make plans for your career.
4. You offended your manager in the past – This is another manager problem.  You may have offended your manager in the past in some way or another.  Example, you disagree of his proposal in front of the customer, or you overwritten his decisions on certain task and it turned out working better than what your manager proposes.  These managers are generally narrow-minded and do not see that you are able to contribute to the organisation.  They see their personal interests immediate.  If this is the case, our advice is for you to get a new job instead.  It is meaningful to work under him as he will always be basing on his personal interest instead of yours or the organisation when he makes any decisions.

These are some reasons that you are not getting a bountiful bonus than your peers.  However, at times, everyone in the company gets affected due to economic situation, market outlook, poor business or bad profits.  What’s worst is an under appreciative manager that treat you as pure labour without giving you the right rewards for your effort throughout the year.  Getting to understand these factors may make you feel better.  However, if things are within your control, take charge of it and make plans for a bountiful bonus the next coming work year.

Being an over meticulous boss is sufficient to score an annoying point.  Being overly micromanaging the team is a sure walk over for most staffs under him to give him the red card!  However, unknowingly to these management, they can be annoying from another set of criteria.  Are they being stubborn to ideas or clueless of what’s going on in the organisation?  Or are they being too personal and self-centred of themselves that leaved their staff feeling annoyed?  Find out more with our continued part two post here!

• “What’s going on” bosses – This type of bosses do not have any clue of whatsoever is going on in the organisation.  They just live the day as it is and doesn’t plan for tomorrow.  In the first place, how did he become the boss?
• Being stubborn – These bosses just resistant to any suggestions from the ground.  They believed what they said are always right.  They reject ideas from the staffs.
• Avoiding things that are critical to the entire productivity of the organisation – The staff have pointed out critical improvements to the process to the overall productivity of the organisation.  However, the bosses are resisting accepting the new proposals.
• Shifting non-valuable work to the staff – Admin work are shifted to the staffs to do.  You do not have a choice if you are the admin staff.  However, if you are not, are you loosing the chance to do better things out there?
• Taking credit for staff’s work – This is the worst thing that can happen to a staff.  Their credit is being taken away by their boss.  What’s worst, not a single appreciation and acknowledgement is given to the staff.  The staff may consider resigning the job!
• Keep talking about their family stuff – Self-centred series number one.  The topic circles around whatever happened in your boss’s family.  Such as kids going to school, how smart are the kids, how adoring is your house pet, how good is the nanny, etc.  Please refrain from doing this, you will only bored people down.
• Keep talking about their experiences on (not anything) everything – Self-centred series number two.  The topic circles around how good the boss is at handling things, how he learn things so fast, how he developed the new process that shaped the organisation, etc.  The staff will know how good you are by working with you and not by hearing your stories
• Keep cracking cold jokes – Please do not torture your staff with cold jokes.  They are put into the position to patronise your stupid jokes.  Give them a break on this!  If it isn’t funny, don’t even mention it.  Your staff won’t be in a fix to find some means to respond to the dumb jokes.

If you are such superior, it’s time to review yourself as a superior.  This goes for those who often take credits away from their staff!  Give gratitude and acknowledge your staff’s work.  Reward as and when needed.  If you like to blabber about your own stories, remember that the other party may not be really interested in what you are saying.  Find someone that is interested to hear it instead.  This will at least bring the annoyance level of your staff down!

What are the things that bosses do that drives the staff mad?  There will be complains about bosses being too meticulous at work which cause unnecessary overhead on the staff.  Staffs are made to work late or be always on their toe in order not to be penalised.  The problem of over-supervision will create unnecessary overhead to you and your staff and no productive output is created in the process.  Find out more today if you are doing things that are annoying your staff!

