MARK MY WORD: IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT, GO HOME

I couldn't believe it, but there it was in print. "Unhappy people do better work than cheerful people," reported the News of Norway newsletter. The newsletter is published by the Norwegian Embassy in Washington and sent across the country to inquisitive reporters who want to know just what is going on in Norway anyway.

What had been going on was a survey. The survey found that cheerful people overestimated their abilities and underestimated the complexity of problems while on the job. Unhappy people worked harder, which, of course, probably explains why they were so depressed. Gloomy workers frequently came up with creative solutions, the survey said.

For happy-challenged people, the survey results are cause to cheer.

For years, America's businesses and feel-good therapists have been telling us that happy workers are more productive workers. A whole industry of wellness coordinators has popped up to provide us ways to feel better about ourselves as we slave away at work.

Team-building training has taken corporate America by storm. Recently, the Southeast Missourian newsroom staff took time out from writing health briefs and holding food days at work to get in touch with our inner selves.

To do this, we had to congregate in an off-site conference room, divide up into teams and make newspaper bridges without talking to each other. One team got so caught up in the project that it built a huge span that would have rivaled the Golden Gate Bridge had it been made of solid stuff like steel and concrete instead of newspapers. Of course, it would have been next to impossible to jump off the rolled-up-newspaper bridge without causing the structure to totally collapse.

Other teams, like the one I was on, were more concerned with function than style. Our bridge looked more like a government project in which the money ran out before the work could be completed.

It's tough to work as a team when you can't talk to each other. The whole exercise was supervised by two team-building trainers. Their job is to put you through a mental workout that will have you heading back to work singing the hit songs from "The Sound of Music."

We definitely learned how to make bridges with old newspapers in our spare time, but I'm not sure that made us feel any better. Actually, many of us felt depressed because our bridges didn't measure up to Miss Golden Gate.

I was concerned that some of us would be held back for remedial bridge-making. Fortunately, that didn't happen. The good thing about team building is that everyone makes the grade because the whole idea is to be happy.

Of course, we were less happy when we got back to the office and had to stay late to get our work done because we had spent an entire afternoon getting in touch with our inner selves and those of our colleagues.

But we all should feel better now, thanks to the Norwegian survey. No longer will we be saddled with guilt for being crabby. We won't have to use those lame excuses like, "I haven't had my caffeine yet."

Employers won't have to invest so much time being nice to us. They'll be glad they made us work holidays. If we're unhappy, we'll be more productive on the job, they'll reason.

Scrooge was right after all. He was just simply ahead of his time as an enlightened boss.

I felt right at home the other day during the Sesame Street production at the Show Me Center when Oscar the Grouch led us in a rousing version of "If you're crabby and you know it, say get lost. Get lost!" That's the kind of tune that should be piped over the loud speaker in offices instead of upbeat elevator music.

Thanks to this survey, we no longer have to drown our sorrows. Now, we can toast them.

Naturally, some Americans won't buy into all this gloom and doom. According to the Norwegian newsletter, one American saleswoman dismissed the survey completely. "This study is from Norway and it's cold up there," she said. "Their brains must be frozen."

Or just maybe they are too darned happy. A little depression might just kick those cold brains into high gear.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer at the Southeast Missourian.