Not everyone has the luxury of selecting his or her own office building or work room. Unless you own your own company, chances are, we take what we are given – in this case, sit where we are allocated. Placing your door in the right sector, using the right room, facing the right direction – ideal as it may be; what happens when your boss has not heard of Feng Shui or does not subscribe to it?

All is not lost. Here's what you, the good employee, can do for yourself using the knowledge of House Gua and Life Gua.

Find out what direction your office building faces. All you need is a compass. Having done that, plot out the Eight Mansions chart for your office space. You don't necessarily need the floor plan just observe carefully:

• The main door sector

• The sector you (and fellow colleagues) are in.

Now, let's say you find out that the main door opens at the ‘Wu Gui' sector. That might explain why the previous two accountants had their services terminated under suspicious circumstances.

Your work area lies mainly in the ‘Liu Sha' sector. Does that explain all the backbiting and animosity amongst your workmates? Well of course, if it were ‘Jue Ming' we are talking about, chances are, everyone would be too tired and disorganized to be gossiping in the first place.

Having discovered all this information, what next?

Next to the office, what's the next place we spend most of our time?

Can you guess it? Our house of course.

Let's say you work with hostile colleagues, how do you compensate? Sleeping in a ‘Yan Nian' room can give you the ease of character to deal with them, help you to laugh them off. Everyone is already so uptight; why would you want to add to those numbers?

Now let's say one vindictive co-worker is back-stabbing you to the boss, and you realise that being cheerful and friendly failed to mellow this difficult person. Change your strategy – sleep toward your ‘Tian Yi' direction (or in the ‘Tian Yi' room of your house). This not only lends you strength to deal with higher stress levels, ‘Tian Yi' is also the ‘Nobleman star' – you want your boss to stop listening to falsehoods and start noticing all your hard work and effort. You want the promotion (and it should rightfully go to you).

Or you find that your office is not conducive for your work – you are the sales person but your energy is dwindling (let's say your work area is the ‘Fu Wei' which makes you inappropriately introspective instead). Sleep toward your ‘Sheng Qi' direction at home. One word of caution though, some people find it difficult to sleep in a ‘Sheng Qi' room – they become more active instead of dozing off!

n Feng Shui, there are many ways to manage the Qi that is affecting you; be it in the home or the office. Of course, the ideal way would be to align ourselves in the path of good Qi, but that is a privilege not available to everyone. Adjusting ‘Human actions' then becomes the next feasible option. Remember that Destiny is subjected to not only ‘Heaven' and ‘Earth', but also ‘Man'. When you know that your environment is already hostile (due to certain Qi influences), a little patience may be all you need to ‘rise above the rest'.