Furloughs, layoffs, burdened bosses, and stressed coworkers: Tension can stifle your office and kill productivity. But if you can defuse that tension, you may also be making yourself a valuable employee, even if you're not the manager.

"Being the office tension manager can be a wonderful reputation to have," says corporate trainer Marlene Caroselli. "Every time you resolve a conflict you really enhance your own skills."

Consider these four types of tension tamers:

The Charmer

"They know the exact moment to insert humor that breaks the tension at work," says Kathi Elster, coauthor of "Working With You Is Killing Me."

The charmer doesn't crack one-liners or riff on the boss's toupee, though. Instead, she:

• Focuses on policies, not people. "It could be a lot of fun to make fun of a mean boss, but it doesn't cut tension because it has a dark edge and and it could get you into trouble," said Elster's coauthor Katherine Crowley.
• Tests the office humor quotient. "We work with a high-tech company where all the staff have piercings and tattoos," said Crowley. "Their tension-cutting jokes are going to be very different than the jokes at a bank."
• Renames it. Reframe furloughs as "funloughs" and say it lightly, with confidence that everything will work out.

There are a million and one ways that you can be discriminated against in the workplace, and I though that I would use this article to highlight some of them.

This is by no means a definitive list, so I would encourage you to add any further comments to the thread I have started on our discussion forum.

There are a lot of forms of discrimination that we are all aware of due to copious amounts of campaigning. Sexual discrimination and racial discrimination are the two main ones that I can think of.

Now I'm not saying that these have been totally eradicated, but at least the majority of people are aware of them and there is plenty of legislation out there to protect the "victims" (I hate that expression).

What I want to do here, is look at different forms of discrimination in the workplace and perhaps encourage a bit of discussion on the subject areas.

It’s so tempting ...

1. To complain when others are complaining.
2. To believe that your social media skills will pay off in more pay and more responsibilities.
3. To believe that upper management is clueless.
4. To yearn for days gone by.
5. To manage with the same carrot-and-stick approach that has proven repeatedly not to work.
6. To believe human resources people when they tell you, “Just wait, and we will get back to you with the new steps.”
7. To want to search for jobs on the big job boards, even though, far more often than not, you won’t even get a call back.
8. To believe that education and skill aren't important anymore.
9. To believe that no one watches how you handle stress.
10. To wonder if all your dreams have passed you by.

"Could you interface with that team on its ad campaign that's gone viral, and then circle back with me? If we can leverage similar assets, we'll have a game changer."

Ever heard talk like that in your workplace? If it sounds familiar, it could be the buzzwords. "Leverage," "interface," and "circle back" are among the most annoying and overused terms in work settings today, according to a new survey of executives.

The Buzzword Lineup

In research conducted by finance staffing firm Accountemps, 150 senior executives from the nation's largest companies cited these 10 problem words and phrases (in no particular order):

• Leverage: "We should leverage our investment in IT infrastructure across multiple business units to drive profits."
• Reach out: "Jim decided to reach out to this underutilized demographic."
• It is what it is: "The server is down, and clients are irate. It is what it is."
• Viral: "Our training video has gone viral."
• Game changer: "The switch from LAN to WiFi was a game changer for our productivity."
• Disconnect: "There is a disconnect between our customers' wants and their page views."
• Value-add: "Where's the value-add in this increase in spending?"
• Circle back: "I have to go, but I will circle back with the client later."
• Interface: "My job requires me to interface with all levels of the firm."
• Cutting edge: "Our cutting-edge technology gives us a competitive advantage."

It's extremely obvious that women have come a long way as successful professionals. Life in the workplace has become much more diversified as an increased number of women have made their presence felt in many industries and professions. The female task force has expanded with exponential strength, and thus has its dire importance in the professional world.

SUCCESS&FLIRT

Whether they like it or not, men have to accept, once and for all, that women are marching up the corporate ladder confidently and with full speed ahead.

Women used to be much more "quiet and passive" in the workplace due to the relatively small number of female employees in comparison to males. Women today, on the other hand, have begun assuming their positions by using all their God given powers of intelligence and organization.

Warren Farrell, author of Why Men Are the Way They Are , explains that men are jealous of the "beauty power" that allows women to get certain things based on their physical assets, so to speak. Perhaps it's less that women use their beauty, and more likely that men judge them based on their physical beauty... food for thought, Mr. Farell.

Logically speaking, though, even if a minute amount of women batted their eyelashes, wore nice perfume and subjective outfits to get to the top, wouldn't they still need to be clever enough to hold those high positions?

Unmanaged stress can have a serious impact on employee performance and overall wellbeing, which in turn, has crippling consequences on company output.

The results of poor stress management and workplace pressures can include decreased proficiency, higher absenteeism rates, low company morale, counterproductive team work and employee health related problems. Effectively assessing stressors, stress types and implementing the necessary measures to create healthy stress management programs can be the differentiating factor of a mediocre business to a productively efficient one.

What are stressors?

It must be noted that stress factors are subjective and what one person may find stressful, others may not necessarily experience as negatively. The way in which we experience and react to stress is described as an emotional condition which triggers physical, psychological and emotional responses from the individual.
Formally, a stressor is defined as an event or context that elevates adrenaline and triggers the stress response which results in the body being thrown out of balance as it is forced to respond.

Examples of Stress Triggers

• Environmental stressors (elevated sound levels, over-illumination, overcrowding)
• Daily stress events (e.g. traffic, lost keys)
• Life changes (e.g. divorce, bereavement)
• Workplace stressors (e.g. role strain, lack of control)