Job-Sabotaging Gestures
"Ah-hmmmmm." Near the end, her long and unself-conscious sighs would fill several seconds of almost every hour. They were loud and could no longer be ignored by co-workers too polite to tell her.</br></br>"Ah-hmmmmm." Things hadn't gone so well for her, it was true. She'd moved to Washington for what seemed to be a promising job, a major career move. But, after a year, she realized that no promotions were likely for her, that her talents and skills weren't being fully utilized or appreciated, that her friendships in the office seemed tenuous and increasingly strained. On top of that was the recession that added uncertainty to the job.</br></br>"It was driving me crazy," confides her boss, usually an open-door type of employer who had started closing his office door to shut out the sighs. "Every time she sighed, it was like letting air out of a balloon," he says, "only the balloon was the morale around the office. My morale." "Ah-hmmmmm." He fired her. Officially, the R-word was blamed. In tough times, corporations cut back. That she hadn't quite worked out as expected was mentioned, too. But it was the sighing that ultimately cost her the job. "The sighing had to go," concluded the boss.</br></br>"People aren't aware that they're doing it, and this is very dangerous in terms of the job," says Julius Fast, an expert at what might be called reading between the lines of daily communication. He believes our anatomy and unconscious gestures say the darndest things. "You certainly don't want to send out the subtext of being unhappy, depressed or ill-equipped to handle the job."</br></br>Two decades ago, Fast introduced many Americans to the concept of the body's subtle intimations in his book, "Body Language." Since then, the prolific author and researcher has focused at least four other books on the messages that subtle posturing and physical positions can bring to our interaction with others. Now, in his latest book, "Subtext" (Viking, $19.95), to be released next week, he has undertaken physical communiques on the job.