What Carry On!
Besides the people and emotions in the workplace there is also plenty of behaviours and practices that can positively or negatively influence the corporate culture!
Many of the behaviours listed below will damage or negatively impact your culture - you should really be aware of them and pre-empt them or work quickly to turn them around!
Bare Minimum Monday
Bare Minimum Monday (BMM), also known as Minimum Effort Monday or Minimal Mondays refers to an initiative by employees to do the minimal amount of work necessary on Mondays, which mark the start of the work week. This may also involve starting the work day later and prioritizing self-care activities.
Blursday
Blursday is the day when you realised that you have been so busy and overwhelmed that you have lost all track of time and the days of the week. When all the week mushes into one day, it is Blursday.
Career cushioning
Career cushioning allows you to “cushion the blow” if you lose your job unexpectedly. It’s about being proactive and creating additional opportunities for yourself in the event of a layoff or sudden termination. This could mean actively networking for potential job opportunities, keeping your professional assets up to date, or starting a business on the side.
COFFEE Badging
Coffee badging is the practice of going into the office for a few hours to "show face," which could entail coffee with co-workers or sitting in on a work meeting — but then leaving to work remotely.
Exit Power
Having Exit Power is having the financial security, competences and confidence to be able to exit a working environment that is not suiting or supporting you. It is having the knowledge that you are in control of your destiny and will be able to move away from the current situation, ideally at a time that suits you
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that hinges on creating self-doubt. The most distinctive feature of gaslighting is that it’s not enough for the gaslighter simply to control their victim or have things go their way: It’s essential to them that the victim themself actually come to agree with them. The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1944 film Gaslight, starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. In the film, a husband convinces his wife she’s imagining things that are actually happening—including the dimming of the house’s gas lights—with the result of making her believe she’s gone insane.
See self-gaslighting below!
Glass Ceiling
The glass ceiling is a point after which you cannot go any further, usually in improving your position at work. This limit is unofficial but understood, and it prevents, a specific group of people, traditionally women, but also relevant to other minorities, from advancing to top positions in a company or organisation.
Glass Cliff
The glass cliff is a hypothesized phenomenon in which women (or other minorities) are more likely to break their "glass ceiling" during periods of crisis, downturn or consistent poor performance, when the risk of failure is highest. This phenomenon known as the glass cliff is comparable to the concept of a glass ceiling, in both cases, the appointed individual typically have experiences that are different from those of the primary group, it implies that they have implying the inability to perceive the dangers of the cliff's edge rather than the false promise of elevated organizational positions which can be "seen" through a ceiling of glass but which are actually unattainable.
Mansplaining
Mansplaining is a word smash of man and explaining. It happens when a man comments on or explains something, to a woman, in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner. The term was perfectly encapsulated by author and essayist Rebecca Solnit in her book Men Explain Things to Me. The first essay in the book tells the story of how Solnit was at a party when a man tried to explain the insights of a book to her, except she had written the book.
Manterrupting
Manterrupting is a word smash of man and interrupting. It happens when men interrupt women while they are talking and don’t let them finish what they’re saying. There is a significant body of research that confirms that in the workplace, women are interrupted considerably more than their male colleagues.
Office Peacock
Office Peacocking is like ‘pimp my office’, using things like low-slung sectional sofas and deep-pile rugs to big-screen video game monitors, one could be forgiven for mistaking many offices of today for somebody’s living room. While creating a more relaxed work setup has been a trend for some time, employers, in their pitch to get employees to return to in-person work, are going to greater lengths than ever to make their offices look and feel homey.
Quafftide
Quafftide is a word smash of Quaff and Tide. Quaff means to drink or drain in large quantities and Tide referring to a designated time (think Yuletide). Therefore Quafftide is the time for a drink at the end of a day, week, or perhaps the closing of a project.
Quiet Cutting
Quiet Cutting, otherwise known as ‘silent sacking’, is when employers try to get their workers to resign by gradually reducing their responsibilities and downgrading their roles. By encouraging employees to quit of their own volition, businesses potentially aim to reduce the costs involved in job cuts and avoid redundancy pay.
Quiet Firing
Quiet Firing is when managers neglect or mistreat employees, eventually causing them to quit their jobs. Employees who are victims of quiet firing might find themselves passed over for promotions or pay rises, or left out of important meetings and discussions.
Quiet Hiring
Quiet Hiring is when an organisation acquires new skills without hiring any additional employees. Sometimes, that means taking on temporary workers like contractors, freelancers or gig workers. But more often, it refers to the practice of using existing employees to fill skills gaps.
Quiet Quitting
Quiet Quitting surfaced post pandemic. It is when employees continue to put in the minimum amount of effort to keep their jobs, but don't go the extra mile for their employer. This might mean not speaking up in meetings, not volunteering for tasks, and refusing to work overtime. Where, instead, employees were (quietly) taking a stand against exploitation by doing only the bare minimum required to fulfil their job description. No more late-night emails or staying late to complete a task. Employees feel entitled to only work what they were paid to work and refused to give more.
Quiet Vacationing
Quiet Vacationing involves employees pretending to be working while they’re actually doing other things, like traveling or focusing on personal activities at home.
Resenteeism
Resenteeism is when employees are physically present but mentally checked out. There has been a big shift in how people view their work, with many people re-evaluating their purpose, priorities and what they want to do. While some employees stayed in their existing roles, it resulted in them not only deprioritising their job but resenting it and feeling disengaged and unhappy at work.
Self-Gaslighting
Self-Gaslighting is a form of gaslighting, but done to ourselves. Do you hear yourself say things like.
“What right do I have to…”
“Why would anyone want my opinion”
“I must be imagining it”
“What I am feeling isn’t real”
“It’s always my fault”
“I am way too sensitive”
“I always blow things out of proportion”
“I don’t deserve this”
“I am not enough”
“I must be crazy”
Shituation
A shituation is a situation where something started very well but slowly it turned into a deeply unpleasant situation.
Sh*t Sandwich
In a time of feedback and appraisals, it is common to be taught how to serve a sh*t sandwich. In a feedback session, the session is opened and closed focussing heavily on strengths, good points and potential, however there is some killer criticism delivered between the opening and closing sections! In essence, a Sh*t Sandwich is sweetly enveloped criticism.
Spuddle
If you Spuddle you are extremely busy whilst achieving absolutely nothing, you put in an awful amount of effort for very little return.
Stinktank
A Stinktank is a word smash of Stink and Thinktank. A Stinktank is like a real thinktank but the ideas emanating from the ‘think ins’ are just stinkers!
Vampire tasks
Vampire tasks are those mundane activities that take time away from employees completing essential and important work. The blood and soul sucking nature of vampire tasks isn’t necessarily in the tasks themselves, but in their potential to consume large amounts of time and lower job satisfaction when they become central to your daily activities.
Womenial
Womenial is a word smash of women and menial. Womenial happens when women are not given much access to interesting work and are given the majority of the boring, routine or unpleasant work, the work that does not require special skill.