Never Complain About Workplace Unfairness — Choose a Broad Minded Response (3)
Rule Three: Respond to the other person's questions with appropriate action. When someone engages you in conversation, they are seeking some tangible information, hoping to persuade you to change your viewpoint, or yearning for your comfort and understanding. At such times, you should take suitable action: for example, if a colleague shares a work bottleneck with you, offer any helpful suggestions you have, or provide relevant books or tools if you can. This is the best way to answer them.
Rule Four: Don’t pretend to understand when you don’t, don’t act as if you’ve heard something when you haven’t, and don’t shirk the responsibility of conversation. As a listener, no matter the situation, if you don’t understand what the other person means, you should let them know that you haven’t understood.
Rule Five: Observe the other person's expressions. Much of communication happens nonverbally, so you must not only listen carefully but also pay attention to changes in their facial expressions—watch their eyes, notice their tone and pitch, and observe shifts in their speaking speed.
Open your heart and calmly accept everything that work brings.
“The grass is always greener on the other side”—this seems to be a universal mindset. Nowadays, some white-collar workers always feel their jobs are not ideal and hope to find a more satisfying position. For example, when chatting with friends, it’s rare to hear anyone say they are completely satisfied with their salary or work situation; instead, everyone seems to be complaining that their job isn’t good, their income is far too low compared to others, and so on.
1. There is no job in the workplace that is 100% suited to your personality.
In the past, people used to say, “Dragons give birth to dragons, phoenixes to phoenixes, and the child of a mouse will dig holes.” This means that everyone has certain innate qualities, and is relatively more suited to a particular type of work. Today, some white-collar workers feel dissatisfied with their jobs because they believe their current role doesn’t fit their personality, so they constantly seek a position that matches them better.
From a psychological perspective, their thinking is not without merit, because different personality traits do indeed influence the work people engage in.
In 1989, American psychologists Robert McCrae and Paul Costa proposed the Five-Factor Personality Model, which divides personality into five dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Openness.
All five factors are related to habits and have a close connection with work efficiency. For example, some people excel at thinking but have poor hands-on ability; they may be a master at market planning, but would be hopeless as a surgeon.
So, is personality absolute?
Two editors with similar personalities work at the same publishing house. Editor A appears to love her job; whenever she receives a good manuscript, she feels happy—not only does she enjoy reading, but it’s also a process of self-learning and improvement. Editor B, on the other hand, dislikes editing work; she only does it because she can’t find another job that satisfies her. Her dislike isn’t just due to the workload—she feels she is always working for others’ benefit.
At the same publishing house, doing the same editing work, this at least shows that their job itself isn’t inherently "happy" or "boring," and their personalities aren’t very different. So what causes them to have such contrasting feelings about the same work?
The reason for this difference lies in their distinct values.
Job satisfaction does not depend on the job itself, but on your personality traits and values.
There is no job in the workplace that is 100% suited to your personality. Personality is not the same as innate nature—it is not unchangeable. Therefore, self-adjustment is essential. When you adjust your mindset, you can adapt to the demands of your work. Only then can you find satisfaction in your job.
For example, by personality type, those who work in sales are thought to be best suited to the "agreeable type"—that is, outgoing and expressive. But in reality, the best sales performers are often not those with a silver tongue, but those who seem more introverted. They are quiet and not good with words, but they adjust themselves to the client’s needs and strive to communicate. Though they don’t talk much and often resemble consultants, when they do speak, it’s to the point and reassuring for the client. Therefore, it’s hard to say whether the job fits their personality, or their personality has adapted to the job.
Nowadays, many white-collar workers are searching for jobs that fit their personality, using this as the standard for satisfaction, without considering self-adjustment. So, after just a year or even less, they feel their current job doesn’t suit them, wave goodbye, and move on without hesitation. This is neither good for long-term career development nor likely to bring true happiness.
Everything has two sides, and work is no exception. Like a rose, it has a beautiful fragrance but also sharp thorns. While we reap the rewards and sense of achievement from our work, we must also rationally accept its imperfections.
