The first thing that you should never do at work is
going to be one that you might not like me for saying,
and trust me, I wish it was different.
But I need to tell you how it is flashy designer logos
have no place at work.
You know, the ones I'm talking about...
the big audacious logos that scream,
"This cost a lot of money!"
It doesn't matter if you just love luxury moment,
you have the resources and invest in those pieces with intention,
because your coworkers messed up money mindsets are going to
come into play. And that's going to create a
problematic perception issue for you.
And of course, they're not going to say to your face,
they're going to say it behind your back,
like I've heard more times than I could count.
Especially if you're a young, professional female,
a lot of people could come in with their attitudes that
you're unwise with your money,
they'll think that you can't afford it,
that you're just writing up your credit card debt because
you're so immature, or that you just have low impulse control.
And this is showing how your low impulses are going to lead to
bad decision quality at work.
I know it doesn't make sense.
But this is an actual thing that people say so we need to deal with it.
On the flip side, I've also heard conversations where
they think that person has enough money,
if you could afford that Chanel bag, you don't need a pay raise.
And this is a particular problem if it's your boss saying it
since they're going to control how big your pay increase is.
People aren't just weird about money.
They're weird about demonstrations surrounding money and wealth and whatnot.
That all said if you're a designer enthusiast I personally love luxury labels,
you can still wear them to work.
What I would suggest is just following a couple of parameters.
So first when you are wearing logo is err towards the more subtle logo.
You can also opt for unbranded logo free pieces,
there are a lot of designer pieces that you can invest in
and fully enjoy in the office with no one being any wiser.
There is one exception that I would put into this role is that
if there is a level of logos being status quo,
or there are a certain status quo pieces,
then this advice really wouldn't apply. For example,
if you're in New York City corporate girlie, you either have
the Louis Vuitton Neverfull, or the YSL sac du jour,
or you have both and because these are bags that everybody has,
and they kind of end up blending in.
So even with an LV logo all over the place
those I don't think are a big deal.
But that's just my opinion. I'd love to hear what you think.
Now the next thing that you should never do at work will apply to everyone,
every industry, every job, every level of employment:
Do not get tipsy with your team.
Drinking Culture has really become embedded in workplace culture,
especially within certain industries, like I come from the tech industry.
And in particular, the startup space,
where having a beer keg on hand is one of the employee benefits.
And in addition to a game of beer pong at the end of the day,
informal happy hours after work
and formal team events all tend to have a lot of alcohol,
and everyone's enjoying it. So why shouldn't you?
Well, have you ever been to an event where one of your coworkers was
stumbling and slurring and kind of made a big embarrassment of themselves?
Would you want to be that person?
Probably not.
Because that person is going to have some reputation rehab that
they need to do in order to be taken seriously by everyone.
Again, there's a few things that you can do to avoid making
this mistake at work and have people not even notice it,
because unfortunately too often, if everyone else is enjoying drinks,
there can be a lot of pressure for you as well first know what your limits are.
For me, it's one because I am a complete lightweight.
And if I have any more in the one I'm probably going to say something that
I wouldn't necessarily say anyways, because the whole inhibition thing.
Once you reached your limit, just stick to non alcoholic beverages
or just walk around the same drink the whole night - people will not notice.
And back when I was pregnant, I went to a team event and I didn't want
people to know I wasn't drinking because I didn't want to
explain the whole pregnancy thing yet.
So I got the bartender on my side explained this situation and
told him that no matter what I ordered to just pour me a Diet Coke.
And he did.
And no one noticed at all.
Of course, you can also just say that you don't want to have any more drinks or
don't want to drink that is totally okay too.
And another thing that can be very helpful especially if in your workplace culture,
these events kind of get really messy as the night goes on.
Set a time where you're going to leave by.
Whether you say you have to wake up early because you have spinning class or
plans with other friends you need to get to exiting by a certain time
can also really help you here. And then you don't need to deal
with a hangover or hangxiety the next day.
Not over indulging at team events is going to help you avoid this third mistake.
And the third thing that you should never do at work: Overshare.
I know this is something a lot of you have struggled with based on
comments in my other videos. For starters,
when you overshare at work, you can become the subject of
toxic office gossip. You need to assume that if you tell one coworker
about something, all of your coworkers are going to know about it
and they're going to have conversations about it because
they're bored and they have nothing better to do with their time.
This can also have a negative consequence on your reputation at work
depending on what this piece of information is.
And finally, when you overshare this can actually have
an impact on your career trajectory.
It can slow you down and make you miss career opportunities.
When I've seen this it typically comes from a good place.
For example, your manager might worry about overburdening you if
they know that you have some personal struggles that you're going through,
so they're not going to assign you that stretch project or
they're not going to give you that promotion this round.
You don't want to create any of those inadvertent biases that
knowing too much couldn't create, but also keeps people out
of savior mode when ultimately these decisions should be up to you.
All of that said, you work with these people every day.
And you do have actual relationships with your coworkers.
Some of them might even end up becoming friends and
you want to get to know them, and you want them to get to know
you because ultimately, we're humans connecting in a workplace.
