Every Tuesday is Kitchen Sink day at Living Behind the Curve.

I’m a tad bit preoccupied with my career these days, and I find myself devoting a hefty chunk of time each day to preparing myself for the changes ahead. Leaving a job that I like is hard, and starting a new job is scary.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a long string of positions I’ve been happy in. While I know that a lot of that has to do with the places I’ve been and the co-workers I’ve had, I believe that a good part of it was attitude — I wanted to enjoy going to work, and I’ve always done what I can to make the environment a good one. I’m sharing what I’ve done, and maybe it will make one cube farm somewhere a little more tolerable.

First and foremost are those pesky little soft skills. I’m a firm believer that everyone should be required to work retail or food service for at least one year before entering the work force. Replace the mandatory community service and a term paper with the bar rush, or a big-box Black Friday retail triple-shift. Working face-to-face with angry, crazy people is the best crash course in customer service that there is, and we’re certainly not short on retailers or restaurants in this country. Once you have those customer service skills, use them. Treat everyone you encounter like a client. The de-escalation and sunshine-blowing techniques that you learn in customer service work on everyone — your relatives, your kids, and especially your co-workers.

Once you know how to interact with people, use your skill to get information. (I don’t mean fishing for information that isn’t rightfully yours.) If you are given a task without enough information to complete it, don’t whine about it or bitch on your blog. Ask the person for the additional information, using your CS techniques. You can also get stuff this way — at my soon to be former job, there is one person who is notoriously hard to work with. Rather than try to go around him (which most people did), I treated him respectfully, figured out how best to communicate with him, and never had a problem getting what I needed from him. The gathering of data is most important when dealing with irate and upset customers/co-workers/clients: it’s incredible how much a user’s mood can improve when you listen to their problem and summarize it back to them. It shows that you’re listening and involved, and not just a puppet reading from a script.

My last secret is really a plea. Read something. Books, magazines, blogs, newspapers, RSS feeds. The format doesn’t matter, but the content might. I hated reading tech industry publications, but they weren’t all that important to my job function. What was important to my team and the people on our floor was the TV show Lost. I don’t watch the show, but I read summaries and checked out fan sites, so that I could engage my co-workers in conversation about it. I didn’t lie — they know I don’t watch the show — but it’s good for morale (mine included) to have water cooler conversations and bond a little with your cube neighbors. Reading doesn’t have to generate specific conversation, though. It keeps your mind fresh, and may help you function better on the job, which will definitely make work a better place to be.

One final note: it should go without saying, but I’m an over-cautious kind of gal. Do your job. Don’t sit around with your finger in your ear, and don’t do just enough to not get fired. You’re there to do a job — that’s what they’re paying you for.

If you’ve been respectful, you’ve listened and gathered data, you’re well-read, you are actually doing your job, and you’re still not happy, then it’s probably time to move on. Take a look at why you’re really unhappy — some problems, like gossipy admins, back-stabbing co-workers, and unreasonable bosses, are everywhere.