I often find myself throughout the day listening and observing the behaviors of personnel and today it dawned on me that many would rather complain than ask for what they want or what they need.
It makes me ponder the question, Why? Is it that they don't believe they can have or get what they want? Or, is it just better to complain and have an excuse to why something can't be done?
This behavior was noticed to no avail this morning when I overheard an employee complaining to co-workers that she didn't have use of all her computer monitors and therefore, couldn't do her job. Now mind you, there are six monitors at this workstation, and with one monitor being out it totally disrupted her work flow and in her response/behavior, crippled her abilities to work all together.
Were there choices, absolutely!
My immediate reaction was to want to go out and fix the problem, but I wanted to observe this behavior, and see how the workplace would respond to the verbal out pour. I listened as the employee continued to blame her workstation for why she couldn't do certain things. I listened as co-workers bought into the story that this is just how it is and to do the best she could. I listened as the conversations got off topic about how this would impact operations if the call volume got out of hand, but yet, no one seemed to respond by asking for what they needed, or to inform the one person in the office who could do something about it, yet continued to talk about the inconveniences.
After forty-five minutes of non-stop chatter, I finally heard enough, and casually walked out of my office onto the communications floor to inquire about what the problem was. I was informed that one of the monitors was burned out and within five minutes had the workstation up and running with no further issues. When I asked the question, "why didn't you let me know?" The employees response was, "I thought you already knew!."
So the question remains, is it better to complain or to ask?
This behavior, in my opinion, is an example of how we often make assumptions, get stuck dealing with our issues or situations that we fail to see our choices or create a story that we can't get what we want or need. A simple question would have saved a ton of productivity, as everyone seemed to be focused on this one topic, rather than seeking a solution.
I'm willing to hear your feedback...