So, I am dealing with some drama at the Lodge. I came across this article on MSN and while it deals with workplace issues they are really no different. I thought I would share it in an effort to help others in the same situation.

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Feeling the pressure? You’ve got plenty of company. Many employees today feel maxed out, on edge and ticked off, and it’s eroding workplace civility.

Consider these telling statistics from a handful of recent studies and surveys:

• Managers said they spend, on average, 18 percent of their time dealing with staff conflict, according to an Accountemps survey.

• Forty-three percent of employees said they’ve experienced incivility at work, according to the “Civility in America 2011″ poll conducted by Weber Shandwick, its Powell Tate division and KRC Research.

• A Baylor University study found office incivility not only stresses people out during their working hours but also serves as a significant source of strain and strife at home.

Now more than ever, it’s critical to find ways to effectively deal with stress and conflict at work. Following are some tips:

Take rudeness for what it’s worth.
Being on the receiving end of an unnecessarily sharp barb or inconsiderate brush-off can ruin your day. Why let it? Constructive criticism merits reflection; rudeness does not. So, don’t overthink the situation. While you can’t control how someone else treats you, you can limit how much it affects you. A person’s poor manners or behavior says less about you than it does about him or her.

Don’t go it alone.
What do you say at the end of a hard day when you’re asked about work? “I don’t want to talk about it” is a common response. But in many cases, bottling your feelings only exacerbates the problem.

Opening up to supportive friends or family can be cathartic. Likewise, seeking the wisdom of a mentor or sharing work-related war stories with a trusted member of your network often yields valuable insights and new coping strategies.

Rise above the fray.
Pessimism is contagious, and it’s all too easy for chronic complainers to bring others down. Don’t get caught up in the negativity. It’s possible to keep tabs on office undercurrents without feeding the grapevine with additional gripes, groans or gossip. Displaying a toxic attitude doesn’t solve anything, but it will likely make you look bad — and feel worse.

Give yourself a break. 
You might believe you can’t afford to take time off. But can you afford not to? Whether you jet off to a tropical island or do a “staycation,” stepping away to recharge your batteries is healthy. Getting some distance and decompressing has a way of putting even your biggest workplace woes in perspective.

Similarly, it’s smart to take mini-breaks during the day. When tensions are running high, go for a quick stroll to collect your thoughts and cool off.

Finally, take an honest look at yourself. It’s very easy to point fingers and identify others’ annoying personality flaws. But what about your own? Try to be more mindful of how your bad habits, moods and behaviors might negatively impact co-workers.

We all have days when stress gets the best of us. If you’ve been unfairly gruff, critical or impatient with a colleague, be willing to say, “I’m sorry.” Those two simple words will go a long way toward mending fences.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor.”
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot — they “didn’t have a pot to piss in,” and were the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be.
Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a “bouquet of flowers” to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.
The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children.
Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!”

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings
could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how “canopy beds” came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.
Hence the saying, “Dirt poor.”

The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a “thresh hold.”

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while.
Hence the rhyme:
“Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.”

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.
When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off.
It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home the bacon.”
They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and “chew the fat.”

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the “upper crust.”

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of “holding a wake.”

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks
on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive.
So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (“the graveyard shift”) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, “saved by the bell,”or was considered “a dead ringer.”