OG Tuesday Issue #203

📝 Good Habits: Guilt is, unfortunately, a key motivator for pro-social behavior.

🏢 Future Workplaces: A peek into how real estate developers are thinking about the next generation of workspaces.

😴 Sleep: Coffee may not help your at-work sluggishness at all, but maybe there’s hope in wearable tech?

⚖️ Gender Equality: New grads have some concerns about AI’s influence on hiring.

🌐 EDI: It’s time to start acknowledging the growing needs of a growing digital underclass.

Work versus play. Play versus work.

Work and play are two teams locked in an endless rivalry within humanity’s collective consciousness.

There’s Aesop’s grasshopper, who sang (played) all summer and had to beg his hard-working, responsible ant friends for food. There are adages, proverbs, and mantras such as…

• All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
• Work hard. Play harder.
• Work while you work. Play while you play.

The dominant opinion on work and play: You choose one or the other and then reap the rewards…or suffer the consequences.

But what if work and play could coexist harmoniously? What if you could have lots of fun and do lots of good work? Or even have fun while doing work?

You absolutely can. According to Humor That Works — a training organization that supports businesses and teams through humor — integrating laughter into your work might be better for productivity than buckling down to do only the work part.

The organization’s founder cites the following benefits of pairing work and humor in a Tedx talk:

• 83% of Americans feel stressed out at work
• 55% of Americans are unsatisfied with their jobs
• 47% of Americans struggle to stay happy
• The average person sends and receives 112 emails per day and spends 80% of their time in some form of communication
• People who use humor are more productive, less stressed, paid more, and happier
• Executives who use humor are promoted faster and paid more
• Laughing for 10-15 minutes can burn as many calories as 5 minutes of aerobic exercise, 10 minutes of dancing, or 15 minutes of milking a cow
• People with 3 close friends at work are 96% more likely to be satisfied with their lives
• Less than 1/3rd of people use humor at work

Laughing your way to productivity sounds pretty fun, right? Humor That Works can help you get started.

They believe anyone can learn how to be funny >

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Created with the guidance of our in-house team of legal experts, the program consists of four interactive courses that ensure your managers are well-prepared to apply policies, laws and procedures to their daily responsibilities.

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• Interviewing and Hiring Lawfully
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• Family Medical, and Other Protected Leave (FLMA)

The demonstration will cover:

• How in-house employment lawyers ensure 50-state compliance by updating course content to meet the latest legal requirements
• How nuanced scenarios are effectively used to help learners understand jurisdictional laws and avoid costly mistakes
• How learners can submit questions and have them answered by legal experts How easily training can be delivered and tracked

Get access to the course demo here.

One TA Subscriber is ready for everyone on her team to cut the malarkey and start at least trying to get along already.

Their biggest challenge is handling staff members who aren’t getting along with each other or effectively managing their personal feelings.

This is a formidable challenge, indeed. It’s hard enough to recognize, manage, and regulate our own volatile emotions. But wrangling the colliding emotions of an entire less-than-functional team?

It will be hard…but it can be done.

Oh, and there’s one other big catch: It requires ongoing daily work.

Like any core workplace habit or norm, effectively handling and managing emotions is something you learn how to do and then practice doing until…well, forever.

How To

Because acronyms are so delightfully easy for even those experiencing intense emotions to remember, we distilled the wisdom of “teamwork doctor” Liane Davey into one go-to acronym for moments of emotional crisis.

T.R.A.I.L.S.

T – Thank the others involved in the situation instead of apologizing.

“That’s a way of just providing a nice close on the end of the conversation,” Davey says, explaining the healing power of a genuine thank you. “And if you’re too emotional to do it in the moment, do it the next day. You know, send a note and just say, ‘I want to thank you. I was processing a lot of really big emotions there. I’m really grateful that you provided a forum for me to share that.’”

Manager pivot! Help a group of people achieve this by…

…thanking your team for showing emotional maturity and compassion during conflicts, even those that didn’t directly involve you. You might feel certain the situation could have been handled with more finesse, but it’s still important to encourage any work toward positive change.

R – Reintroduce transitions between different moments and tasks throughout your day.

“When we used to go into the office every day, we used to have these commutes, these great transitions between the kid who was driving us freaking crazy by wasting the milk in their cereal, and we would have 15, 20, 30 minutes of commute where we were listening to the radio and looking at things going by in the window, which would allow some of those emotions to dissipate,” Davey says.

