# A workplace or wanna improve where you work?



## oivind_dahle (Sep 28, 2011)

I work a lot with enthusiasm management, and Ive learned that enthusiasm is the key performance indicator to success at my workplace.

From this blog: http://www.positivityblog.com/index...asons-to-up-your-enthusiasm-and-how-to-do-it/

Enthusiasm is wonderful. Why?


Off the top of my head, here are four powerful reasons:


It makes life a lot more fun. Feeling unenthusiastic, bored and apathetic isnt pleasurable or fun. It makes life dreary, slow and painful. Enthusiasm on the other hand is like an inner sun that makes life easier, shinier and more enjoyable.

Its attractive to people. Enthusiasm is probably one of the most attractive qualities a person can have. Its a quality that makes you attractive in all kinds of relationship  personal or professional  and its a wonderful quality to find in other people. It tends to make all kinds of interactions and relationships whole lot more fun and with enthusiasm you can fulfil more of the potential of any situation or experience.

Powerful communication. Hail the almighty body language and voice tonality when you want to communicate something. If you are enthusiastic it not only makes you more attractive, it also makes your words and message so much more powerful since when you are feeling enthusiastic then that feeling comes through in your body language and voice tonality. And those two parts of make up over 90 percent of communication.

It gets things done. As Steve Droke says above: enthusiasm is the switch. With enthusiasm things get done and they often get done better and more easily than if you were to muster up the will to do them in an unenthusiastic way.



So here is what I want you to do...
Got a printer? Nice!

Everyday you print out a funny pic and hang it at the same place every day for 2 weeks. Put a text on the pic and make it more personal. And when 2 weeks is over, put a text: "tomorrow mr xx (name of coworker) will post a hilarious pic here" , and the day after mr xx will post a joke so funny you gonna laugh through the whole day, and so on...

see what happens....

For funny pics go on daily pic dump here:
http://izismile.com/
or 
http://en.fishki.net/

Ill bet your workplace will change to the better, all because of you!!


----------



## ecchef (Sep 28, 2011)

Maybe in Norway, Oivind; maybe in Norway. 
Over here, in the good 'ol 1st amendment loving US of A, there's bound to be _one_ assh0le that is offended in some insignificant way or another....and then it's off to sensitivity training and counseling & a bunch of other ********. Guaranteed it will show up on your next performance review, so you can kiss your long overdue raise goodbye. Colleagues and office 'friends' will make themself scarce so as not to be associated with "_that guy_". If you're lucky, you may avoid getting sacked or sued. Think I'm kidding? I've seen it happen. 
Nope...better off just being a miserable prick, like everyone else.


----------



## oivind_dahle (Sep 28, 2011)

Ahhh... Not true 

Research show that enthusiasm and fun among the workers makes more profit than the opposite. Its more likely a customer will come back to an atmosphere that is joyful rather than filled with hate and frustration. We humans can easily spot this, and customer will return to fun places. 

http://www.ccfbest.org/worklife/winningworkculture.htm

Take a look at Google. Fun place to work? 

I challenge you to try one pic at the day, with some cool text  Guess you will see a change


----------



## oivind_dahle (Sep 28, 2011)

And did I mention we in Norway use Pike Place Fish Market as an example?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z_lqcpXAUw


----------



## ecchef (Sep 28, 2011)

Not trying to argumentative....it's just decades of NYC cynicism driving the train.

Many, many years ago I worked for Nordstrom on the East Coast. They tried their damnedist to figure out why their Seattle corp culture wasn't working there. 
The day I left, 4 years later, they still had no clue.:disdain:


----------



## JohnnyChance (Sep 28, 2011)

I agree enthusiasm is a great quality to have in coworkers and employees. But I don't think posting "hilarious" photos from the internet in the work place generates it. Miserable people who hate their jobs will always be that way. Getting an enthusiastic staff starts with hiring the right people in the first place.


