Monday Motivation Hack: Set Your Work Boundaries

We’re not going to advise you to just “deal with it” when a coworker talks too much, listens to music too loudly, wears too much perfume, doesn’t meet deadlines, or does just about any other irritating thing people do at work.

This is about understanding your personal tolerance level at work and clearly communicating it to those around you without burning bridges.

Why Is Boundary-Setting So Hard?

Drawing a line in the sand and asserting needs is inevitably uncomfortable because it generates conflict. Humans have adapted to avoid conflict because confrontation can be a dangerous experience. We’re biologically wired to avoid the negative feelings of conflict, so we let things slide.

However, if you never deal with conflict, you’re likely to get trapped in it. And you deserve to have your needs respected. So, how do you go about asserting yourself and setting boundaries?

The Number One Rule to Setting Boundaries at Work

It can be extremely tempting when a coworker is stepping on your toes to view him as the “bad guy” and choose to see his behavior as intentional and aggressive rather than innocent, especially if it’s been happening a lot or for a long time. This biased outlook, however, sets you up for some tense interactions. Rather than focus on the negative, remember this important rule:

Always assume the person in question is reasonable and good.

Is Margaret’s music always a little too loud? She isn’t putting her needs above others; she probably doesn’t realize her headphones don’t block sound well.

Is Carter helping himself to your carrot sticks a little too freely? He isn’t being arrogant and selfish; he likely thinks that the carrot sticks are like the other snacks in the office—communal.

Is Lloyd not pulling his weight on his part of team projects? He’s not lazy; he might be confused about the task or what his responsibilities are.

Avoiding accusations and negativity is critical to preserving the functionality of the relationship. Find a perspective that gives the person in question the benefit of the doubt and approach your conversation with them from that positive point of empathy.

Once you’ve got a good grip on this very important rule, you can actually begin the confrontation.

What to Do If Someone Is Too “There”

Whether they talk too loudly, their desk items tend to sprawl into your space, or they hover in other people’s conversations, the most important thing you can do to remedy the situation is ask them to change their behavior in the moment that it’s happening.

Speak up.

Most people who are loud are just happy or excited and don’t necessarily realize that they are louder than others. People whose messes spill over tend to be people who aren’t as affected by clutter and might not realize that it bothers anyone, and people who participate in everyone’s conversations really just want to be included. These people just need a little friendly support to remind them when to quiet down, respect your space, and honor privacy.

Here’s a tip: When asking someone to modify their behavior, remember to clearly state the change you want to see. Sometimes it may be necessary to give some context as to why it is relevant to you.

“Could you please be quieter?”

“Could you please move this out of our shared space?”

“This is a private conversation. If you like, we can catch up later.”

“It’s hard for me to concentrate with so much going on, would you mind turning down your music?”

You may feel awkward speaking up, but the truth is when you’re direct and don’t make it a big deal, it’ll be fine. If you’re struggling to find the right words, Entreprenuer.com has some helpful hints.

But, what if I’ve already asked?

Keep it classy.

In the case that you have asked this person to respect your boundaries and they continue to cross the line, ask them out for coffee and clarify where you stand. Yes, there is more friction, and it can be scary to confront someone one-on-one, but if you’re gracious and—maybe even a little funny—it will be a lot easier.

Here’s a tip: Grace and humor go a long way and are especially effective if you need to actually discuss the issue you are having.

And if that still doesn’t help? Begin talking to your manager.

What to Do When Someone’s Toe-Stepping Is Serious

Unfortunately, despite our number one rule, not all behaviors are reasonable. Some are rooted in dysfunction, and it can be complicated to sort out how to improve the situation. Whether you’ve got a colleague who never lets anyone else speak, a teammate who seems lazy, or someone exhibiting narcissistic tendencies, it’s still critical that you try to give the benefit of the doubt. However, these kinds of concerns can be uniquely difficult to handle and are likely already having a significant effect on the performance of the team. It’s important to follow a few guidelines:

1. Unless the issue is serious, first try resolving the concern on your own using the tips mentioned earlier.
2. If the situation doesn’t improve, collect your thoughts, noting some concrete examples that demonstrate why you are concerned.
3. Set up a meeting with a supervisor or HR representative for help navigating the confrontation.
4. Do try to remain calm and cooperative throughout the process. Negative outbursts are counterproductive and can have serious consequences.