“This meant we didn’t have the same emotional bleed into the next thing we did. But if you’re dumping the milk down the sink and then clicking on a Zoom call, that emotional contagion and spillover will likely be high.”

If you work from home without the benefit of organic physical transitions, such as commuting or attending a meeting on the other side of your building, you can easily establish your own transitions.

Davey herself, for example, listens to uplifting songs in between meetings and tasks.

Manager pivot! Help a group of people achieve this by…

…introducing or pushing your decision-makers to introduce a 50-minute cap on meetings. Organizations that have tried this find that shaving ten minutes off an hour-long meeting takes little substance away from the meeting itself while giving attendees back ten minutes they can use on their own restorative break.

A – Assess and accept emotions instead of pretending they don’t exist in yourself or others.

“The research says what you want to do is you actually want to reassess, work with, work through your emotions — not pretend you don’t have them,” Davey explains.

One of her simplest and quickest tricks for calmly facing emotions is to focus on your breath. While something so automatic and necessary might seem unrelated to emotions, breathwork is critical for creating an inner calm that makes it easier to deal with emotions.

If you’re already caught in the middle of a situation, taking a deep breath might feel impossible. When this happens, channel all your lung power into a massive exhale. (A deep, cleansing inhale should follow automatically.)

Manager pivot! Help a group of people achieve this by…

…taking the lead in tense situations. Start by concisely summarizing what you understand to be true in the moment. It doesn’t matter if you’re completely off base. The purpose is to stimulate an open conversation.

Example: I understand that you’re feeling overwhelmed and worried about the upcoming merger. Is there anything I’m missing or that you’d like to add?

I – Invest time and effort in building healthy, trusting relationships instead of reacting piecemeal to situations.

This may sound intimidating, but improving co-worker relationships involves focusing on three simple habits each day:

• Listen
• Share
• Be present

L – Lighten your mental burden by focusing on one thing at a time.

While there may not be anything specifically emotional about being busy and overwhelmed, those states can make arising emotions harder to cope with.

Multitasking or mentally multitasking by worrying about many things simultaneously creates what Davey calls a “heavy thoughtload.” The heaviness creates mental chaos — bait for negative and intrusive emotions.

Focusing on one thing at a time creates mental stability and continuity of thought. Negative feelings will find far fewer cracks and holes to slip through.

S – Stop letting your emotions accrue interest.

Emotions don’t “go away” on their own, no matter how much we wish they would or try to will them away. Denying or ignoring your emotions only gives them a chance to fester for longer while accruing interest. Each day of avoidance adds more unnecessary costs to your final bill.

Davey suggests openly communicating about anything making you upset or concerned immediately. It may be uncomfortable, but again, waiting certainly won’t make it more comfortable.

She recommends starting with something as simple as: “I’m worried. Let’s take a minute and figure out who we should be talking to.”

Manager pivot! Help a group of people achieve this by…

…setting an example. Work toward sharing your own emotions more freely and others will, with hope, feel encouraged and safe to do the same.

In a world that constantly pushes us to believe more is better, it’s time to rethink what truly adds value to our lives.

Enter Armoire, the woman-founded clothing rental service that simplifies your wardrobe, declutters your life, and helps you focus on what really matters.

Why Rent Your Clothes?

• Less Stress: No more closet overload and decision fatigue. With Armoire, you get fewer choices, less stress, and more pieces you love.
• Curate with Intention: Ditch the impulse buys. Keep your wardrobe fresh and flexible, without the pressure of permanent purchases.
• Save Money: Spend less on clothes, more on life. Renting frees up your budget for the experiences that matter most.
• Go Green: Renting is eco-friendly. Enjoy fashion guilt-free — reduce waste, not your style.

What Makes Armoire Stand Out:

• Personalized Style Quiz: Get started with recommendations tailored to your taste.
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Ready to live more with less? Start renting today with Armoire’s flexible plans, starting at just $89/month. Use code THEASSIST for up to 50% off your first month.

Take the style quiz to get started.

Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect, so when mistakes happen, just take accountability, learn from it, and move on. No need to keep beating yourself up about it.

Jenn Southan (Sr. Director Customer Support)

⭐️ Want to be featured? Share your best career advice here.

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