• Check your grammar mistakes (not your report content) – one of the most annoying things that a boss can do is become an English teacher.  They like to do checks on grammatical mistakes and enjoy plucking each problematic grammar made.  Come on, be more productive and work on the content!  If they like to check on grammatical mistakes, its best for them to have a career in teaching then what he is doing now!
• Check your language structure of your reports – This is acceptable at least then being an English teacher.  The important thing is that its objective that someone counterchecks the work before it gets sends out to senior management or the public.
• Enforcing working culture, styles and ideology to their staff – The boss always emphasizing that their work style is the best effective method in the world.  Come one, there is no best effective method!  There is only the best effective method that works for the individual.  The boss working style may work for him (at his level) but may not be applicable to the others!
• Enforcing timeliness of attendance at work – That is, you must reach office by 9 am in the morning.  Not later than that or else you are screwed.  You can only leave office only after 6:30pm.  Not earlier than that or again you will be screwed.  There will be no room for excuse if you are late and there will be no room for discussion for leaving early.  This creates unnecessary stress to his staff for rushing to work and having to arrange and abide to the work timings in the office.
• Being the police officer and checking on everyone – The boss assumes the role of a police officer.  He patrols your cubicle and watches your every activity.  He goes to every corner of the office to locate where you are if you are not present at your desk.  You get penalised for taking too much time at the pantry seeping coffee or having a casual discussion with the girl from the accounting department.  Of course, not mentioning if you happened to be checking your personal mail from Hotmail too!  Nobody wants to be watch over like an inmate, relax a bit and give your staff some room to breath!

If you are such a boss or superior, you’ve got to chill out a bit!  Micromanaging your staff in this way will only hurt you in the long run!  You are not ensuring productivity being created.  Through these processes that you put in place, you enclose your staff to work in a restricted environment (like pigs in pig farms).  You created more overhead for yourself by always performing these micromanaging tasks.  You’ve also created overhead for your staff for always having the need to abide to your micromanaging work style.  In the long run, they get tired of it; morale lowered and may eventually leave you.  Is this what you want to achieve?

1. Are you unhappy because the job is not what you want? – Simple, this is not the job that you truly dreamed off.  End the misery early by finding something you like.  Avoid hanging in this misery for too long!  You will continue to be miserable if you hold on to it.
2. Are you always doing the “dirty” work? – You are always been given tasks that are of low value operational work.  You are not given tasks that are of high value instead you are always assigned to those meaningless jobs…
3. Are you being rejected for all your training proposals? – Whatever training proposals that you made to the boss are always rejected.  What’s worst is your peers are entitled for the course while you stay in the office to clear his plate of work!  Favoritism at its best again?
4. Are you not appreciated by your boss? – Whatever results you delivered is just not up to the boss’es expectation.  They brush you off with insignificant remarks.   They don’t really see the effort you put into your work.
5. Are you lowly paid compared to your peers in the market? – If the salary you are getting is not comparable to what the market is offering, it’s really time to move on.  You can wait for as long as you want, but what you need maybe a fatter salary package to feed your family, pay the mortgage and the car now!
6. Are you always blame for anything and everything? – Whatever things that happened, you are always blamed.  What’s worst is even you have made significant contributions or have been performing positively but is still blamed for minor details at work.  Is your boss finding all avenue to piss you off?  Or is there some short-circuit mechansim in their brain that they need to pinpoint your every mistake?
7. Are you at the losing end of favoritism? – You are always given unfair treatment.  You are not on par with the other colleagues when it comes to welfare and career progression.  You are always not considered for anything important except to work on simple, non-strategic work.  Guess what, you are not being favored by your boss!

If what these are you are experiencing at work, it maybe time to update your resume.  The world is round and there are lots of opportunities up there.  Again, we are always being make believed to be a better worker in office but not many advocate to leave the organisation if you do not like it.  Take this piece of advice as a note and see if it can be planned and applied in your context.

