Pharmacists confront disease every day, but emotional afflictions seem to cause them more concern at work. Unpredictability can make emotional confrontations feel more threatening than illness. Pharmacists have a medical professional's understanding of diseases and treatment options, but they can get as un-nerved as anyone when faced with someone losing control. Why not prepare for these situations now?

Do you long for an office without politics? You might as well dream of work without stress, because it's about as likely, and, furthermore, you might not like either very much. Stress isn't necessarily problematic and neither is office politics. Stress gets destructive when there's too much of it and it's not handled appropriately. Office politics turns negative when it's cynical and self-aggrandizing. But it doesn't have to be that way.

by Danielle Dresden

Maybe it's the shopping pressure. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's because there's less daylight every day.

Whatever the reason, it can seem like there are a lot of difficult customers around this time of year.

Keep in mind that you can run into difficult customers whether you work in retail or an institutional setting.

By Danielle Dresden
Feature Writer

We cultivate professional attitudes. We write job descriptions. We write to-do lists, establish procedures and take innumerable steps to make our business lives hum like a well-tuned engine.

But as long as human beings show up at the workplace, so will emotions. Not all emotions are bad for business; enthusiasm, excitement and loyalty can help individuals and their organizations thrive.