But to avoid oversharing and end up having any
negative consequences to what you talk to your coworkers about.
There is one filter I think is incredibly helpful so that you don't
accidentally overshare before you tell your coworker something,
ask this question:
Is this something that I want people talking about behind my back?
Because if it's something that you don't mind,
then go ahead and share freely.
For example, is there any negative consequence to your coworkers
knowing that you nerded out the night that Taylor Swift's new album came out?
Because amazing...
Okay, maybe it's a little bit silly (in their opinion - not mine!), but it's probably not going to
make them think anything really negative towards you,
because they've probably done the same thing for their favorite singer
or their favorite band at some point in their life.
But do you want your coworkers having a conversation about the
breakup that you're going through or the spot you're having with your sister?
Probably not. The reality is, is that people are going to talk about you
behind your back and you want them to talk about the right things.
You want them to talk about how uniquely awesome you are.
You want them to talk about how helpful you are,
what a great person you are. This is all part of intentional reputation management.
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Now we really need to talk about the fourth thing you
should never do at work, but you're doing it regularly.
Don't complain at work.
Don't complain about your boss.
Don't complain about your coworkers.
Don't complain about your clients don't complain about anything or anyone.
If you work at a fantastic company with exclusively phenomenal people.
This is not going to be a problem though.
Everyone has their days.
But complaining is so commonplace and it's very easy to do.
While I'm a fan of having an occasional rant.
If you are complaining at work, you are amplifying and even
creating a negative work environment because complaining is negative energy.
And it's never going to be just you complaining when you
complain about your boss to your coworker,
your coworker is going to complain about your boss to you,
then you're going to complain about something else.
And then it ends up just being a bunch of complaining.
Think about it when you have complained or had one of those
complaining conversations did you actually leave the situation feeling better,
you probably felt worse at the end of it.
Because now we're were you not only burdened with the thing
that was stressful or frustrating for you, your coworker was
complaining back at you further burdening and further
frustrating you so while complaining in the act of itself is releasing
dopamine that's gonna burn off and leave you in a bad spot real fast.
It can also create relationship dynamics that are based
on complaining trauma bonding is a thing and it's not a good thing.
You don't want the basis of the relationships that you have at work
to be on complaining and hating what you do or hating your job
or hating your boss that will make you hate those things more.
And of course, this can make the situation worse because
when you're complaining to your co workers about your boss,
and Nitpicking Nick over here, he's gonna throw you right under the bus
run to your boss and tell them all about how you're complaining to
make himself look good, causing more problems for you -
like a very awkward conversation with your manager
and having to salvage that relationship which you could have
completely avoided by not complaining to your coworkers indiscriminately.
That said humans are not meant to bottle up emotions.
And when you're frustrated, sometimes you need to vent an rant can be very unnecessary.
So instead of complaining to your co workers about all of the things,
what I suggest is trying to find people outside of your office that
aren't going to amplify it, they're not going to complain back at you.
They won't elaborate on all the additional reasons why your boss is such a jerk
because they don't know your boss.
Or if you're complaining to your work bestie come to an agreement that
one of you is frustrated and venting that the other person is in listening
and validating mode and not amplifying.
I'm also a huge fan of having parameters.
For years I have had rules about how long I'm allowed to dwell about something
(the answer is seven days)
But in times in my career when I would come home
complaining renting from work, I ended up putting time limits
on it such as you got 10 minutes to complain and if that's all you need,
that's the space and let it all out.
But then it's time to talk about something completely different or
to move into solution mode. And if you keep on complaining
about the same thing or the same person or the same situation all the time,
then you need to own up to the fact that you
You need to look at what the real problem is not situation and complaining,
it's not going to solve it. But it's a time to move up in the organization or transition teams.
Or maybe it's a time to find a new job.
These are all in the realm of possibilities.
This brings me to the most important thing that you should never do at work.
And that's avoid office politics.
I have a question for you.
When I say office politics, what do you immediately think of this is
something we really need to talk about because the mindset around
office politics is generally the biggest parameter that gets in people's way
of fully leveraging corporate politics.
Because when you think of office politics, it's probably not a good thing.
You're thinking about backstabbing coworker is your boss who is sabotaging you,
the empire building leader who's just doing things to
grab that power that they don't deserve.
It doesn't have a lot of positive connotations for people.
On the flip side, a lot of ambitious professionals that I speak to
when I say office politics, just get flustered, it seems really complicated.
They don't know how to navigate office politics.
And this was very true for me earlier in my career was when
I was talking to several of my mentors and people whose career trajectory,
I really wanted to emulate that I realized that the key to that success
was in mastering office politics, because ultimately,
office politics really comes down to human interaction.
Office politics is how you create mutually rewarding relationships.
It's how you're able to increase your impact and your influence in the organization.
And it's actually really key in avoiding
a lot of the nasty office politics that you want to avoid.
While I used to think that office politics was incredibly complicated,
the more I learned about it, I realized it's shockingly simple to master.
In fact, it's so simple. I want you to go to this video right now to get started.
See you there. Bestie!