What kinds of experiences have you had with boundary setting and conflict resolution at work? Were there any especially effective tricks that worked for you?

Find Your Zen When Coworkers Are Getting on Your Nerves

Today is not going as planned.

A wave of unexpected assignments crashed across your desk this morning, forcing you to skip lunch. You’re feeling grouchy. Then, seeking solace in the breakroom, you discover an overloaded refrigerator shelf has chosen this very moment to collapse. After a terrible crash that surely captured everyone’s attention, you find yourself standing in a pool of broken glass, sorrow, and cold tea. Worse still, Chad, the smug programmer who always talks about his tattoos, is right there, looking on, with the nerve to act like this is all hilarious.

Choice words for Chad spring to mind. Fates involving fire and scorpions. You’re mentally verging on the kind of paroxysm the HR department might later term “disproportionate” and “alarming.” Oh dear.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, your inner professional is pleading with you not to verbalize these thoughts. There is no edit-undo shortcut for the regrettable things you’re tempted to say. In moments like this, being able to regain your chill is essential.

And opportunities to practice abound: from coworkers with a knack for rudely interrupting while you’re trying to concentrate to that one intern with the insanely loud headphones, your office is full of chances to work on finding your zen. Let’s talk about how.

Create distance

You would like to be on an island several time zones away from awful Chad and the stupid pile of work that’s waiting back at your desk. At minimum you would like to teleport to the coffee shop across the street and acquire a scone.

That impulse to flee is understandable, but for now, you’ll do well to create some mental distance, according to experts at Ohio State University. Instead of counting to ten, try zooming back and taking a more remote view of the situation, says researcher Dominik Mischkowski:

The secret is to not get immersed in your own anger and, instead, have a more detached view. . . . You have to see yourself in this stressful situation as a fly on the wall would see it.

This technique, known as “self-distancing,” helps keep you from focusing too much on your irritation and saying something you’ll later regret.

People often mistake anger for something that builds up and has to be released, much like steam in a pressure cooker, writes psychology professor Brad Bushman. But it’s better to dial back the heat altogether.

To use another analogy, venting anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire: It just feeds the flame. Venting keeps arousal levels high and keeps aggressive thoughts and angry feelings alive.

Before you react angrily, it’s a good idea to change the channel and give your elevated heart rate some time to come back down. In the meantime, you might mentally reframe the issue: maybe Chad is comically inept at knowing when to add levity. You might also distract yourself with a little self-care: take ten minutes to go grab that scone and watch a cat video.

Take care of yourself

Sometimes, when you’re feeling vexed with your coworkers, there’s no singular reason—just an amalgam of minor irritations that have weakened your psychic defenses. Maybe you got a late start, skipped breakfast, and are plain hungry. Or perhaps you got caught in a downpour on your way to work this morning and your socks have been dishearteningly damp all day.

It’s wise to prepare for such contingencies; this is why many people keep energy bars and aspirin in their desk drawer. If it’s a long haul from home, you’re not crazy for keeping a change of clothes (or at least some fresh socks) at the office as well.

In other cases, through no fault of their own, the problem really is your colleagues. Suppose Iris, in the next cubicle over, has been tasked with calling the references for several applicants for the upcoming fellowship. You’re dreading spending the afternoon listening to her ask, over and over, what each candidate’s strengths are, and what they could stand to improve on. (Then again, if overhearing all that sounds unfun, think about how Iris must feel.)

