I may be tired, I may be sleepy.
But I will never be able to fall asleep,
until I message my sweetie. Good night
Apparently I am asleep but in reality
all I am doing is thinking about you.
Good night my darling.
No matter the kind of job you do, you would always engage in conversations one way or another, except you work with sign language, even then, that is still a form of conversation.
The people you engage in conversation with will range from your, boss, to colleagues and to clients, there are certain statements we are already guilty of making every now and then and these statements are not healthy work place practices and we shall look at 7 of them.
1. "I'm Too Busy"
2. "That's Impossible" or "There's nothing I Can do"
3. "You Guys"
4. "That's Not My Job" "That's Not My Problem"
5. "No Problem"
6. "I'll Try"
7. "It's Not Fair"
1. "I'm Too Busy"
You truly might be busy, but it never sounds well when a colleague comes to you with a file or a document for you to attend to and all you can say is "I'm too busy", it's your job and you are paid to be busy, even if the colleague is a subordinate, such a statement doesn't bring unity and oneness into a work environment that wants to work on a team spirit, so rather than use such statement, accepting politely before giving reasons why you may not be able to work on it as quickly as possible will be a very good way to make the other person feel better.
Even if you are the boss, you don't want your staff seeing you as a bad mouthed, bad natured boss, they won't have any good to say about your company when they are no longer with you.
2. "That's Impossible" or "There's nothing I Can do"
There is never a good time to use the word "impossible", because such a statement would only make you look like a pessimistic and a failure oriented person, even replacing such with something like "This is the best I can do" still doesn't make you look good, because if a solution you are bringing up is the best and its not working, it means you are saying there is a need to find someone better to do the job, so you will be in a better position if you keep letting your boss know you are working on it and even when you find yourself at wits end, thats when your network of friends comes in handy. Get help on your own and save your face.
3. "You Guys"
A lot of us are very guilty of this statement, it not only sounds unprofessional, since the group you might be referring to would have one or two female among them, it also makes you sound proud in that the statement separates you from the people you are talking to, leave the term "you guys" for friendly conversation with your friends and replace with phrase like "your team", "your organization" or just simply the good old "you"
4. "That's Not My Job", "That's Not My Problem"
I bet it won't feel nice to you, if someone ever used any of these statements on you when you request something from them, if you think there are no better words to replace these statements, even when your boss or a colleague is putting before what is actually not yours to do, then it means you are not articulate and thoughtful, because if you think well and quickly enough, you can find a better way to politely refuse an assignment.
5. "No Problem"
You just helped a colleague in getting a task done and he/she says thank you and the best you can say is "No Problem"? well its clear enough what you mean, it means in another situation there would have been a problem, if you think what you did was not that much a big deal, respond with "Don't mention" instead, if not the best reply to a thank you is "you are welcome", which means you are happy to have been of help, there really isn't anything cool about sounding rude when someone is been grateful for a deed you have done
6. "I'll Try"
Yes you'll try and thats why you end up not doing it, anytime you talk to a friend about something and you hear that, you'll probably still follow up with a call to that friend to be sure they get it done, think about it if you really want to do it and you are happy to do it, you would give a better response when request you do something for them, there are better words to use, think of it, when you are hungry and you are told there is food somewhere in the house do you ever respond with "I'll try"? I bet not, so rather than "I'll Try" use "I Will"
7. "It's Not Fair"
Well life is not fair and there are so many unfair things happening around, so its not a new thing that a colleague got rewarded for the same thing you did and got no recognition, or she's paid more than you and yet doesn't do a quarter of what you do, so what? its still not enough reason to make such a statement, it depicts you as a whining fellow, whatever wrong you think has been done to you rather than going around chanting "it's not fair" when we already know, it would be a better option to document your grievances and forward it to the right person to handle rather than whine about it, it would only make you look like a looser.If you ever think you deserve better then go ahead and talk about it
It might be outrightly impossible to not use any of these statements in a work environment, but you need to take a proactive standpoint in determining whether you want to use these words or not, you can aslo start listening to your colleagues and see how these statement are used by them, don't go a correction spree though, just use that to build yourself and improve your workplace vocabulary.
Don't forget to share, Thank You