Judi James - The Office Jungle

The Office Jungle

The Survivor’s Guide to the Nylon Shagpile of Corporate Life

JUDI JAMES

Cover

Title Page The Office Jungle The Survivor’s Guide to the Nylon Shagpile of Corporate Life JUDI JAMES

Introduction

PART I – STRENGTHS, LIMITATIONS AND AMBITION

1 Starting With You

2 Do You Hate Your Job?

3 Are You Being Stereotyped?

4 Targets and Objectives

5 Over the Barricades

6 The Skills of Fuzzy Logic

7 My Company Does … What, Exactly?

8 Handling Stress

9 Office Rage

PART II – HOW TO …

10 How to Communicate and Be Heard

11 How to Deal With Difficult People

12 How to Manage Your Time 107

13 How to Manage Perfect Toilet/Lift Etiquette

14 How to Handle Sex in the Office

15 How to Handle Office Politics

16 How to Deal With Bullying and Power-Posturing

17 How to Market Yourself in the Office

18 How to Look As Though You’re Working Hard When You’re Not

19 How to Lie Effectively

20 How to Meet and Greet Company Clients and Visitors

21 How to Juggle a Career and a Home Life

22 How to Survive the Corporate Lunch

23 How to Survive the Corporate Training Course

24 How to Survive the Office Party

PART III – WHAT TO DO IF …

25 What to Do If You Want to Kill Your Boss

26 What to Do If Your Boss Hates You

27 What to Do If You Want a Promotion

28 What to Do If You Want a Rise

29 What to Do If You Are Going to an Interview

30 So Where Do I Go From Here?

Index

About the Author

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Survival in the workplace requires an altogether disparate array of talents from those required to be merely competent at your job. To subsist, and even flourish, in the business environment you must be Confident, possess Interpersonal, Communication and Presentation skills and be proficient in Self-marketing and Assertion, as well as having a hefty dollop of Grade ‘A’ Animal Cunning in your genetic make-up.

It’s these Seven Great Secret Skills – the lifeblood of resourceful corporate existence – that this book aims to teach you.

Trapped in the Shagpile

Of course you are an idealist at heart. You want the best for yourself and you want the most out of your career. Eyes afire with ambitions and objectives, you have your sights set firmly on the window of opportunities – while your feet lie trapped in the grubby, nylon shagpile of political intrigue and emotional in-fighting that still carpets most modern workplaces.

Marketing Strategies

Your talent and career potential are not worth the paper they’re written on if no one at work is aware of them. To sell your capabilities you must first sell yourself, no matter what your qualifications and existing job-level. To market yourself effectively, however, you may decide a little Product-Tinkering is warranted first.

Being Realistic

You’re going to study your aims and objectives. You’re going to be positive about achievements and action plans, but you’re not going down the happy-clappy path to self-enlightenment. You’re not going to finish this book feeling that you’ve tapped in to unlimited inner super-powers that you were previously unaware of.

What you are going to be, then, is realistic: realistic about your objectives and realistic about the amount of time and work you intend to put in to achieve them. You know you could be Master of the Universe if you could only acquire the necessary level of focus. But maybe you want a life as well as a job. This book is not about creating resolutions that deep down you know you’ll never have the energy or application to accomplish.

Role Ambiguity

As an increasing number of companies pare down their staff to the point of corporate anorexia and beyond, in an attempt to stay solvent, so the defining lines of role and task fade into fuzzy ambiguity.

There is a similar cosy comfort to be found in role-clarity as there is in easing on the same old pair of slippers each night. You know what to expect of them and they – pretty much – know what to expect of you.

Some firms trade on a hierarchical pecking-order, using terms like ‘Fee-earners’, ‘Non-fee-earners’ or ‘Support Staff’ to keep everyone tucked in their place. Current trends, though, are moving towards redefinition – which aims at role flexibility and open-mindedness.

This ambiguity can lead to an increased workload – but, remember, it also means a sudden renegotiation of exactly what’s up for grabs, and for whom. It often signifies a shattering of traditional barriers, leaving the door open for you to reach your full potential in your career.

Curry Sauce

Then there are the people you have to work with. Office work without people is like chicken without the tikka sauce. Your colleagues add spice and flavour to the day’s tasks – but, unfortunately, they can also give you indigestion.

Playground Politics

It’s a fact of corporate life that most of us are still the same squabbling, jealous, terrified, demanding, territorial little brats we were at school. It’s just that some of us have learnt to mask or curb our rawer emotions in an attempt to appear user-friendly and businesslike. That doesn’t mean to say we still don’t feel the same when something goes wrong, or even react the same when we feel we’re being cornered.

At work we become driven by a heady mix of hierarchical needs that include money, status, power and territory. If you doubt the territorial theory try asking a colleague to move their desk a mere inch to accommodate some equipment of your own – and then sit back to watch the fur fly.

Jekyll and Hyde

Everybody changes when they set foot inside their business premises – and not always for the better, either. But then this is part of the fun of your job.

Round up any random assortment of suits – throw in a few misfits, oddballs, psycho- and sociopaths – call them a team and given them a task to do that they don’t really understand, explained to them by people who don’t really know what they’re talking about, push them into an overcrowded environment to breathe recycled, regurgitated, thematically modulated air, stir in a little paranoia courtesy of rumoured redundancies and take-over bids and – bingo! You’re looking at all the wonderful, breathtaking drama, intrigue and crises that constitute modern corporate life.

Before you begin studying career-related problems and hurdles, it’s vital you have a good understanding of yourself. You are the product we’re marketing. Without a solid idea of your own core values, objectives and ambitions it’s impossible to compile an effective action plan.

As the volume of your work increases, so the amount of time available for self-study diminishes. As soon as you wake up on a working day the pressures and deadlines you face are mainly business-driven. Your personal and professional self-perception may be affected by the same external influences.

If you are good at your job you will see yourself as a successful person. If your work receives criticism your confidence may droop. Your business targets might possibly be set by someone other than yourself. Sometimes your expectations of ambition, pleasure and even happiness will all be externally influenced.

From the day you were born you listened to other people telling you what you are like and what you can or can’t do. Small babies will react to the tone of a parent’s voice even when they don’t understand the words. Other animals will be the same. Tell your cat it’s stupid – but in a warm friendly voice – and it will purr happily. Shout the same thing and it will run off, scared.