----------



## oivind_dahle (Sep 28, 2011)

Its amazing what you can do with just simple things like a photo 
Try it and you will see.

Even at the head office of some of the largest companies in the world they do stupid things like: Pink tuesday, every employee must wear pink. Greeting day, you need to say hello and shake hand with all you meet at the office. Salute day, where you need to salute everybody... and so on...

You can decide what kind of workplace you wanna have. Try it, you will see a difference within two weeks. And if it doesn't work, then move on. Life is to short to spend it at a workplace with ****** coworkers and a job you really hate .)


----------



## macmiddlebrooks (Sep 28, 2011)

JohnnyChance said:


> I agree enthusiasm is a great quality to have in coworkers and employees. But I don't think posting "hilarious" photos from the internet in the work place generates it. Miserable people who hate their jobs will always be that way. Getting an enthusiastic staff starts with hiring the right people in the first place.


 
Ditto this! I'm baffled by why so many of my co-workers obviously don't give a **** about food/cookery. There just there for a paycheck...bummer, but I try not to let it get me down.


----------



## WildBoar (Sep 28, 2011)

oivind_dahle said:


> Even at the head office of some of the largest companies in the world they do stupid things like: Pink tuesday, every employee must wear pink. Greeting day, you need to say hello and shake hand with all you meet at the office. Salute day, where you need to salute everybody... and so on...
> 
> You can decide what kind of workplace you wanna have. Try it, you will see a difference within two weeks. And if it doesn't work, then move on. Life is to short to spend it at a workplace with ****** coworkers and a job you really hate .)


I dunno. Most people I know who work in office environments really dislike when corporate cheerleaders foist stuff like this on their shoulders. It is usually done by companies who otherwise abuse their employees, and continue to reduce their benefits. Nothing worse then having to run to the store to buy something because your boss mandated you have to wear a certain color to work. At the end of the day, employees want to be treated with respect, and like human beings. Ignoring those two things, but mandating they participate in 'fun, team-building exercises' usually just increases the level of worker frustration.

I think it's great that you live/ work somewhere where the culture is different.


----------



## Delbert Ealy (Sep 28, 2011)

I work alone, so I can be as enthusiastic, synical, morose, or even an insensitive prick all I want. 
However, If I take all the above to the extreme here on the board, I may find myself with nothing to do, so I guess coming here is kinda like coming into the office, with a benefit of coming in whenever I want.
So Ovind, feel free to post all the enthusiastic stuff you want here, you might just cheer me just when I need it.
Del

Thanks for posting the izismile link, that made me smile(parts of it anyway)


----------



## ecchef (Sep 28, 2011)

oivind_dahle said:


> Even at the head office of some of the largest companies in the world they do stupid things like: Pink tuesday, every employee must wear pink. Greeting day, you need to say hello and shake hand with all you meet at the office. Salute day, where you need to salute everybody... and so on...









"It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be."

No thank you, my Nordic friend! :disdain:


----------



## Cipcich (Sep 30, 2011)

My response is kind of predictable. Were you and your co-workers afforded an opportunity to _vote_ on whether they wished to participate in this nonsense?
It's nice that your life is so pleasant. Not everyone works in such an atmosphere.


----------



## Cipcich (Sep 30, 2011)

I just couldn't leave it alone. Have you ever had to sit in room and listen to some clown who was promoted to be your superior, whether or not he/she was worthless on the shop floor, because he/she was a relative, or otherwise sucked up to his/her superior, and propose some inane scheme to enhance productivity?
"Pink Tuesday"? Give me a xxxxing break.
There is little actual meritocracy in any industry, and even if there were, by what right would management presume to order workers to dress pink? Only in a workplace where no person had any balls.


----------



## oivind_dahle (Sep 30, 2011)

Fun at workplace makes a huge difference at the bottom line. 66% better bottom line in some cases.