Your drawer might not include a soundproof door you can put between your desk and hers, but if you can’t scoop up your laptop and relocate to someplace quieter, then it should contain some spare headphones.

When it’s simply not cool

There are times when the issue is not that you need to take a deep breath and reclaim your office zen, but that your coworkers are acting out of line. If someone is being disrespectful or underhanded, the solution is not to find a way to smile and let it go.

Acting angrily won’t help in such situations; you need to think carefully about who you can take the problem to and how you’ll explain it, so don’t be hasty. Where the issue concerns other people who are unlikely to speak out, it’s especially worth handling thoughtfully.

Here, all that practice staying level-headed and cool will serve you well.

Ellen DeGeneres and Hugh Laurie compare British and American slang; how many can you get right?

How many of these do you know? Are you more American or Brit?

Share your results on Facebook and tag @Grammarly!

Grammar Basics: What Are Superlatives?

Can you have two best friends? Someone posted this question on Grammarly Answers. Why a question about friendship? The grammar issue has to do with the adjective “best.” Best is a superlative. Let’s discuss what that means.

Suppose you have three rich friends. Bob has five million dollars. Bill has eight million dollars. Bernice has two million dollars. If you were comparing two friends, you would use a comparative adjective: Bill is richer than Bob. When you want to express the highest or most extreme degree of the quality you are comparing, you need a superlative: Bill is my richest friend.

Forming superlative adjectives is easy. For most short adjectives, you add “est” to the end of the word. Of course, if a single syllable word already ends with E, you only need to add the “st.” To form the superlative of longer words, you put the words “most” or “least” in front of them. Bernice is not the wealthiest, but she buys the most expensive clothes. You will notice that the Y of “wealthy” becomes I in the superlative form.

“Best” is the superlative form of “good.” Remember the definition of a superlative adjective. It expresses the highest degree of the quality. When you talk about a best friend, is it possible to have more than one? You can view the answers given and share your opinion by visiting Grammarly Answers.

Past Perfect Tense

The past perfect, also called the pluperfect, is a verb tense used to talk about actions that were completed before some point in the past.

We were shocked to discover that someone had graffitied “Tootles was here” on our front door. We were relieved that Tootles had used washable paint.

The past perfect tense is for talking about something that happened before something else. Imagine waking up one morning and stepping outside to grab the newspaper. On your way back in, you notice a mysterious message scrawled across your front door: Tootles was here. When you’re telling this story to your friends later, how would you describe this moment? You might say something like:

I turned back to the house and saw that some someone named Tootles had defaced my front door!

In addition to feeling indignant on your behalf, your friends will also be able to understand that Tootles graffitied the door at some point in the past before the moment this morning when you saw his handiwork, because you used the past perfect tense to describe the misdeed.

The Past Perfect Formula

The formula for the past perfect tense is had + [past participle]. It doesn’t matter if the subject is singular or plural; the formula doesn’t change.

When to Use the Past Perfect

So what’s the difference between past perfect and simple past? When you’re talking about some point in the past and want to reference an event that happened even earlier, using the past perfect allows you to convey the sequence of the events. It’s also clearer and more specific. Consider the difference between these two sentences:

We were relieved that Tootles used washable paint. We were relieved that Tootles had used washable paint.

It’s a subtle difference, but the first sentence doesn’t tie Tootles’s act of using washable paint to any particular moment in time; readers might interpret it as “We were relieved that Tootles was in the habit of using washable paint.” In the second sentence, the past perfect makes it clear that you’re talking about a specific instance of using washable paint.

Another time to use the past perfect is when you are expressing a condition and a result:

If I had woken up earlier this morning, I would have caught Tootles red-handed.

The past perfect is used in the part of the sentence that explains the condition (the if-clause).

Most often, the reason to write a verb in the past perfect tense is to show that it happened before other actions in the same sentence that are described by verbs in the simple past tense. Writing an entire paragraph with every verb in the past perfect tense is unusual.

