It's the kind of thing we all do:come home from work and rant about the canteen, which isn't good, Duboss who hasn't let us down, the stupid colleagues who gossip all day (cross out the or useless mentions)… At the time, it feels good, but it seems that it is ultimately not good for us. A recent study published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology has shown that complaining about your job gives importance to negative things and makes it harder to move on.
In this study, the 112 participants were asked to fill in a kind of diary for 3 days in a row, recording how much they complained, how much they focused on what was wrong and how much they had exaggerated small problems. The researchers also asked participants to recount a bad experience of the day and assign it a score, but also to note their mood changes during the day. Verdict? The more people complained, focused on the negative, and exaggerated worries, the worse their bad experiences seemed to them. Worse:they tended to be in a bad mood the next day. Conversely, among people who took these little problems less to heart, bad experiences did not have such an impact and the people concerned felt happy at work and proud of their work.
Dwelling on negative things is never good, let it be said. To be well at work, it is better not to give too much importance to annoying little things...
