It's the season when your phone rings and it's your Aunt Alice
Saying: "Hi dear, I'm just making certain I have your correct address . I'll be sending you one of my my fruitcakes" And politely you say: "Thanks, Aunt Alice It's a tradition of the holiday!"
When the fruitcake comes, although you don't dare eat it as you just know the taste is similar to horse p.....
It sits around the house a few days, until you take the kids to the backyard and through it around some. You then a squirrel has nibbled on it but he died, and then it gets tossed into the trash.
merry Christmas and Happy holidays.
The workplace, is overflowing with Aunt Alice's during this festive season, providing an array of unique
metamorphosed fruitcakes. There's the folks pooling resources to buy a gesture of their faux gratitude for the boss. And the bubbly organizer for the seasonal Secret Santa exchange of gifts, the party planners for the holiday, and the people requesting charity-donations .
Last week, a judicious reader e-mailed me a question that goes directly to the issue and that's: "How do you go about gracefully declining
involvement in this work-place holiday stuff - Holiday Happy Hour, Secret Santa, ,Christmas Potluck - and not offend yours co-workers?"
A quote from Mahatma Gandhi, whose frugalness put him on the bottom rung of the least popular holiday work-place organizers among spiritual heads: "'No' uttered from your deepest fervor is much better than a 'feeble Yes' just to please, or even worse, to stay out of trouble."
I know, it's a profound statement and, around the work-place during the holidays, is pretty much ignored.
We have become a "no"-averse society. We try to please, and we desire people to think highly of us, we tend to steer clear of things which might hurt another person's feelings.
So it is that we pony up more dollars than we desire toward the charity of the boss's choice. And we show up at the holiday party although we'd rather be somewhere else.
No has been pushed far down in our thought reflexes many of us, Many people just go ahead and say 'yes' because they don't want to get into a confrontation. It's much easier to go along with the program. We're all lemmings, and we just buy into every tradition."
However fellow workers, it's a ruse. While it's positively good to interact with company co-workers and participate in a few office events, just simply you do not have to be involved in everything.
A majority of people fear turning someone down as they fear they won't be liked or that they might end up an outsider, Although what really takes place is, for instance when you say, 'I have favorite charities I give to and I just don't have it in the budget for any additional for this year,' then the person doing asking simply moves on to another person. The person asking isn't really thinking of you. What they're looking for is a 'yes' to their event or charity, and when they do not receive it, you are forgotten."
If someone asks you to participate in the annual company exchange of gifts, and you would just as soon be in bed with a starved ferret, just politely say no. If that person holds a grudge over you saying no, well, that person has the issue, not you.
Fallout from saying 'no' is rarely as bad or as big as we perceive it will be, We think hold the belief that will be infuriated with us or never talk to us again, however that seldom happens."
So ask yourself the following questions when trying to decide if you want avoid or participate in something:
- Will I be displease with myself?
- Will I feel pressure to complete it?
- Will I feel resentment toward the person that asked me?
- Will I feel taken advantage of, duped, or swindled?
