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Thread: How much work stress do you tolerate?

  1. #1
    rodeosweetheart
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    How much work stress do you tolerate?

    I was just over reading on the Dave Ramsey forum and someone was asking if his wife should quit her job, as she "experienced a lot of stress more than once a week/"
    This made me wonder about my job and stress, and whether other people tolerate a lot of stress at work/look for other work/quit/become disabled from stress--these are all alternatives I can think of right now.

    Do some people actually only get stressed once a week at work? That sounds really nice to me.

    I am on vacation from my main job, still working my second job, and vacation ends in a couple of days. I know my stress levels correlate with this main job, as this is pretty clear, but I am wondering how others here deal with this problem?

    My primary reason for working is access to health care, followed by money.

    Yet my main job has created a stressful situation for me, most of the time--with concurrent rise in blood pressure, insomnia, depression and anxiety. I have worked hard, with some success, to work through my reactions and improve them, but I am still struggling with panic reactions, etc., to the job.

    On the other hand, being broke would produce all of those, too. . .

  2. #2
    Senior Member Gardenarian's Avatar
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    It depends on how you define it. It's somewhat stressful just getting up earlier than I might like and having to stay on a schedule. I'd much rather be out hiking, or reading a book, or doing yoga. I think work is just inherently stressful.

    At my job I work with nice, sane people. I like the work I do and I don't feel a lot of pressure; I never come home fuming about some incident at work or anything like that. I have had jobs where the people I worked with were difficult and I dreaded going in, but I didn't stick around long.
    "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” -- Gandalf

  3. #3
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    I think sometimes the stress level can creep up. You don't hear so much about bosses who are screamers, but on the other hand, there are plenty of bosses who expect salaried employees to work 50-60 hour weeks routinely.
    The idea of leaving the office at 5 pm and not putting in more hours on your computer from home is becoming less and less common, so the expectation that you're basically working or on call every day is what's stressful.


    I know we've talked here before about calculating your real hourly wage, and I think a lot of salaried people are actually working for a far lower hourly wage than they realize.

  4. #4
    Senior Member jp1's Avatar
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    In my current role I experience very little stress. My main job focus is on doing public speaking regarding our insurance product and the general need for it. (cyber, or data security, insurance that pays out when corporations like Target or Home Depot have a data breach and have to spend money to notify people/provide credit monitoring services/respond to lawsuits). My overarching goal is to help the company sell it. Mostly I just have to be able to talk knowledgeably about it to a wide range of people, but since I AM knowledgeable I find this to be easy and enjoyable.

    And the settings in which I have to do my job are occasionally quite awesome. For instance last december I had to take a trip to Seattle for a "product fair" which is a euphemism for a holiday party that we, an insurance company, throw for brokers who place their clients' insurance business with us. Before the party I met my sister for coffee that afternoon (she lives in Seattle), told her why I was in town and her comment was "so, they flew you to Seattle for the day to go to a party?" Yes, pretty much. Or there was the one hour speaking engagement that I had to go to the big island of Hawaii for...

    Before this role I underwrote insurance. That was WAY more stressful. We were short staffed so it was long hours and lots and lots of details and tight deadlines. If my current role hadn't come available (or I hadn't gotten the position) I would've burnt out and would likely work for a different employer today.

    My biggest stress right now is that my boss got a big promotion so I will be getting a new, as yet unnamed, boss. The most likely internal candidate is not someone I want to work for. I'll have to wait and see how that plays out.

  5. #5
    Senior Member Tradd's Avatar
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    There is an *extremely* high level of stress with my job - customs broker/freight forwarder. I enjoy what I do, but it still can get *very* hairy. Customers will call up and say, "Where's my container?" They are usually chomping at the bit for their shipments.

    It's very date driven. There are Customs-mandated electronic filings that must be done a minimum of 24 hours before sailing. When the containers arrive at the destination city, you have day of notification + 2 days to pick containers up before storage kicks in, which begins at $100/day. Air freight works on even tighter timelines. When anything is delayed, the customers usually start getting really anxious and ride your butt.

    Duties have to be paid in a timely manner or there are massive fines levied by Customs.

    One coworker, whom I loved, had to leave my company for a less stressful job at the beginning of the year. She had chronic health issues, and her doctor told her the stress was going to kill her.

