{"id":1394,"date":"2015-07-24T19:50:10","date_gmt":"2015-07-24T19:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keblog.demoapp.xyz\/?p=1394"},"modified":"2022-10-19T03:58:42","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T03:58:42","slug":"ditch-the-doormat-learn-how-to-say-no-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/ditch-the-doormat-learn-how-to-say-no-at-work","title":{"rendered":"Ditch the Doormat: Learn How to Say No at Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>No. <\/em><\/strong>Such a short and simple word consisting of two letters but somehow manages to leave many people tongue-twisted.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of people find it really difficult to say no. Especially for us Pinoys who find it hard to say it out of fear of disappointing people. Instead, we say \u201cmaybe\u201d, \u201cwe\u2019ll see\u201d, \u201c<em>tignan natin<\/em>\u201d, and other similar phrases.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s even tougher to say no in the workplace. If we say no to overtime, colleagues might say we\u2019re too lazy to put in the extra hours. What if the boss asks me to take on this new project on top of my current work load? Will he consider it as saying no to opportunities and leadership?<\/p>\n<p>The truth is it\u2019s almost as hard to hear the word no as much as it is to say it. There are some situations at work when a no isn\u2019t possible or it could be detrimental for a project. You don\u2019t want to be that unhelpful jerk that has no team-playing skills.<\/p>\n<p>So how can you diplomatically say no at work without sounding like a jerk?<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_26 counter-hierarchy\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\">TOPICS<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" style=\"display: none;\"><label for=\"item\" aria-label=\"Table of Content\"><i class=\"ez-toc-glyphicon ez-toc-icon-toggle\"><\/i><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\" id=\"item\"><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class=\"ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1\"><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/ditch-the-doormat-learn-how-to-say-no-at-work\/#Make_sure_you_know_what_they_want\" title=\"Make sure you know what they want\">Make sure you know what they want<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/ditch-the-doormat-learn-how-to-say-no-at-work\/#Offer_the_next_best_thing\" title=\"Offer the next best thing\">Offer the next best thing<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/ditch-the-doormat-learn-how-to-say-no-at-work\/#Say_no_without_saying_no\" title=\"Say no without saying no\">Say no without saying no<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/ditch-the-doormat-learn-how-to-say-no-at-work\/#Be_firm_but_gracious\" title=\"Be firm but gracious\">Be firm but gracious<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Make_sure_you_know_what_they_want\"><\/span><strong>Make sure you know what they want<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>When it\u2019s crunch time and you have ten million other things on your plate, it can be very tempting to immediately shut down any request asked of you. Yes, it\u2019s a hassle having to deal with someone else\u2019s work load on top of your own, but you don\u2019t have to be a meanie. It\u2019s possible that what they want is actually doable and will only take a couple of minutes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/money.usnews.com\/money\/blogs\/outside-voices-careers\/2015\/07\/06\/how-to-say-no-at-work-without-sounding-like-a-jerk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">When someone approaches you to ask for help, find out exactly what your co-worker wants from you before you turn them down<\/a>. It\u2019s tempting to say no right away but you may be able to help him or her without even breaking a sweat. Offer the help that you can give but make sure you don\u2019t compromise your own work.<\/p>\n<p>The next time someone asks for help, you can say, \u201cI would love to help you out <em>pero sunod-sunod ang<\/em> deadlines <em>ko ngayon at bukas<\/em>. <em>Ganito nalang<\/em>, give me a list of items that you think I can help you with along with the ideal deadlines, and <em>balikan kita mamaya<\/em> on the things I think I can do and when I can do them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With this spiel, you\u2019re not really saying no to the request. Let\u2019s consider this your I\u2019ll-help-you-but-on-my-own-terms kind of speech. Ideally, it will give you the one-two punch of a.) letting your co-worker sift through the clutter to give you the relevant tasks and b.) diplomatically work out a timeline that works for the two of you.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Offer_the_next_best_thing\"><\/span><strong>Offer the next best thing<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Another way you can say politely say no is by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/pictures\/mkl45efijg\/offer-an-alternative-3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">giving them an alternative<\/a>. You\u2019re not exactly saying no to the person. You\u2019re just saying yes in a way that works best for you.