1. Make your workplace look attractive and pleasant to you — The typical workplace corporate environment are cubes after cubes of employees.  Come to think of it, it looks like a chicken farm where the chickens are sitting inside the cube.  The professional looks that the executives have planned for are usually dull, grey and lifeless.  If this is affecting you, change the workplace and make it look attractive, that you are proud of it, that you will come in every morning with a lighter feeling.
2. Remove the clutter – You will feel more relaxed with nothing on your work desk.  A work desk with minimal items make you feel refresh, like a new beginning everyday.  However, we have to say that some of us would feel more relaxed with things hanging around on the desk!
3. Add green stuff – Add plants.  Add things that are green or resembles the green foliage.  Greenery releases tension in our mind.  It brings peace and calm to our mind.  Greenery also helps to ease the strained eye. Your eyes had been staring at the computer screen for the entire day; it needs its share of rest!
4. Make the place smell good – Bring a scent that you like.  You do not want to smell the cardboards, wires, or the smell from the computers?  Give some refreshing smell that you are comfortable with.  Of course, you will have to be sensitive to your neighbour’s nose as well.  Before you put on any smell, be sure to check with them if they are comfortable with the new smell. J
5. Play relaxing music – Play music that sooths your mind and soul.  A calm mind will allow you to work better.   For me it’s instrumental jazz and classical music.  I’ve the tendency to listen to the lyrics closely and will lose my attention and focus of my work.  However, that will still be dependent on each individual.  Some are even more comfortable to hip hop or heavy metal!

1. If you are unhappy on the compensation and money issue, and you feel that the company is not going to properly compensate you no matter how many times you approached them, then its time to get a new job.  You can get a higher paying job if you have the capabilities and not limit yourself to the current one!  (Unless you lack the capabilities and you demand a higher pay).
2. If you are not on your boss’s list for fatter bonus or progression, then take a look around and make a healthy comparison with co-workers that are receiving one.  Are they really better than you in terms of performance and results delivery?  OR are there expectations and targets that they are able to meet, and you are not aware of and fail to meet.
3. If it’s the lack of leadership, appreciation, favouritism and poor judgement that is causing the grievances, you might consider changing a department, another job or the most direct, practical and effective method is to create a reporting structure that you directly reports to your boss’s immediate superior.  In this way, you are no reporting to him and thus empowering you.  Another note is that, he has to be wary now that you are under his boss’s protection too!
4. If it’s the boot-licking and politicking activities your boss indulges that left you disgusted and unhappy, we would suggest giving your boss the benefit of doubt first.  Observe to see if your boss does such activities for his own interest or the entire team’s interest.  If it is on his own interest, then its time to move on.  If it’s for the team, you may feel disgusted but it’s for the good cause for everyone.  Sometimes you will be surprised with bosses that do that for the team!
5. If it’s the bureaucracy and red tapes that is blowing your mind away, then you have two options.  One of them is to foster another set of thinking that bureaucracy and red tapes are necessary for the organization (such as banks and financial institutes).  The other, is to change your job that has more freedom.  Especially when these red tapes are procedures that restrict your career progression.  But think thoroughly before you do that.  The short term desire for freedom may not be wise in the long run!

1. Your company disallow internet access at work.  You can’t surf the web for research.  You won’t even be able to use it for personal relaxation or make an air ticket reservation.
2. You are unable or disallow to use the instant messenger at work.   (We do not understand why you need to use the instant messenger at work as it can decrease your productivity in the first place…)
3. You do not like your boss’s dress sense (totally outrageous!)
4. You cannot work from home! It’s your dream to lie on the couch, having the aromatic coffee and firing your emails away.  But nope, fat hope!  You can’t do that.
5. You have to abide to the break hours.  One hour lunch break means one hour lunch break.  No more than that!
6. You do not have overseas trip!  You are always not in the list of overseas assignments.…
7. You are constantly tracked on your activities at work, including the places you visited or the sites you surfed from office.  You hate being tracked.
8. You are annoyed with the intrusion of privacy.  The company is tracking all your activities and your profile constantly…

Sometimes, such impractical stuff is reasons why employees leave the company.  It’s totally different from the practical reasons.  Maybe you feel unhappy at work because of one of these reasons too.  If you are the employer or manager, you may want to talk and observe your employees on their unhappiness.   Is it as described here?  Is it worthwhile to keep them in the first place?  Food for thought! J

