Laughter filled the room of about 300 campus managers. Giggles abounded as the keynote speaker discussed "organizational deficit disorder" and the reasons why many managers fall into the category of "working wounded." But the lessons were serious--learning to survive in the turbulence and chaos of today's rapidly changing workplace. Over two days at the 18th Annual Mid-Management Conference, hosted in late May by the Administrative Management Group, attendees heard from five experts in the fields of stress management, mediation, risk assessment and job burnout. An informal study conducted by opening speaker Bob Rosner gave hope to campus managers, over 100 of whom responded to an e-mail survey in advance of the conference. Rosner found UC Davis managers were much more positive than the national average in a number of key indicators--with 94 percent responding that "my doing a good job matters to the organization" and 83 percent responding that they were successfully "changing with the times." And when asked if their "glass" at work was half empty or half full, 78 percent reported it was half full--7 percent higher than Rosner's average for thousands of seminar participants nationwide. "There is a lot of good stuff going on here, a very nice foundation," said Rosner, the nationally syndicated columnist of "Working Wounded.com," published both on the Internet and in major daily newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle. According to Rosner's survey, UC Davis managers reported working conditions worse than his national average in only two categories: Having "trouble juggling job and life," which 38 percent of respondents checked, and "not enough recognition," which was singled out by 37 percent. Rosner spoke about the evolution of the workplace over the past 30 years, with dramatic changes coming more frequently in the form of reorganizations, mergers, downsizing, outsourcing and divesting. To resounding applause, he stressed that universities are not immune from the changes taking place in private industry. He offered a set of "new rules" for surviving today's workplace, including learning better how to deal with conflict, "leaving some things behind and burying the hatchet." He stressed improved communication. "We solve problems, but we never communicate that success to other people. Other people don't really know what's going on. We need to maximize learning." Rosner also advocated empowering employees by giving them freedom to experiment. "Ask yourselves, what is the waterline? What areas can you give people freedom?" His parting advice: "Use humor more often. In a bureaucracy, humor is usually the first casualty."