50 Photos Of People Who Are Having A Worse Day At Work Than You (New Pics)

Getting dealt a bad hand at work isn't the end of the world. Especially for content employees. According to Annie McKee, Ph.D., who is a best-selling business book author and advisor to top global leaders, from CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to government officials, those who are engaged with their jobs and colleagues work harder — and smarter. But that's quite rare.

"Far too many couldn’t care less about what’s happening around them," McKee wrote in Harvard Business Review. "For them, Wednesday is 'hump day' and they’re just working to get to Friday. And then there’s the other end of the bell curve — that nearly one out of five employees is actively disengaged. These people are sabotaging projects, backstabbing colleagues, and generally wreaking havoc in their workplaces."

"Disengaged, unhappy people aren’t any fun to work with, don’t add much value, and impact our organizations (and our economy) in profoundly negative ways," McKee explained.

"It’s even worse when leaders are disengaged because they infect others with their attitude. Their emotions and mindset impact others’ moods and performance tremendously. After all, how we feel is linked to what and how we think. In other words, thought influences emotion, and emotion influences thinking."

McKee thinks it’s time to finally blow up the myth that feelings don’t matter at work.

"Science is on our side: there are clear neurological links between feelings, thoughts, and actions. When we are in the grip of strong negative emotions, it’s like having blinders on," she said. "We focus mostly — sometimes only — on the source of the pain. We don’t process information as well, think creatively, or make good decisions. Frustration, anger, and stress cause an important part of us to shut down —the thinking, engaged part. Disengagement is a natural neurological and psychological response to pervasive negative emotions."

However, it’s not just negative emotions we need to watch out for. "Extremely strong positive emotions have the same effect," McKee said.

"Some studies show that too much happiness can make you less creative and prone to engage in riskier behaviors (think about how we act like fools when we fall in love!). On the work front: I’ve seen groups of people worked up into a frenzy at sales conferences and corporate pep rallies. Little learning or innovation comes out of these meetings. Throw in a lot of alcohol and you’ve got a whole host of other problems."

So it sounds like having your suspenders stuck in your chair every once in a while can be actually quite beneficial.

Since nobody can prepare for the unexpected (just the way they can react to it), it isn't surprising that workers worry about other things.

"One could argue that today's employees are as equally stressed as their predecessors, but for different reasons," said Jodi Chavez, president of Atlanta-based Randstad Professionals, a segment of Randstad US, which provides finance, accounting, HR, sales, marketing, legal staffing and recruitment services. "They fear having their jobs outsourced to another country, have anxiety about how best to work alongside new technologies such as automation and robotics, have increased financial pressures with rising student loan debt and late retirement, and feel pressure to be 'on' and answering e-mails 24/7."