Managing Anger and Irritability at Work | Online Executive and Admin Assistant Training

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A few tips for Anger & Irritability Management

Submitted by Ethan on May 06, 2009 at 06:37 PM

anger Came across a blog post by Gretchen Rubin over at Huffingtonpost.com recently that gave 8 great tips for anger and irritability management.

All of her tips, which you can read by clicking HERE, are really good for helping manage these emotions while working as an assistant but we’ll only focus on three here today:

#4- Be realistic

You may want to pull your hair out when your boss wants to move that meeting that took you days to book and get everyone’s schedule to match up but if they have a tendency of shifting their meetings, that’s life. Be realistic when scheduling the meeting and tell yourself that it’s likely going to be re-scheduled. That way, you’ll be prepared when it does and will let such disruptions roll right off your back… can you quack like a duck? That might just help too.

#5- Don’t expect praise or appreciation

This is a big one. If you use your superior skills and tactics to get your boss that prime table that they asked for at that prime restaurant during a jam packed holiday weekend; great job. But that’s just it… accomplishing an almost impossible task is what you’re there for so don’t get bummed out if your boss doesn’t acknowledge such. If you really do need some praise, come on over here to ProAssisting, leave a blog comment telling us about your near impossible feat and WE will pat you on the back. Promise.

#7- Make a joke

I agree with Gretchen that it’s surprising how a joke during a moment of anger or irritation can really have an effect on your mood. 99.9% of the time, as an assistant, you’re not going to be dealing with brain surgery so making a lite joke about whatever mistake you’re currently dealing with will help you to keep things in perspective. Self deprecating humor, when you’re the one who screwed up, has done the trick for smoothing things over with my bosses in the past and it might just work for you too… IF you keep your mistakes and screw-ups to a minimum.

If you found these helpful, check out Gretchen’s post for her take on each tip above and the other 5 that weren’t highlighted here.

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