Tip 2.  Brainstorm on how to make work more enjoyable

Do this with more than one person, if possible. Customer Service reps in the complaint department of a major airline did this. Their job is to deal with angry people who have lost their luggage or had their flight delayed, etc. They took 10 minutes during a regular staff meeting. They took the first 4 minutes to think outside the box and made a long list of anything and everything possible that would make their job more enjoyable.

Their list included obvious things like choosing to ‘partner’ with the customer so that together they would solve the problem (rather than taking their accusations personally).  The list also included crazy ideas such as hanging a punching bag near the counter for customers to “emote” onto.

Then they took 1 minute to go through the list and together chose one idea from the list of 17 that seemed doable which, in this case, was to put up a “Dealing with Angry Customers” bulletin board in the staff room. Then they took the last 5 minutes of the brainstorm to design an action plan to implement the idea. In this case, they decided that each week a different staff member would search online for tips on how to deal with angry customers. That person would post the “tip” on the bulletin board and at each staff meeting the employee would summarize the tip.