My mantra is more events equals more happiness

You happy in Events ?

Are you happy at your job? Does it really matter? After all, your employer gives you a salary, sometimes small, sometimes enough to go out once a month and buy a kebab after, and a place to go between 9 and 5 or like me 10 – when the sun comes up. If it wasn’t for your job, you’d be sitting at home all day, throwing back Red Bulls and watching “Big Fat something or other.” You’d never have the luxurious lifestyle you have today, not to mention all the excitement and the glamour your event job provides.

Yet, for ungrateful wretches like you and me, this is apparently not sufficient. You also want to be happy!?! What’s surprising is that your bosses may want you to be happy, too. No, they don’t care that your job makes you miserable. That’s because new research has shown that happy employees are 31 percent more productive, 300 percent more creative and make 37 percent more sales.

Apparently, your poor performance is not because you don’t work enough. It’s because you don’t giggle enough.

One of the driving forces behind these new theories of happiness is Shawn, a researcher, author of “The Happiness Advantage. According to one of my mates who read his stories, Anchor’s researches have uncovered “The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.”

And here’s the best part — he. Is. Happy. To. Share.

One of the techniques Shawn suggests that will “flip the switch to capitalize on positive intelligence” is to “re-wire your brain for increased positivity.” This amazing feat can be accomplished in “as little as three weeks,” according to the happiness guru, but in your case, you might want to allot more time for the flipping process to begin. Before you can re-wire your brain, you do have to find it.

The techniques suggested to accomplish this mental remodelling project include “jotting down three things for which you are grateful.” If you can’t think of any, let me help: You’re grateful for the free non-dairy soya creamer in the coffee room, which you can sprinkle on the shoulders of your co-workers, and then rush to tell the rest of the office it’s dandruff. You’re grateful for all the office supplies you’ve pilfered from the storage room and sold on eBay.

Finally, you’re grateful that your manager constantly berates you, because it makes you appreciate the intermittent criticism you get from your spouse, your children and your dog.

Shawn also recommends meditating at your desk for two minutes. Or you can continue to nap at your desk for six hours, but be careful — you could miss lunch and that would not make you happy.

The happiness guru encourages you to “Change Your Relationship Status … with Stress.” I didn’t understand this phrasing at first, because I know how stressful it would be for you to change your intimate and intense relationship status with the lunchtime buffet at the local all you can eat Chinese buffet. Turns out author Shawn is talking about changing the way you deal with stress. His suggestion is to “pick one stressor to manage at a time, and work your way up from smaller to large victories.”

For example, you might start by giving up the stress you feel when you consider the effects of a giant meteorite crashing into Earth right before the start of “Revenge.” Then you can start working on the stress you feel when the candy machine is out of Whispers.

Or you can simply continue to do what you do now, and beat on the machine with your tiny fists. It may be futile, but it does make you happy.

Helping your co-workers also generates happiness. Research shows that providing “social support” to the losers with whom you work will make you 40 percent more likely to be promoted and feel ten times more engaged by your job. This may be news to you, since the majority of your time, like mine, at work is spent trying to sabotage your co-workers.

Please let me support you in your efforts to support your co-workers. It’s actually easy. When a fellow worker makes a negative comment about your company’s management, immediately send an email to the manager being discussed, documenting the incident in detail. The manager will then realize that your fellow worker is unhappy and quickly move to rectify the situation, using a highly supportive management technique called “firing.”

Your co-worker may be sad, but your manager will be happy, and that should make you very happy indeed.

Of course, being a specimen of event perfection, you may feel you really don’t need to make any resolutions. After all, 2011s “try to share my witty genius with others less gifted than me,” resolution really didn’t pan out. Alternately, you could adopt the technique described by Elizabeth Bernstein and do what caring corporations do — outsource the job.

It makes sense. As Bernstein writes, “who better to tell us how to improve ourselves than someone who knows us well — perhaps better than we know ourselves — and even may be all too happy to offer up some tough love.”

If looking for an “all too happy” provider of tough-love, I suggest you avoid the average events manager. The person you ask should find you only slightly flawed and eminently fixable. Unless you want to declare open season on your headcount, don’t open a floodgate of resolutions from someone who could instantly spew out a dozen ways you could be a better human being.

This leaves our loved ones as the preferred sources for resolutions. “We all have blind spots, but the people we are intimate with can see them,” is the quotable quote Bernstein extracts from couples therapist and psychology professor, David Palmiter. And, in fact, the article does include a case history of a couple that did provide each other’s New Year’s resolutions and lived to tell the tale.

Basically, he was told by she to start eating healthy, start a new business and stop hanging around the house. “Get out of my hair,” were the loving, constructive words of that final resolution.

When it was he who had to provide resolutions to she, the husband proved he was a master of marriage dynamics. His resolutions included “Be more adventurous” and “Stop criticizing yourself so much.” (Personally, I would have added, “Resolve to treat yourself to more costly spa treatments, since you so clearly deserve the very best in life,” but, then again, I’ve been married many times).

Another case history in the article limned the tale of Karen Platt who, “tired of making the same New Year’s resolutions year after year,” requested a batch of resolutions from her 12-year-old son, Dexter. I’m not suggesting that you run your life based on the wisdom of a 12 year old, but, let’s face it, he probably will be better at it than you.

If you don’t have any close friends that you can ask for help with your resolutions and you don’t want to provide any additional opportunities for criticism from your loved ones, I’m happy to offer my services.

Though I would hardly call us “intimate,” I definitely know you better than you know yourself. Climb out from under the bed, and let’s get this resolution issue resolved:

Resolution No. 1: Work less.

I know it’s difficult to imagine working any less than you currently do, but give it a try. Let’s see how little you can actually do before your manager notices. There could be dozens of hours in the week you could be devoting to twitter or some new exciting APP, which you are currently wasting being productive.

Resolution No. 2: Make more mistakes.

Management gurus are always blabbing about how we need the freedom to make mistakes. Sure, you’ve made some major blunders in the past, but with a little effort, you could probably create a real catastrophe, and wouldn’t that be fun?

Resolution No. 3: Think inside the box.

The ideas that get “in the box” may be stinkers, but no one is going to fire you for doing business as usual. Besides, it’s cold, lonely and dangerous outside the box. Have you been reading The Metro or watching the News , “ This is no time to take chances! Get into the box, and pull the box top down over you.

Bernstein’s column concludes with tips for smoothing over any residual rage that can come from telling someone they are total losers who have no idea how to live their lives. “Start with a gratitude letter,” says psychologist Palmiter. “Tell the other person what you appreciate about them.”

So, let me just say that I truly value our non-intimate relationship, and I deeply appreciate all the help you will so desperately require from me in 2012. No need to say “thanks.”

Just send money.

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