Is Stress Making You Want to Kiss Your Job Goodbye?

For me, one of the great things about Twitter is that is allows me to learn more about what people experience at work every day. It's sort of like being an invisible Spiderman, without the goofy costume. I feel like I can jump from cubicle to cubicle across the world, being a fly, er, spider on the wall.

One of the things I know for sure -- from following people on Twitter and from interviewing them -- is that there is a lot of stress in the workplace. People are overwhelmed by the demands of their job, even though they try and put a positive spin on it: "Wow! Just got a new deadline! Anyone want two tickets to the big concert tonight?" goes a typical Tweet.

Heather Blume asked me if I was hearing that more people who already had jobs were actively looking for work. The stress in current jobs, she said, was really getting to them and she had several people a week asking her if she knew of other positions. That was pretty interesting considering the job market is so tough right now and not expected to improve for a couple of years.

So I called Wayne Hochwarter, a professor at Florida State University, who spends a lot of time studying the workplace. He was not surprised to hear how many people were willing to leave jobs -- even entire careers -- and join the job hunt.

“A lot of people just don’t have anything to look forward to anymore,” Hochwarter says.“They can’t even look forward to retirement, because they’re going to have to work longer now. Most people haven’t gotten a raise in years. They’re doing the work of five people now, and they just think: ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

Blume hears a lot of personal despair every day as she does her job as a Seattle-based recruiter specializing in property management for Career Strategies Inc.

“In the last month or so, I’ve had three or four people a week tell me – on the down-low – that they’ve got to get out of their jobs. It used to be I heard this maybe once a month. Now people are asking me if I’ve got anything for them – they say they’ll take anything to get away from the stress of what they’re doing now,” she says.

While Blume says she doesn’t “poach” from other companies, that doesn’t mean she’s not sympathetic to their plight and will quietly put out “feelers” to try and help them make job contacts. One 20-year-veteran of property management recently told Blume that her job was “eating her soul.” Another said she was looking for contacts in “restaurant work” because she was so burned out and wanted to leave the industry where she had built a successful career.

She adds that those seeking work are at all levels. “I tell them to sit tight, or to think about going back to school,” she says. “But if you’re miserable, it’s hard.”

I decided to call David Benjamin, who often posts comments to this blog and someone else I follow on Twitter, and ask what he was experiencing as a recruiting manager for The Sales Matrix in Detroit. What levels of stress was he seeing?

He noted that while he hears the despair and frustration in the voices of salesmen who are out of work, he also notes that those who are still employed “just don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Salesmen hear ‘no' in this economy a lot more,” Benjamin says. “It just wears on you and beats you down. It ‘s such a grind, such a challenge.”

In a study by Hochwarter, he found that 55 percent of bosses have become more demanding of current workers and more than 70 percent of employees say the recession has increased stress levels at work.

“I’ve never been a big believer that we’ve got good managers, and now with this economy, they’ve lost whatever humanity they had,” Hochwarter says. “They know that they’ve got to meet goals or they start chopping heads. Managers really don’t know what to do during a time like this. We haven’t prepared them for anything like it.”

What do you think the impact of this economic downturn and current job market will have on workers?

Does It Really Matter If You're a Workaholic?

With the tough economy, you don't hear many people complain about having jobs. This is surely due to the fact that those who are still employed are just so darned grateful to be bringing home a paycheck that it doesn't matter how many hours they work; they're not going to let any unhappy comment pass their lips. That's understandable.

But I also see a lot of people working themselves into the ground. They're on 24/7. They can't talk about anything but work, the deal they're working on, how they can't possibly take off this weekend because they've got work to do. I think it's great to be so passionate and enthused about your job, but at the same time, I think it's a very risky road. If you can't find a way to turn it off, if work is consuming your life, then you may be headed for burnout.

Are you a workaholic? Do you know the warning signs? According to Workaholics Anonymous, these are some of the signs you're a workaholic:

1. It is very difficult to relax. You often, if not always, feel the need to get just a few more tasks done before you can feel good about yourself and allow yourself to relax. When you do complete these tasks you find just a few more that you need to complete, and then a few more.... These uncontrollable desires often result in frantic, compulsive working. You are powerless to control this pattern.
2. You are so used to doing what you are expected to do that you are often unable to know what it is that you really want and need to do for yourself.
3. You often feel that you must complete certain tasks, even though you do not want to. You are too scared to stop.
4. You often feel resentment about having to complete tasks when you would rather relax or play. At these times you procrastinate, usually wallowing in self-pity and self-judgment. You cannot concentrate on the task at hand, and yet are too scared to give up the task for a moment and allow yourself the space you need.
5. Your sense of self-esteem is based largely on your perceptions of how others judge your performance at work and in other areas of your life.
6. You have an obsessive desire to understand everything in your life, including your every emotion. You cannot allow yourself to experience emotions that you do not understand, fearing your loss of control.
7. You judge yourself by your accomplishments and hence have the illusion that you must always be in the process of accomplishing something worthwhile in order to feel good about yourself.
8. You cannot sit down and just be.
9. You often go on intense work binges with the illusion that you need to get the praise of your fellow workers and bosses in order to feel OK.
10. You have the illusion that people will like you more if you appear more competent than you actually are.

