We all have them — those days. The days that start out poorly. We’re late getting up for work. We have no time for breakfast and our stomach growls. We’re stuck in traffic and arrive half an hour late to the boss’ frown and grow.

The result? We start off our own day in a foul mood.

How does this bad-start-to-the-day affect our work for the whole day? Recent research conducted by Ohio State University has found that it influences us greatly throughout the day.

Our start-of-the-day mood can be affected by many things, including our commute as well as what’s going on at home. In general, researchers found that we’re not very good at keeping the things that affect us at home from affecting us at work. Whether we’re in a good mood or  bad mood because of things going on at home, the goings on at home carry over into our workday.

Researchers found that those of us who start the day in a good mood pretty much stay in that good mood all day. Those of us who start our workday in a sour mood also tend to stay sour.

Another interesting finding: researchers found that when it comes to dealing with customers, if we feel our customers are in a good mood, then our moods go up. (Yet a customers’ bad moods didn’t appear to affect employees’ moods in a negative way.)

Our good moods help our performance, researchers found, discovering that those customer service representatives who were in a good mood tend to spend more time with their customers. CSRs in a good mood also didn’t take as many breaks as those in bad moods.

Raise your spirits by finding a great new position with the help of StaffEx. We can help you find a new job or even career in the Tampa Bay area. We look forward to hearing from you!