1. You feel that there is a high level of favoritism in the work place and is working at your disadvantage.
2. You do not like the competition at work and you can’t keep up the pace with other co-workers.
3. You do not like the work environment due to a competitive culture that promotes defending each individual’s premises and interest.
4. You are working in an environment with colleagues that belong to the two-headed snake cult.
5. You are working in a work environment that does not satisfy your hunger for challenges.
6. You are working in a work environment that restricts your progress through their rules and regulations.
7. You do not like the industry.
8. You do not like the culture of the company where they demand you to work your entire life and soul for them or even die for them!
9. You do not like the scope of work
10. Your scope of work changes over time without your consent
11. Your boss do not have any interest of you in mind
12. Your boss demands you to work like a machine
13. You are working long hours as your boss is treating you like a machine
14. You are underpaid even you are working long hours and overtime
15. Your health is deteriorating because of the long hours of work
16. You are working with a lot of unfriendly customers and users that are demanding.

Have any of the above answered your question of unhappiness in the office?  Or if you are an employer or manager, do you feel the negative sentiment at work and these are the reasons behind this negative sentiment?

1. You are (or you feel) underpaid as per what the market rate is offering.
2. You feel that you are not compensated as per what the title or position you are holding should be given.
3. You feel that you should be given a better performance bonus after a year end appraisal review.
4. You feel that the company should be giving a better organisation performance bonus because of the increased sales orders however they didn’t.
5. You feel that office politics is intoxicating the entire organisation at all levels (even at senior management level) and you are sick of it.
6. You are not doing something you like at work.
7. You are forced to do something that is against your principles
8. You do not have the freedom to choose what you can work on
9. You do not like bureaucracy and red tapes
10. You feel the entire system is unfair
11. You feel your boss is unfair
12. Your boss lacks judgement
13. You feel that you deserved better appraisal
14. Your boss lacks leadership and unable to give you clear directions of the team.
15. Your boss does not appreciate your effort and suggestion
16. Your boss is a boot-licker to his stakeholders such as his superior and his customers which he can do things that are dignity defying and against your principles

Have any of the above answered your question of unhappiness in the office?  Or if you are an employer or manager, do you feel the negative sentiment at work and these are the reasons behind this negative sentiment?

1. One point per slide – No more than that!  It gives clear and concise of what you intend to inform your audience.  Additional unrelated information will only confuse your audience.
2. Do not clutter your slide content – Do not dump everything on the small slide.  Also avoid putting charts and graphs into the slides.  The amount of content should be kept at minimal but delivers impact.
3. Add good quotes – Remember you are telling a story.  Good quotes help to reinforce stories.
4. Be sensitive to gender differences – Males and females have different understanding of subjects and some jokes or issues can be offensive.
5. Be sensitive to racial differences – Different races have different cultures.  Understand them and be sensitive to it.  DO NOT make fun of other race at the minimum!
6. Always prepare surprises – Just imagine the audience hearing the same thing over and over again.  Pretty exciting right?
7. Summarize your story from time to time – Always summarize your story to reinforce what you have initially proposed.
8. Include action items – If you are proposing actions, be decisive and inform your audiences that what will be immediately started and accomplished after this meeting.
9. Admit if you do not know something – Yes be frank! Honesty works better than you trying to avoid directly answering your audience doubts.
10. Remember you want to win their heart and mind! – Exert as much positive influence on your audience to your proposition as possible.
11. Be emotional even data is imperative! – Again, be sensitive to your audience.  Although you have tons of data and facts for your presentation, but you cannot ignore the feelings and emotions of your audiences.
12. Get support from the “customer” – Consider getting support from the audience.  The audience will feel closer to you if they have someone they have acquaintance with.  The closer the better!
13. Be precise on your schedule – All the schedule and deliverables stated must be clear and realistic!!
14. Compromise appropriately – Do not get into any argument with anyone in the presentation.  It’s more important to complete your presentation then a verbal brawling.
15. Keep up with recent events – This will give you more credibility on your experience in the field and makes your presentation more credible.