Now isn’t the time to be the office bitch.  You have a job to keep, bills to pay and a peace of mind to maintain.  It also isn’t the time to be the office wallflower, never in the know about the next axe to drop.  Put on your heels, get in the game and work the room.   This series is titled SYA-Save Your Ass, and our first installation is about managing your workplace relationships.

Check Your Attitude At The Door

In today’s economy, most of us know someone who’s received a pink slip and believe it or not, sometimes decisions are made based on whether or not your boss and coworkers like you.  Some of us want to believe that our education/work, pretty smile and fashion sense gets us far, but it doesn’t.  Recession or not, it’s time to think about how your workplace relationships impact how you’re perceived and whether or not you’re saved during the next round of layoffs.  When it comes down to a choice between one who gets along with everyone and has satisfactory performance and another who is known as the office bitch but does a stellar job, guess who get’s the axe?  The bitch.

Why?

Who wants to deal with someone who walks in with an anti-social attitude every morning?  Check it.  Attitude is everything and your boss and coworkers perceive more about you through body language than what you actually say to them.  So start warming up to the quirky admin and offer to bring your boss coffee once in a while.  You can be the best at what you do but if I can train your coworker to do just as good a job then you’re getting a pink slip.  Who wants to deal with that?  I don’t.

Be Helpful.

Is there a critical need right now?  How can you position yourself to become the rockstar who filled the gap?  Strategize and make it happen.  Nice girls who come in at 9 and leave at 5 don’t get the corner office.  Put in some extra time on a project that makes the office run smoother, save money on overhead, increase sales, finesse a relationship with a cotr (contract officer).  You get the picture.  WERK it bishes!

Increase Your Emotional IQ

You can be the best at what you do in your office, graduate top of your class and/or receive employee of the month every month for a year, but if you don’t have the interpersonal skills needed to be keenly attuned to what people need then you are emotionally bankrupt in this area.  You may ask, why do I need to bring emotions to the workplace?  Business is business right?  Wrong.

Think about your favorite boss or teacher.  What did you like most about them?  Most will say their ability to give you what you need when you need it.  Whatever that might have been.  Someone who is tuned into the needs of others is skilled in relationship management and self awareness also known as emotional IQ.  Try it out sometime.

Manage your emotional walls in the workplace.  I’m not advising that you cry with your hysterical coworker who just foreclosed on her house, but you may want to take on a few of her accounts/clients until she gets herself together.  Or offer to bring her coffee or something you know she likes.  This doesn’t mean you will now share your personal lives in the workplace, but it means that you’re cultivating a relationship that’s certain to reap benefits in the long run.  Connections are everything.

Get To Know Your Boss.  Really.

Have lunch with him/her and get to know them so they can do the same.  Sometimes we pay more attention to clocking in and out, never really thinking about how a personal connection might save us at the last bell.  If your boss can connect with you on a level deeper than just another subordinate, when the time comes to think about who she’ll cut, that connection matters.  Contrary to popular belief, business is personal.  Why do you think the top sales people are so charismatic?  They know how to build relationships.  You should too, now isn’t the time to wallow in the I hate my boss rhetoric.  She/he is now the person who signs your checks so you can sleep at night.  Hop to it.

Question:  Have you been the office bitch?  What are you doing to rectify that?  Do you think managing office relationships is the difference between the pink slip and a check?