Nice At Work

Humans are a social animal, our world is what it is right now thanks to the ability of humans to interact and work in unison. Just as a machine, any business works as a set of pieces or parts, in this case employees, which should move together towards a common goal. What happens then when one of those pieces is not working properly? Even further on, what happens when one of those pieces directly affects all of the other pieces in the machine? In her article “No Time to Be Nice at Work”, Christine Porath explores the alarming increase of workplace bullying as well as the consequences, which can even be deathly, of work related stress. “Mean bosses could have killed my father” (Porath, 2015). Porath starts her article with this shocking quotation, recalling how her strong and athletic dad ended up bedridden in a hospital, connected to

To start off, workplace stress can directly cause health problems on the subject. Stress levels are directly related to the hormones glucocorticoids, which can potentially cause health issues such as obesity. In fact, stressful jobs increase the chance of having a cardiovascular event by 38% (Porath, 2015). Another workplace stress consequence that Porath explores is the loss of focus and concentration of an employee that is in or has been in very stressful situations. A survey done on over 4,500 doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel shows that 71% relate rude behavior in the workplace with medical errors, and 27% relate this behavior to a patient’s death (Porath, 2015). Disruptive behavior in the workplace does not only affect the two directly involved parties. Any witness of uncivil behavior in the workplace will too be affected by it, causing also a loss of focus and decrease in productivity. This shows the importance of not only having good particular relationships between coworkers, but also having an overall positive work