#Hateyourjob? #Boredatwork? #Helpsomeone

By Irene McConnell (Kotov)

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I came across an interesting article, which warned about the rising number of dismissals happening due to misuse of social media at work.

Apparently, some employees are posting polemics under hashtags #worksucks, #hatemyboss, #calledinsick and #boredatwork (and aren’t getting away with it).

 

As someone who helps people get and keep their jobs for a living, I couldn’t resist digging deeper. Off to the Twittersphere I went and, surely enough, quickly found plenty of colourful examples of such behaviour, which ranged from playful digs at the boss to downright nasty airings of political office laundry.

 

Perhaps my favourite one was this:

 

 

A tweet like this makes me chuckle. However, it also makes me sad. As a small business owner, I am consciously aware of how I spend every minute of my day and every dollar I earn, because I know that each one of those can be leveraged in my business to deliver more value and deliver a more world-class service.

 

The though that someone would wilfully waste work time and increase overheads in someone else’s business is horrifying.

 

But to simply condemn this employee for her actions and call for her sacking would be to miss the point. Sure, a question mark needs to be raised over the person’s ability to do that job, but it also needs to be raised around the person who hired her and who is in charge of setting the company’s culture.

 

If the employee can stand there, jacking up company’s power bill while tweeting about it, what kind of blinkers must her boss have on?

 

I think that, broader still, this trend points to the troublesome relationship we have with work as a Western Culture. For the most part, the default attitude we have been conditioned to have towards employment is, “I need to pay my bills and get recognition - that’s why I have a career.”

 

 

Very few people go to work with a real authentic aim of solving another person's problem. However, in workplaces of the future, I believe that this attitude will be the only way to succeed. Check out this interview Jonathan Fields had with Simon Sinek for a really deep look at this idea:

 

Maybe, as we travel along this path towards more empowering views on work, more people will tweet #lovemyjob and #lovemyboss. Believe it or not, this trend is also on the rise - check it out for yourself!

 

Irene

 

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Irene Kotov runs Arielle Careers, a boutique agency which specialises in personal branding, resume writing and interview coaching for executives and professionals.

 

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