Much of the recovery for workaholics mimics what you see for other addicts: Finding time for personal reflection; accepting who you are; asking for help; finding healthier substitutes for the addiction; and learning to live in the now.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when most of us consider ourselves so fortunate to have a job that we can't see cutting back. But consider this: If you really are going overboard,you could be putting your job (and your health) at risk because you cannot be the most effective for an employer if you don't have balance in your life.


Is there such a thing as working too much, or is the 24/7 job schedule just part of lives these days?

Are You Afraid to Just Say "No" at Work?

"Taylor, can you help me out with this report? I need some research done by tomorrow, or I'm really going to be in trouble."

"Sure."

"Taylor, we need someone to head up this new committee, and I think you'd be perfect. Can you put a team together by next Tuesday?"

"Sure."

"Taylor, we're really having trouble with this client and it would be so helpful if you could go there and sort of calm them down. It would be great if you could leave right away."

"Sure."

"Taylor, someone left a mess in the break room. On yourlunch hour, do you think you could use your great organizational skills and bring order to the chaos?"

"Sure."

Many of us hate to say "no." We say "sure" or "yes" to requests for many reasons, but few of them have to do with what is best for us and our careers. We don't say"no" because we don't want someone to be mad at us. We say "yes" because we feel guilty or we're afraid of what could happen if we don't agree to a request.

And, in this rotten job market, we are afraid to say "no" for fear it could cost us our job.

But I recently interviewed some psychologists for my Gannett News Service and USAToday.com column, and they made it crystal clear that not learning to say "no" may be terrible for your career -- and your life.

“When you’re scared about being the next one to be laid off, all kinds of dysfunctional things start to happen,” says Pat Pearson, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based clinical psychotherapist. “You start getting more paranoid, you do your work less well, and you start feeling as if you can’t say ‘no.’ So, you take on anything they throw at you.”

But the problem, Pearson says, is that such a move just makes a career “more and more dysfunctional.”

“You have to decide: Are you going to have a healthy work environment or not?”

Paula Bloom, an Atlanta-based clinical psychologist, says that every worker must realize they only have so much emotional capital to expend every day, and pushing the limits may cost them the very thing they’re hoping to protect.

“If there is too great an emotional cost, then you will become resentful and unpleasant, and not nice to be around. And people who are a pain in the butt are often the ones who are let go,” Bloom says.

Both Pearson and Bloom stress that the emotional and physical cost of never saying “no” – even in this stressful job market – can take a real toll on workers.

“If you don’t feel good about what you’re taking on, then you become negative and angry, and then you’re not only hurting yourself, you’re hurting the company because you’re not going to be as productive,” Pearson says. “If you are doing things you don’t want to do, then you’re going to pay a price with your health. You’re going to get sick more often, and have a high stress level."

But how do you say “no” without being considered a poor team player or labeled with some other negative moniker at work? Both Bloom and Pearson says it’s a matter of understanding your boundaries and then being prepared to make the “no” sound positive. They advise:


Be willing to ask for what you need. "Maybe you’ve been asked to work late, and you can agree to it, except for on Thursdays, when you need to get home on time because your kids have soccer,” Person says. “You have to decide how much you can live with, and what you can’t do without."

Taking a deep breath. “Don’t freak out when someone makes a request. Just say, ‘I would love to be able to help you out, but it won’t work today. If you could give me a few days notice next time, I might be able to do it.’” Adds Pearson: “Act thoughtful and say something like, ‘Let me see what I can do.’ It gives you time to think about it and then make a decision when you’re not under pressure.”

Living with integrity. “If you’re screwing around on the Internet for an hour every day, or faking your time card, then you’ll try to compensate for your guilt and say ‘yes’ to everything. If you live with integrity, you’ll be able to say ‘no’ and not feel guilty,” Bloom says.

Understanding the difference between “can’t” and “don’t want to.” Bloom says that even when the boss makes a request, you can say “no” if you’ve made an honest assessment of your workload. “You can always say, ‘I’d like to do that, but can you help me figure out the priority of these nine other things I have to do?’ Put the issue back on the boss.”

How are some other ways people can be smarter about saying "no"?

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10 Good Things About Working Longer Hours

With the economy in the crapper, most people I know wouldn't even think of uttering the words "work/life balance." As more people are laid off, it's up to the survivors to pick up the work load and do it without complaint -- if they want to keep their job.

But it's tough. Real tough. That's why I thought I'd end the week with a sort of optimistic view of what many of us are going through right now -- work/life imbalance.

So, without further ado, here are ....

10 Good Things About Working Longer Hours

1. Your mom feels so bad for you she's started doing your laundry.

2. Your neighbors are dropping off meals at your house, thinking you died. (The tuna casserole was excellent.)

3. The dog has quit shredding the drapes. It's no fun when you're not around to yell about it.

4. The overnight security guard at work has been letting you in on some really good deals. It's amazing the stuff that falls off the back of a truck!

5. You won $5 from the cleaning lady who said no way would a sleeping bag fit under the desk. Way!

6. No standing in line for coffee at Starbucks. You're first in line when the doors open.

7. Living in the same suit for five days straight has really cut down on your dry cleaning bill.

8. For Halloween, you didn't have to buy a costume. You went as one of the "undead" and won first prize in the scariest costume category.

9. Your stalker finally gave up and went away, saying your schedule was just too exhausting.

10. You don't have far to go for your weekly groceries -- the vending machine is just down the hall!

Are you working longer hours? How do you remain upbeat?