When Not to Use the Past Perfect

Don’t use the past perfect when you’re not trying to convey some sequence of events. If your friends asked what you did after you discovered the graffiti, they would be confused if you said:

I had cleaned it off the door.

They’d likely be wondering what happened next because using the past perfect implies that your action of cleaning the door occurred before something else happened, but you don’t say what that something else is. The “something else” doesn’t always have to be explicitly mentioned, but context needs to make it clear. In this case there’s no context, so the past perfect doesn’t make sense.

How to Make the Past Perfect Negative

Making the past perfect negative is simple! Just insert not between had and [past participle].

We looked for witnesses, but the neighbors had not seen Tootles in the act. If Tootles had not included his own name in the message, we would have no idea who was behind it.

How to Ask a Question

The formula for asking a question in the past perfect tense is had + [subject] + [past participle].

Had Tootles caused trouble in other neighborhoods before he struck ours?

Common Regular Verbs in the Past Perfect Tense

Common Irregular Verbs in the Past Perfect Tense

*The past participle of “to get” is “gotten” in American English. In British English, the past participle is “got.”

Remember When? 6 Grammar Rules From the Past

Merriam-Webster defines grammar quite simply as the set of rules explaining how we use words in the English language. And as language itself has evolved over time, so have the rules of grammar. Given the speed with which written communication has adapted to life in the Internet era, even the strictest style mavens understand that some grammar conventions may no longer apply. Here are some grammar rules today’s writers can usually safely ignore.

Ending a Sentence With a Preposition

The English poet John Dryden proclaimed it “inelegant” to end a sentence with a preposition simply because it wasn’t possible to do so in Latin, the gold standard of the time. In fact, many early grammar rules were heavily influenced by the limitations of Latin. Today, most writers agree with Winston Churchill, who, when asked about the preposition rule, drolly replied, “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.”

Splitting Infinitives

The rule against split infinitives is another relic left over from Latin constructions. In the past, strict grammarians would object to separating the infinitive with a descriptive word, insisting that to quickly run must be replaced with to run quickly. Now it’s universally understood that the writers are free to choose the style that best suits their needs.

Using Possessive Pronouns With Gerunds

Purists insist that writers treat gerunds as they would any other noun and precede it with a possessive pronoun. “Mother didn’t appreciate my singing during dinner,” is technically correct, but it is also acceptable to say, “Mother didn’t appreciate me singing during dinner.” In many cases, pronoun choice is more a stylistic choice than a strict rule of grammar.

Not beginning a Sentence With a Conjunction

The prohibition against opening a sentence with a conjunction is one of the most persistent grammar myths of all time. In fact, the “Chicago Manual of Style” estimates that as many as 10 percent of the finest sentences ever written began with a conjunction. Since this practice is accepted by all the major style guides, it’s safe to say it’s okay to start a sentence with a conjunction.

Avoiding Sentence Fragments

Fiction writers recognize the stylistic value of employing a sentence fragment to emphasize a point. In general, it’s still the rule to avoid fragments in formal and academic writing, but employed sparingly and judiciously, the sentence fragment is a powerful tool in prose. Of course, as with any subjective matter in writing, the danger lies in using stylistic tricks to disguise sloppy composition.

Using Gendered Pronouns

Throughout the history of written English, he was the preferred pronoun for generic writing. Today, this is no longer the case, a condition causing fits for the current generation of writers. English lacks gender-neutral pronouns, and it doesn’t seem as though a widely acceptable alternative to he and she will be available any time soon.

Since the major style guides caution against using a generic he, some writers have resorted to using they as a singular pronoun: “The student needs to understand that they are responsible for bringing lunch.” Since most editors are not as comfortable with that construction, it’s best to rewrite the sentence with a plural noun: “The students need to understand that they are responsible for bringing lunch.”

Of course, for the most formal writing, especially in academic situations, it’s best to adhere to strict grammatical constructions. But for other writing, especially where style, point of view, and dialect are important to give nuance to a piece, go ahead and ignore the archaic constraints.

