We all have them, little (or big) annoying things that we do without evening thinking about them. Bad habits. It could be anything, like the common ones of biting your nails, or smacking your chewing gum. Sometimes we become aware of them and think that maybe one day we’ll try to stop, but usually that one day never comes. Many of these little things don’t harm anyone, they’re just quirks that we develop and they take on a mind of their own. Bad work habits however, can hurt someone. And that’s you. Listed here are five work habits that can potentially hurt your reputation and/or ultimately derail your career. If you see yourself in any of these, you might want to change your ways!
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1. Badmouthing the Company: This has generally never been a good idea, unless you’re talking to yourself; depending on where you do it, it could really come back to haunt you. However, today with the ubiquity of social media in the workplace these days it’s even easier to have a slip of the tongue. You should be careful about complaining about the workplace, and doubly so online.
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2. Careless Emailing: Workplace email can be an accident waiting to happen. Don’t be careless with the content of your emails at work; it’s all too easy to mistakenly add recipients or worse, copy the whole company on an email you intended for a specific person, and probably shouldn’t have been sending anyway. Keep it professional while on the job and you’ll have nothing to worry about. Remember, just because it’s email doesn’t mean it’s not permanent.
3. Skating By: Always doing the minimum amount of work required can be bad for your work image and maybe even your job. It never hurts to do the job right, and that usually means doing it fully. Statements like, ‘It’s not part of my job’ can earn you some frowns. If you feel extra efforts on your part often go unnoticed and you find yourself glossing over work, it might be time to have a conversation with your boss about feeling unrecognized. Be sure to approach it with some tact; don’t go in with a whiny nobody-pays-attention-to-me tone, that just looks, whiny.
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4. Using Inappropriate Humor: It’s great to keep things in perspective and have a sense of humor in life and work, but it can go too far. This really should just be a matter of common sense and respect, but some people seem to be lacking in those. If you find yourself encountering questionable humor at the workplace, you might be wise to distance yourself from it as best you can.
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5. Gossiping: We know, this happens everywhere humans work, it’s inevitable, maybe. The thing is, it’s bad form, and can earn you a reputation for having loose lips which could have an effect on how you yourself are treated at work. If your superiors know you’re a talker, they might not trust you with that next big project. Have you ever thought about what people might be saying about you behind your back? Yikes.
What’s your bad work habit or one you can’t stand others around you doing? Let us know in the comments.
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