At CareerBuilder.com, a recent article (cross-posted here at CNN.com) asks you if you’re committing “Seven Deadly Workplace Sins.” They’re the same ones you’re probably familiar with - pride, gluttony, lust, etc. - but applied to the workplace and office politics. It even offers a bit of “salvation” - practical advice to “atone” for the “sin.”
An excerpt:
1. Pride
Despite any help they received along the way, time and again, people take full credit for their accomplishments in the office, thinking that personal success will fast-track their career.
The sin: “What often goes unrecognized is that people around, and especially below, the serially solo-successful resent the ego-centricity, and may actually begin to actively undermine that person’s efforts in the future.”
The salvation: “A dose of acknowledgment of and appreciation for one’s peers and subordinates, so they may share in some of the glory, can go a long way to foster one’s long-term success.”
While it might be a bit odd to think of your workplace this way, it’s a creative way to look at office politics!
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My employer provides uniforms for its employees. I have been directed to purchase, at my expense, clothing that meet the standard of the uniform in the department I work in until uniforms can be supplied next year. Does an employer have the right to direct an employee to use their income towards the purchase of substitute uniforms pending the company’s providing uniforms. Many other employees in my department also dress in business casual as we are new employees. To my knowledge, I am the only employee, in my department, that has been directed to make the purchases.
Sheryl, obviously you are not an employee at the bottom, where all the real work takes place, What’s wrong with people having pride in themselves and wanting to be recognized for their work. Do you actually think upper management will magically know the work that someone is doing???? It is called merit service and if you can’t show what you have done, you won’t get a merit promotion. It is obvious too that those that “sin” are managers and those that don’t become slaves. Which would you want to be?? sinner or slave? Get real.
“Slave” - I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I didn’t write the article about the “7 Deadly Sins” - I merely linked to it. And to be fair, I don’t think that making sure credit is attributed properly is the point of the excerpt. Rather, I believe the author is calling to task those who are loudly obnoxious about doing so at the expense of acknowledging team contributions.