Do you play loose with grammar rules in your daily writing? Which ones annoy or confuse you the most?

5 Alternative Ways to Say “Thank You in Advance”

You just got an email from Susie in accounting asking you to bring three dozen of your famous cupcakes for Dave the office manager’s retirement party. Which, by the way, is tomorrow. Susie signed her email:

Thank you in advance,

Susie

Your reaction to that sign-off will probably depend on the tone and content of Susie’s email. If she politely apologized for the short notice and begged you to please consider whipping up what has become an office favorite (because, really, who doesn’t like cupcakes?), you might get busy baking after work. If she was demanding and unapologetic . . . not so much.

“Thanks in advance” is a rather loaded sign-off. On one hand, a study by the email app Boomerang ranked it as the sign-off most likely to get a response. (Other forms of “thank you” also ranked at the top.) Clearly, gratitude is a solid way to end an email if you want to hear back from the recipient.

On the other hand, “Thank you in advance” can come across as presumptuous and even passive-aggressive. Depending on the context, it could make Susie sound as though she’s saying, “I expect you to do this.”

If you want to steer clear of the potential misunderstandings this popular sign-off might create, here are a few options to try.

1“Thanks”

There’s nothing wrong with a plain ol’ “thanks.” Taking “in advance” out of your expression of gratefulness removes the tone of expectancy and takes some pressure off the receiver. It’s a little vague, though, so if there’s any chance your recipient might find herself asking Thanks for what?, it’s better to . . .

2Use a call to action.

If you want your email to get a response, ask your recipient to do something after he finishes reading it. Let’s use Susie’s cupcake request as an example. After explaining what she hopes you’ll do, she might finish with a call to action (CTA) in the form of a question.

I know this is really short notice—I clearly wasn’t planning ahead! Do you think you’d have time to make us some of your awesome treats?

Susie

“Thanks in advance” can put the recipient in the awkward position of having to say no after you implied that you expected a yes. Using a CTA, however, gives the recipient options rather than expectations. That makes it both polite and effective. Here, Susie asked a direct question. She included a little mea culpa, and she didn’t make assumptions. How nice of her!

3I appreciate your help with ______.

This sign-off works best if someone has already lent you a hand. Or you can use it if you’re asking for assistance and you’re pretty sure the recipient is going to say yes because you’ve had an ongoing dialogue or your working relationship is already cooperative.

4Thanks for considering my request.

This sign-off can work well because it doesn’t presume that the recipient will do anything more than give some thought to what you asked them to do. Pro tip: It’s best to use this type of sign-off in conjunction with a CTA. Otherwise, all the recipient may do is consider your request . . . without ever getting back to you.

5Thanks for your attention. I’m looking forward to your reply.

This one is more businesslike and direct. If you do indeed expect a reply, it conveys a tone that’s firm and insistent. This one’s probably best used by managers communicating with people they supervise. When used by colleagues on the same tier, it could come across as bossy.

Email Request Example

“Thank you in advance” can be useful when you know the recipient is going to do what you’re asking of them, and you want to express gratitude up front. But more often, it’s likely to be misconstrued as demanding, even if you don’t mean it to be.

Your best bet is to explain what you’re hoping the recipient will do, include a CTA, and offer a quick thanks. Using that format, Susie’s cupcake request might look like this:

Hi Joe,

Dave, our office manager, retires tomorrow. I’ve been busy planning his send-off party. I noticed you RSVP’d to the invite—thanks!

This morning, someone asked me whether you’d be bringing your famous cupcakes, and it dawned on me that I completely forgot to ask you about them. We’d need about three dozen for the party.

I know this is really short notice—I clearly wasn’t planning ahead! Do you think you’d have time to make us some of your awesome treats?

Susie

Because Susie was polite and played her cards right, there’s a good chance of cupcakes at the party tomorrow. Huzzah!