 How to Tell Your Boss No
| Almost everyone wants to please their boss. After all, the boss is the one who ultimately decides if you’ll get that pay raise or promotion. However, in your efforts to please the person in charge, you may often take on more than you can manage. For example, your boss may ask you to do something, and because you want to make him/her happy, you say yes. Yet, after saying yes, you’re steaming because you really don’t have time to do what is already expected of you, let alone take on an additional responsibility. Indeed, these situations can be very tricky. So what’s the best thing to do?
First, don’t be hard on yourself. It’s perfectly normal to want to say yes to your superiors when you really need to say no. Just remember that when you have no other options but to say no, you’re doing what’s best for you as well as the organization. If you take on more than you can handle, it’s likely that you’ll start stressing, hurrying, making mistakes and missing your deadlines—and that’s not good for anyone.
Second, don’t resent your boss for asking you to take on more work. You should actually appreciate their willingness to delegate tasks to you. It’s a sign that they have faith in your initiative and abilities. Also, try to think of your boss’s perspective—he/she is probably extremely busy and not keeping track of everything you are doing.
So, the bottom line is that you’re going to have to tell your boss that as much as you’d like to help out on this one, you just can’t right now. A good strategy is to ask your boss to help you prioritize what you have to do. This will give the two of you a chance to sit down and look at the reality of your schedule. This may also give you an opportunity to reach a compromise. Perhaps your boss is willing to eliminate some of your most dreaded tasks, in order to make time for the project he/she just asked you to do.
Remember, telling your boss no and re-prioritizing can be a blessing. Faced with the facts that you provide, it’s likely that your boss will acknowledge your busy schedule, and possibly make concessions to better accommodate your work day. By being honest and telling your boss no, you won’t find yourself having to make excuses or getting angry further down the line.
“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”
—Mark Twain
| TGIM: Thank Goodness It’s Monday!
Preparing for the Week Ahead
| In a recent Towers Perrin survey, one-third of 1,100 employees said that they loathe their jobs. Employees said boredom, overwork, concern about the future, and a lack of support and recognition from their bosses were key reasons for their unhappiness.
Hopefully, you’re not in the same boat as these respondents. However, even if you’re completely happy with your job, you may find it difficult to return to work after a few days off. Time spent relaxing with family and friends can certainly make it tough to return to the daily grind. So, how do you get in sync and get yourself in the optimum frame of mind after your weekend?
Here are a few tips for easing into your week and staying positive:
Use the last day of the workweek to ease your re-entry when you come back. Clear and clean your work area before you zip off to your weekend. If you can’t get everything done, at the very least, tidy up before you leave. It will be nicer for you to walk into work and face a clean, organized area.
Treat Sunday night (or whatever night that is the night before your return) as a school night. Go to bed just a little earlier than the rest of the week so that you can get a clean start. Avoid alcohol and caffeine so that you feel truly rested when you wake on Monday morning.
Before you go to sleep on Sunday night, take time to count your blessings in life. Be thankful for all you have. Remember that there are many people who don’t have a stable job. Consider yourself lucky!
Try to arrive a little early. Even if it’s just five or 10 minutes, this time will give you a jump on your day.
Practically everyone looks forward to the weekend. By following the advice above, you can still enjoy your days off, and return back to work re-energized and happy. You may even catch yourself saying “TGIM!”
“Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries.”
—Corita Kent
| Protected Mealtimes:
A Practice that Benefits Patients & Employees
| Nurses and healthcare staff are usually always busy with several tasks and projects. Plain and simple, healthcare organizations are complex environments, and such environments often make it extremely difficult for staff to focus and prioritize. In an attempt to provide healthcare staff a “breather”, some organizations have started to implement protected mealtimes.
Protected mealtimes are periods when all non-urgent clinical activity stops. During these times, patients are able to eat without being interrupted and staff can offer assistance. This time gives healthcare staff a chance to slow down and more wholly focus on what’s truly important: the patients. When a whole organization embraces the importance of protected mealtimes, both patients and staff benefit.
In order to effectively implement protected mealtimes, healthcare organizations should do the following:- Conduct an observational audit of the current meal delivery service—observe when and how meals are delivered.
- Discuss the results with relevant teams—do they foresee any obstacles or issues? Also be sure to seek and record patients’ views.
- Establish changes in practices required (times of ward rounds, visiting times, etc.).
- Obtain agreement from those involved and set a start date.
- Provide information to patients, relatives, staff and other departments—for protected mealtimes to be truly successful, it’s critical that everyone is aware of the changes.
Simply put, the better nutrition a patient receives, the higher his or her chances are of recovering and staying healthy. Patients who are not interrupted and receive appropriate service and support during mealtimes are usually happier, more relaxed and eat more. Furthermore, healthcare staff benefits from protected mealtimes, as they have time to focus on their work without several interruptions. It’s a win-win situation.
“One of the most sublime experiences we can ever have is to wake up feeling healthy after we have been sick.”
—Harold Kushner
| Creativity or Just Plain Stupidity?!
| The following are actual excerpts from student science exam papers.
- The theory of evolution was greatly objected to because it made man think.
- Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillars.
- The process of turning steam back into water again is called conversation.
- A magnet is something you find crawling all over a dead cat.
- The Earth makes one resolution every 24 hours.
- To collect fumes of sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.
- Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
- Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.
- A circle is a line which meets its other end without ending.
- The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.
- English sparrows and starlings eat the farmers grain and soil his corpse.
- A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold.
- Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
- The hookworm larvae enters the human body through the soul.
- When you haven't got enough iodine in your blood you get a glacier.
- It is a well-known fact that a deceased body harms the mind.
- For fractures: to see if the limb is broken, wiggle it gently back and forth.
- For dog bite: put the dog away for several days. If he has not recovered, then kill it.
- For nosebleed: put the nose much lower than the body.
- For drowning: climb on top of the person and move up and down to make artificial perspiration.
- To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose.
- For head colds: use an agonizer to spray the nose until it drops in your throat.
- For asphyxiation: apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead.
- Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is affirmative or negative.
- When water freezes you can walk on it. That is what Christ did long ago in wintertime.
- When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.
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