    There's so much going on that work days usually pass very quickly. I'm currently working 50-60 hours a week, but we've got two new people (one starts tomorrow) so things will eventually settle down. Summer/fall are usually very hectic with peak shipping season, but we've been working these long hours since sometime in April.

  6. #6
    Senior Member Kestra's Avatar
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    There are definitely different kinds of stress. There's the soul-sucking, emotionally traumatizing, contemplating suicide, hating-every-minute stress, then there's the super busy, boss is dumb, processes aren't great, regular job stress.

    For the first, no amount of money is enough. You have to quit. For the second, it depends on the money and other job perks for how much stress I can tolerate. I feel that I can tolerate quite a bit, but having a large cash cushion I don't really have to, so the perks and salary have to be pretty high for me to stay in a stressful job. Like someone mentioned there's also stress duration. At my current job, the moderate level stress has been going on for too many years now, without an end in sight and I've been applying for other work. I certainly don't have to quit, but I'm exploring other options.

  7. #7
    Senior Member awakenedsoul's Avatar
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    I've left some ballet teaching positions because of toxic situations. At one dance studio, the owner wasn't paying my social security taxes. I noticed the amount seemed low on my SS statement, and called my accountant. He was pleased that I caught it, and sent me right down to Social Security. It was several thousand dollars. She was livid that I reported her. I was only paid once a month, and she started bouncing checks...

    Another woman was just very verbally abusive. She'd come in and rant and rave at me in front of the kids. She'd also run her classes over 20 mins. into mine. The parents would show up 20 mins. late to pick up their kids, and I was exhausted after teaching five classes in a row. I just wanted to go home and eat dinner. She also would hold my check until she felt like paying me. (She also paid once a month, and I needed the paycheck for food at the time.)

    My performing jobs were a lot of fun, and not really stressful. We always go paid on time, and I liked the people. I did leave MGM in Vegas because it was just too dangerous. People kept getting hurt. It just didn't feel safe.

    Your situation sounds bad. I hope you can find a job that's healthier and more rewarding.

  8. #8
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    Once a week sounds quite reasonable, and quite accurate to me. Maybe once a week there's something that needs to be done ASAP, rush, rush, rush! Or some pure death march, that involves a combination of rushing, drudgery, and stress of things going wrong. Or much more rarely some urgent problem I don't know what the heck to do about (and not knowing is stressful).

    Yet my main job has created a stressful situation for me, most of the time--with concurrent rise in blood pressure, insomnia, depression and anxiety. I have worked hard, with some success, to work through my reactions and improve them, but I am still struggling with panic reactions, etc., to the job.
    It sounds like too much to me, to much too suffer for a job. Yea, yea jobs are jobs and one may never like them but ... Quite frankly I think one should look for another job WHENEVER they think they think that there's better out there to be had, but one may not find one of course, and quitting with nothing else lined up is another matter. There's likely a threshold that I would hit where I would quit with nothing planned, but it's higher than just that which would make me look elsewhere (perhaps quite high, but at a certain point it would be triggered).
    Trees don't grow on money

  9. #9
    Senior Member bae's Avatar
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    My current work involves lots of mental and physical stress. So much so that I am subjected to regular supervised medical stress tests, and get a 12-lead EKG done every month at least. During the work day I will sometimes get multiple basic medical exams - checking pulse, BP, O2/CO2 levels, blood sugar, ... I have lost 8 pounds during a single 8-hour shift.

    When a day goes poorly, my employer provides nearly-mandatory counseling sessions to deal with the mental stress.

  10. #10
    Senior Member jp1's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore View Post

    It sounds like too much to me, to much too suffer for a job. Yea, yea jobs are jobs and one may never like them but ... Quite frankly I think one should look for another job WHENEVER they think they think that there's better out there to be had, but one may not find one of course, and quitting with nothing else lined up is another matter. There's likely a threshold that I would hit where I would quit with nothing planned, but it's higher than just that which would make me look elsewhere (perhaps quite high, but at a certain point it would be triggered).
    Thinking to the other thread about the family that was profiled on MSN with the $8,000 monthly nut, being supported entirely by the husband with a $125k computer job. Imagine the stress he would be in if he was not only in over his head financially as he obviously is, but also hated his job. What then? His options for dealing with his stress would be limited to 'find another job that pays just as much but that I might like better'. Thankfully I've never put myself in anything even remotely like that situation and never likely will.

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