Stressing About Work?I have been stressing out all week about
what to write today. Not what to write here but for work. The pressures of the impending deadline inducing
the all-too-familiar sensations of fear, panic and helplessness. In
fact, my own stress levels were only alleviated when I read that today
is
National Stress Awareness Day.
The truth is that I would not
have it any other way; if it were not for stress I doubt whether I
would get anything done. The Health and Safety Executive, however,
defines stress as "the adverse reaction people have to excessive
pressure or other types of demand placed on them". This sounds fair
enough, except that assessing what might be considered "excessive
pressure" is bound to be problematic and, let's be honest, open to
abuse. An estimated 13.5 million days are lost each year due to
self-reported work-related stress, depression or anxiety, costing the
econom in sick pay, lost productivity and health costs.
The stress industry is clearly big business but rather than challenging
complaints about stress in the workplace the government - whose own
civil servants take an average two weeks' sick leave a year - has laid
out a new code for reducing stress; one that will put employers at risk
of legal action if they ignore it.
So,
why are we all so stressed? There are, it seems to me, two possible
explanations. The first is that the demands of modern living and the
pressures of today's work culture are greater than at any time in
history; the second is that we have all become a nation of wimps. Those
who buy into the first explanation claim that Britain has the longest
working hours in Europe - that the impact of management-efficiency
drives has left employees drowning in their work. That may all be true,
but I find it hard to believe that today's office employees are really
the most over-worked group in history.
As a young boy I
remember my father coming home after having worked a 12-hour shift at
the Vauxhall car plant. Each night he would get home, eat and then work
till the small hours of the morning helping my mother as she made
dresses on her sewing machine. Four hours of sleep later, he would be
up again for work. That was his life, seven days a week, yet I don't
once recall him complaining about suffering from stress or threatening
to sue General Motors for the "excessive pressure" they were putting
him under. He understood that our jobs are called work for a reason:
that is meant to be what they are. There is a word for doing things
that is pleasurable, and that is a hobby.
There are, of course,
jobs that I would agree are unreasonably stressful - cockle-picking for
example - and many others that are brutalising in their monotony. In
most cases, however, what we now refer to as stress would once have
been called life. As our jobs have become less physically dangerous
there has been a corresponding rush to claim that our office-based
lives are liable to lead to psychological problems. Opportunist lawyers
and trade unions have been quick to claim stress as a medical ailment
and yet it seems to me that if stress is a disease, it is a disease of
affluence. It is a byproduct of too many choices and unrealistic
expectations about work.
With our long working hours, with more
and more people living alone, our jobs define who we are to a greater
degree than ever before. Because they mean so much more they need to be
more fulfilling; it is not enough that they pay the mortgage. If they
are not fulfilling - if they are challenging or frustrating - it is now
not only acceptable but almost required that you complain and bemoan
how work is not making you feel "included" or "in control". That, I
think, might be the reason why it is usually white-collar workers who
complain loudest about work stress: it is not that blue-collar workers
are blissfully relaxed, they just have different expectations about
their jobs.
There is a depressing defeatism in the attitude
that the best response to challenges at work is to call them stress and
chuck a sickie. It is an attitude that assumes that we need
professional help to cope with stress; when stress is simply an
umbrella term that could describe all manner of normal emotions. It is
hard not to be suspicious that many of the days taken off and the
compensation claimed in the name of stress in truth have their roots in
frustration, boredom and insecurity. Not to mention incompetence.