by Emily Alexa

Created on: August 12, 2009

I worked for a company where negativity was king. Positive comments and praise were far and few between. They always felt the need to point out mistakes and complaints. I never once heard about how we did a good job or someone was happy with our level of service. The second a complaint would come in, it would immediately be posted up in the operator room on the dry erase board, staring at you throughout your shift. These comments did not make the employees feel the need to "step it up". In fact, it did quite the opposite. It made them angry and made them want to do bad. It also made them care less and less about their job. What kind of work environment is that? I can tell you, it is a miserable one. I understand the concept that clients will complain and there are days when an employee is not giving a stellar performance, but, it is not in the best interest of the rest of the employees to start posting one complaint about one employee as a general complaint that everyone's performance is terrible. One time the company lost a client, immediately a nasty memo was posted about how horrible we were and that we didn't handle the account properly and they were dissatisfied with the service. This got everyone so angry it caused more and more tension within the office. Ultimately, it turned out the company's claims were false and they just blamed the operators as an excuse to get out of their contract. There was no apology posted. At that point, an apology would have been too little too late. The damage was already done. The employees were on the road to being fed up with being treated like garbage.

Negative feedback is so much easier to hand out than praise apparently. Life in general is like that, it is not just in the workplace. So much negativity surrounds us. When you read the news you don't read about many good things, the majority of the headlines are negative. It's no wonder there is a rise in anti-depressants being prescribed. All of this negativity is taking its toll in society. How much more can a person take? People are only so resilient. Some people handle bad news better than others, but everyone has a breaking point. Depression can set in, a person may lose their job over it, a person may even commit suicide if they slip into a deep depression. We are surrounded by negativity practically 24/7. Yes in reality the world is not all peaches and cream, but, some good news can go a long way. People are so afraid to say something nice to another person, they won't even look at another person or even smile. Would it hurt to smile? I personally am a very negative person. I dwell on the bad side of most things and expect things to go from bad to worse. Because I am the way I am, it effects my self esteem and over all outlook on life. I am sure it effects family too. There has to be a break in this chain. Maybe if I had not been hearing negative comments most of my life I would be a different person.

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