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s say a co-worker is asking you to help out with organizing the company\u2019s Christmas party. You have a million other pending items on your desk and it\u2019s not really something you would put at the top of your to-do list. But you owe this particular co-worker a favor for helping you out before.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of letting yourself be guilt tripped into becoming an event organizer or committee head, offer your help with something else instead. Offer to man the registration booth on the day of the party or come a little early on the day of the event to decorate the venue.<\/p>\n<p>Another alternative for projects that aren\u2019t urgent is to offer your help with the project at a later date. You\u2019ll get the time you need to accomplish what needs to be done while being able to help some other time.<\/p>\n<p>With these options, even though you\u2019re not giving the person exactly what they want, you are still giving them something valuable as an alternative.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Say_no_without_saying_no\"><\/span><strong>Say no without saying no<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The trickiest part about saying no is knowing how to say no to your boss. You wouldn\u2019t want to seem like a lazy and impertinent upstart when you really want to impress your boss. As much as your boss wants to be able to keep tabs on all of your projects, sometimes he or she simply forgets about some of them.<\/p>\n<p>A good way to say no without saying no is to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/how-to-say-no-to-your-boss-2014-3?IR=T\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">subtly remind him or her about your workload<\/a>. Instead of blatantly saying no to your boss, ask them to sit down with you and help you prioritize your workload. When you run down the list of key projects you need to do, you can also include the day-to-day tasks that still take up crucial minutes or hours out of your work day.<\/p>\n<p>Asking your boss to help you \u201cprioritize\u201d is basically getting his or her go signal to push aside other tasks to make way for the new task that needs to be done or to postpone the new task for the older tasks.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Be_firm_but_gracious\"><\/span><strong>Be firm but gracious<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>There are some situations where you really can\u2019t avoid saying no. The key to pulling off the art of saying no is to strike a balance between being too nice and possibly rude.<\/p>\n<p>Stand your ground and say that no, you really can\u2019t do it, but don\u2019t be a jerk when you say it.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s say you have a long-awaited vacation at the end of the week. You planned your workload to prepare you for the two or three days when you\u2019ll be out of town. You\u2019re all set when suddenly here comes a colleague asking you to please, please, please pick up the slack for his or her unfinished project because \u201c<em>sige na, last na<\/em>.\u201d You know that helping out your co-worker will eat up all the time you allotted for all your own projects so there really is no other recourse but to say no.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t accept the task if it will compromise your own job and don\u2019t say, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not going to do it because <em>kasalanan mo yan kaya ayusin mo<\/em>.\u201d Be firm with your decision to say not but remain gracious.<\/p>\n<p>Instead say, \u201cI would love to help you but, as you know, I\u2019m leaving for vacation at the end of the week. I need to finish my projects before I leave so I have to prioritize them first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll get your point across without being impolite or coming off as a doormat.<\/p>\n<p>Learning to say no at work isn\u2019t being <em>maarte<\/em>, it\u2019s a prerogative to surviving the corporate world. You won\u2019t get anything done if you spread yourself too thin and you won\u2019t be able to give your best work if you have too much on your plate. It\u2019s about respecting your time and other people\u2019s needs. Saying no is an art. And like different forms of art, you just need to practice to pull it off flawlessly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No. Such a short and simple word consisting of two letters but somehow manages to leave many people tongue-twisted. A lot of people find it really difficult to say no. Especially for us Pinoys who find it hard to say it out of fear of disappointing people. Instead, we say \u201cmaybe\u201d, \u201cwe\u2019ll see\u201d, \u201ctignan natin\u201d, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":1429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}