For everyone, once you’ve chosen a profession and a position, you should accept it as a whole. There are parts of your job you like—such as salary and growth—and parts you don’t—such as difficulties and setbacks. But all of these are part of your work; they form a complete whole, and no one can separate them. If you want to enjoy the full happiness that work can bring, you must accept the entirety of your job. Only by experiencing the whole process can your smile of happiness become truly radiant.
"You need a valve that won’t leak, and you do everything you can to develop such a valve. But the real world gives you a leaking valve, so you must decide how much leakage you can tolerate." This was how Arthur Rudolph, the scientist who developed the Saturn V rocket for the first Apollo moon landing, described the concept of "risk." In reverse, it also serves as the best explanation for the imperfections we encounter in work.
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Dale Carnegie said, "Things themselves cannot make us happy or unhappy; it is our reaction to them that decides our feelings." Whether work yields results often depends on our attitude toward it. Facing work with a tolerant heart ignites enthusiasm; facing it with complaints drains our passion.
Work is a person’s mission. To calmly accept everything work brings means not only enjoying its benefits and happiness, but also enduring its hardships and challenges. Those who only want the benefits and happiness of work are irresponsible. They complete their tasks amid endless complaints and reluctant effort, and inevitably cannot enjoy the satisfaction work brings.
Those who, when job-hunting, are fixated on high positions and high salaries but cannot accept the hardship and monotony that comes with work; those who constantly make excuses and avoid responsibility; those who refuse to meet client requests or go the extra mile; those who have lost all passion, perform poorly, and always hand their boss a pile of reasons; those who are always picky, dissatisfied with their tasks and environment—all need to reflect on whether their attitude toward work is the real problem.
Every job contains countless opportunities for growth. Any job is worth your serious attention and your best effort.
When Samuel Walker first worked as a lathe operator, his daily task was turning screws. Faced with a pile of screws waiting to be machined, Walker was full of complaints, thinking: Why am I stuck doing this? He considered asking his boss for a transfer or even resigning, but neither worked. Finally, he wondered if he could find a positive way to make the monotonous job more interesting.
So he discussed with his coworkers about holding competitions to see who could work fastest. This idea proved effective—their work was no longer dull, and efficiency greatly improved. Soon, they were promoted to new positions. Later, Walker became the director of a famous locomotive factory.
Don’t view work merely as a means of survival; treat it as a source of enjoyment. Only then can you invest yourself in your work, even become passionate about it. At that point, all difficulties become easier, because work itself is a pleasure.
“Things in life rarely go exactly as we wish.” Whether in life or work, we move forward by constantly improving ourselves, and perfect results or perfect processes simply don’t exist. Since no job is perfect and no job can make a person completely satisfied, we should complain less and cultivate a more positive mindset—this is the right attitude.
French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said, "Patience is painful, but its fruit is sweet." Gain and loss are normal in any job. We should face these with a gentle attitude, striving to maintain gratitude, joy, peace, and self-reflection.
Anyone who can calmly face setbacks and endure grievances at work will surely withstand pressure and achieve excellence in their career. They are not born strong, but are distinguished by their fine character. They never regard gain and loss or grievances as pain, but continually adjust and adapt, seizing every opportunity for success.
At the United American Insurance Company, there was a salesman named Allen who aspired to be a star salesperson. From an early age, he believed he had a talent for sales and was confident he could achieve this dream.
When Allen first joined the insurance company, his low education and limited experience often made him the target of ridicule and exclusion from colleagues. Sarcasm was commonplace, and good assignments were frequently snatched away by others. Yet Allen never minded. Instead, to gain experience, he willingly accepted the tasks others avoided, purely for the sake of self-improvement.
One cold winter, when the sales territories were being divided, many colleagues applied to work near the city so they could return home quickly. In the end, Allen was assigned the distant, sparsely populated areas. He said nothing and set out immediately, even though he knew that no one had ever succeeded in selling insurance there before.