Your Office Coach ®    Marie G. McIntyre, Ph.D.

Advice on difficult bosses, cranky coworkers, office politics, and career issues.

 

Home Coaching Clinic Ask for Advice Tests & Surveys      

 

 

Bing
Follow officecoach on Twitter

 

PHONE COACHING

For information about a phone coaching session with Dr. McIntyre, see

Career Services.

We also offer

Resume Review

Get information on Dr. McIntyre's book

"Your Office Coach"

Newspaper Column

Check your local paper for Marie's workplace advice column, either in print or online. 

 

 

 

 

Coaching Clinic

 

Lessons in Leadership

Advice for new & experienced managers

 

Office Politics

Handling difficult people & tricky situations

 

Workplace Concerns?
Schedule a personal
phone session
with

Dr. Marie McIntyre
 

 

   

Managing Your Boss

All you need to know about "managing up"

 

Career Success

Strategies to help you succeed at work

 

Coworker Relationships

How to "play well with others"

Job Search Skills

Advice on resumes, interviewing, & more

         

 

Spotlight Topic

 

Coaching Q&A


Do your coworkers cheer you up
or bring you down?

 

Have you ever gone to lunch with an unhappy colleague and returned feeling depressed yourself?  If so, then you may appreciate the findings of researchers at Harvard and MIT, who discovered that emotions actually follow the same model of “contagion” as infectious diseases.  Using data from the Framingham Heart Study, which has followed a large group of subjects since 1948, they found that an individual’s emotional state is clearly related to the emotional state of their friends and acquaintances.

Although this research had a long-term focus, we have probably all experienced short-term mood swings from being around coworkers or friends.  Talking with a sunny, cheerful person can be a real “upper”, but spending time with whiners and complainers will quickly bring you down.  So if you are already in a difficult or stressful situation at work, choose your luncheon companions carefully!  An hour of griping will only make things seem more bleak than ever. 

If your colleagues are unusually aggravating, you may find some help here:

How to Deal with Childish Adults. 

 

 

My employees won't stop squabbling!

 

Q:  I manage a group of four women who bicker constantly.  They are quick to “cop an attitude” and get defensive about stupid little things.

 

To make it worse, I recently hired a young, inexperienced secretary who is very rude.  When anyone tries to instruct her, she comes back with a smart-mouth response.

 

I feel like I’m supervising a bunch of tattling two-year-olds.  I wish they would all just shut up, get along, and focus on work. 

 

Sometimes I plan what I’m going to say about these issues, then I chicken out.  I know I need a stronger backbone, but I'm not the type of manager who likes dealing with conflict.  What should I do?  Tired Supervisor

See Marie's Answer

Previous Spotlight Topic

 

 

Send Us Your Question

··· About Us ··· Privacy Policy ··· Contact Us ··· Legal Information ···

 

Your Office Coach®

Ó Marie G. McIntyreAtlanta, GeorgiaAll Rights Reserved