I feel a lot of you guys are angry here, and not willing to have fun. Are you robots?
Im going to have a speech next week, with 300 people listening about a project Ive been running. Its a huge success, and thats because of the fun we had on hour way. In my presentation; Im showing a pic of my dogs. You know the success for us? And have in mind, we are totally different, we don't speak the same language, but we want to succeed. We have fun everyday, when Im at work I look forward to come home to my happy dogs. I truly believe dog owners have a more happy life than those who don't have dogs. Imagine having fun at workplace. WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT WILL MAKE. 

My dogs love when I do crazy stuff, they get involved and we laugh together. Do something different - have fun!!


----------



## Cipcich (Oct 1, 2011)

Robots have jobs. Lots of Americans do not.
That said, I'm trading in my cat for a dog.
Kind of too bad. My cat likes to sit on my Marko cutting board, so I use her whiskers to test my knives for sharpness.


----------



## apicius9 (Oct 1, 2011)

You Norsk people seem to be happy which surprises me because all your fellow nordic people from Finland that I ever met were usually suicidal  but as a fellow European, I have to say that even in a sunny paradise like Hawaii, this would not fly. There ase just too many people here that are totally self-absorbed and don't give a $);() about the work athmosphere as long as they get their pay check. Even as a misantropic and slightly dysthymic German I miss the good work relationship I had with my colleages before I came out here. Of course, the fish stinks from the head down, and if your boss is an ($&hole, the best attempts to improve the morale in the department are difficult and tedious. 

Stefan


----------



## ecchef (Oct 1, 2011)

Ok...there's nothing wrong with fun in the workplace. It does build camaraderie. Anyone who has worked in a pro kitchen will tell you that it's essential to get through those long days that never seem to end. 
It cannot and should not be mandated by management and scripted by some contracted 'expert'. It has to be spontaneous and generated from within the group, and allowed to take on the flavor of the participants. It shouldn't be exclusionary, and there will always be someone who opts out of participation or will attempt to suppress or even ban it to further their own agenda. *BUT*, all it takes is one d0uchebag to run to HR and complain that they're being harassed...then the thought police come, lockdown the operation, and send all involved to Room 101 for behavior modification.

Again, coming from decades in pro kitchens, I can say that we chefs, cooks, and other BOH workers engage in some 'normal' workplace humor that would get us fired in the sterile corporate world. I think it makes us more cohesive because we can go a little beyond the pale.


----------



## Cipcich (Oct 1, 2011)

OK, here we go.
My father taught me to take pride in my work. He especially cautioned me against letting my antipathy for a boss affect the quality of my work. He was right, and I have lived by that advice.
I am tired of having to take orders from supervisors who know nothing. I am tired of having to be polite to cops who were in diapers when I got my license. I am tired of real estate agents. And I am especially tired of corporate cheerleaders. Fortunately, for me, at the age of 61, I am no longer subjected to such indignities (except for a run-in with the occasional doughnut boy).
Get a job, do a job. 
Capitalism in America isn't "make a good knife, sell a good knife". It's as much a dogma as was communism in Russia. When you see some ******* driving down the street in a 500 series Mercedes, it's not because he earned it.
Of course, this kind of thinking is antithetical to the sale of Kramer knives for $20K+ . .


----------



## Salty dog (Oct 1, 2011)

We play a little game called "Name That Band". Once service starts we turn on the radio and I pick someone to name a band. Every time a song is played by that band we all drink. As you can imagine there's a lot of peer pressure when picking a band. Sometimes I'll put on the country station and ask Julio to name the band, all he knows is the Beatles.


----------



## oivind_dahle (Oct 1, 2011)

Nice Salty! Things like that is important 

I guess you guys have fun at work, and I guess your customers feels it as well


----------



## SpikeC (Oct 1, 2011)

At one place where I worked a notice was put up on the bulletin board: "Dark humor is NOT allowed!"
I was ever so happy to leave there.


----------

