Happy Hour is 9 to 5 by Alexander Kjerulf Read Free Book Online Page A

your country’s next generation.
You write software? You’re helping your customers become more efficient.
You’re a secretary? You’re making your co-workers more efficient and productive.
    It’s difficult to find meaning for some jobs. For example, if your company produces landmines, it may be difficult to find meaning in that. And that makes it harder to be happy at work.
    The following are ways to discover or create meaning at work.
    Where are you contributing?
    We all want to make a difference, and we all love to get results. We all want to know that what we do at work has contributed somehow — that it has meaning.
    To discover meaning in your job, if it’s not already clear to you, ask yourself:
     
Who am I making happy in the company?
Who am I making happy outside the company through my work?
Who is the company making happy? How am I contributing to this?
    George Bernard Shaw had the right idea when he said:
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
    Finding your purpose at work, one you recognise as mighty, is a great way to become happier at work. To paraphrase Shaw, “This is the true joy in work”.
    Make your results visible

    Achieving results makes us proud and gives work meaning. Imagine going to work every day and never really having anything to show for it.
    It’s important to make results visible so that you can see what you’ve achieved. Here are some ways to do it:
     
Keep a to-do list so that you can tick off completed tasks and see how much work you’ve done every day or every week.
Print out a list of finished tasks and hang the list on the department bulletin board. The list showcases everyone’s progress and accomplishments.
Write results on a whiteboard for everyone to see.
Publish statistics on the company intranet.
Hang a bell in the office and ring it every time someone closes a case.
    To any managers who still think that happy employees don’t work hard — you’ve got it exactly backwards. Most people are happy only when they do good work and get great results.
    In September 2006 I asked the readers of my blog what made them happy at work. The top scorer by far was getting results. Here are some of the things mentioned:
     
Seeing something through to completion.
Seeing positive change.
Getting a complex problem to solve.
Creating simple solutions to problems that were believed to be impossible/hard.
Getting things done (finally).
Fixing problems and helping people.
Noticing how my proposals produce positive change once implemented.
    Contribute outside the company
    Great Harvest is a US bakery franchise whose goals are, “Be loose and have fun, Bake phenomenal bread, Run fast to help customers, Create strong, exciting bakeries, and Give generously to others.” They tell the following story on their website:
“When the devastating tsunami struck Southeast Asia in December of 2004, Great Harvest Bread Co. owners Dee and Bernie O’Connor (Lansing, Michigan) decided they needed to do something to help. In less than one week, the O’Connors organized a benefit to aid the survivors of the tsunami, enlisting the help of their crew, their community, and neighbor Drew Kloven, owner of the downtown Lansing Great Harvest Bread Co.
They didn’t know what to expect. While word of their fundraiser had spread and the holiday spirit was still strong, the weather was unpredictable and people’s pocketbooks were drained from the holidays. So when six inches of heavy snow fell on the morning of their event, the O’Connors worried no one would show up.
But at 5:30 a.m. that morning, a stranger pulled into the little shopping strip where the bakery is located. In an act of generosity that would