It was the Saturday morning of the umpteenth weekend in a row that I worked. Anyway, I was feeling completely pissed because just the night before, my boss bragged that he had gotten 3-row center tickets to “The Eagles” and he and his wife left early Friday to drive to Dallas for the weekend. week.
Of course, by “luck” my laptop crashed for about the fiftieth time, but that wasn’t the worst part. I called my company’s tech support and was told by an arrogant tech that I OBVIOUSLY had a computer virus. He informed me that if he knew anything about computers, he would have known.
I’m usually pretty affable and try to be nice to people, but that was the last straw. I let the support guy have it with both barrels. I let him know that I have been working on computers and programming software since he was a whiny brat running around in dirty diapers. I told him that I know exactly what a computer virus is and that my computer did not have one. ranted. I raved. The only thing I didn’t do was swear and that was just because I was too angry. I then hung up the phone and barely restrained myself from picking up the laptop and throwing it across the room.
Looking back on the incident, I know that I had overreacted. Yes, I could have handled it better, but more importantly, I could have avoided it entirely. You see, I was a victim of job stress, job burnout.
I’ll admit it. I’m one of those Type A personalities. I have a bad habit of taking on too many projects with too short a deadline and then resenting it when I can’t get it all done on time. That means too often I spend weekends and nights working, sleepless nights and end up stressed and upset with myself and those around me.
It is because of this habit that I began to develop some techniques to change my behavior. Here are 4 tips anyone can use to determine if they are getting burned, and if so, stop this destructive behavior.
- Take on projects that are not yours? If you are assigned projects outside of your scope of work or even (worse) volunteer for additional projects, stop, take a deep breath, and assess why you are doing it. Could it be that you are trying to be “Super Employee”? Do you think that no one else can do it as well as you? Worried that if you don’t work, you’ll be passed up for the next promotion? None of these reasons should be legitimate. If you occasionally take on additional short-term projects or jobs, that’s fine, but if you find yourself doing it over and over again, there’s a clear shift where you could find yourself in quicksand at work. Recognize this tendency and learn to say “No.”
- Long nights/long weekends: Do you spend too much time working and not enough relaxing alone or with friends or family? Take a look at the amount of time you spend working and determine why. Maybe you can even cut down on time by practicing techniques that make you more productive at work.
- How much actual work are you capable of doing during the day? Are you running from meeting to meeting, constantly talking on the phone, putting out fires? Is this getting in the way of the amount of work you can get done? The constant battle to keep up with your work while falling further and further behind just screams “job stress” and “burnout.” Stop and assess where you can reduce interruptions. Plan a time when you can catch up on your pending work. Transfer your phone to voicemail, turn off your email temporarily, and let your coworkers know they won’t interrupt you unless it’s an emergency. And let them know what constitutes an emergency.
- Walk away. I have found that setting realistic goals for projects allows for more flexibility. My boss didn’t like me working weekends or late hours anymore. In fact, I found that when I stopped taking on so many projects and focused on doing my job better, my employee evaluations went up. My job stress levels also dropped.