Stress at work

[Guest guest]

Hello

I'm mulling over my career. Not in the best frame of mind to do that (job is

under threat, and I'm applying for new funding with deadline of next Weds!) but

a question keeps returning. Is it legitimate to want a lower-stress job, or is

that just avoidance?

I long for a rather more wholesome working life than the one I have now, which

is full of competitiveness (both in a business sense, and amongst coworkers),

judgmental attitudes, late working, horrendous god-awful commuting and - yes,

most of all - high stress.

I would like a job with less stress. Or are all jobs stressful - because they

are what we make of them. I have a friend who is more experienced than me, but

my junior, who never sought advancement because she didn't want the

responsibility. I don't think it was because she lacked confidence. She

certainly doesn't regret her choices. Should that be where I should go? I've

followed promotions and moved jobs, actually because I thought to avoid doing so

would make me feel like a failure, by avoidance. But that's not a very good

reason, is it?

I've read a pamplet on workplace stress. Stress is a gap between the pressures

of responsibility and demands upon you, against (your perceptions of) your

capacity to manage them. If I " step down " into a job with fewer pressures, will

my perception of my capacity to manage them also reduce... so I'm left in the

same boat?

At the moment I can't do my job well. I can't concentrate, I keep forgetting

things. I leave the office regularly because tears force me out. I'm left

weeping (so humiliating) on the train home. This is not all in the mind - this

is stopping me from functioning.

Thank you. Cathartic. A stream of thoughts written onto this forum actually

acts as defusion for me. I will leave them here and go to bed. Have the answer

for me ready for the morning, will you please? :0)

Night x