Sunday Seven - Episode #314

At some point, like me, you may have suffered a frustration at the office large enough to make you mutter to yourself, “This place is killing me.”

For some medical experts, it’s not such a funny thought. Here’s a list of 10 Ways Your Job is Killing You. Theoretically, of course.

Which seven are most likely to have some impact on your life? That’s Job #1 for this week! Thanks for dropping by!

• Be sure to check back this week and click on the links of bloggers who play along in the comments below! It’s a great way to find blogs you may not have visited and to keep the conversation going!

Here is this week’s “Sunday Seven” question. Either answer in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog (with a link here), and then comment here with a link back to your blog so that everyone else can visit! Permission is not granted to copy the questions to message boards for the purpose of having members answer and play along there. Enjoy!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:

Name the seven ways your job is most likely killing you.

In my case, it is past tense, seven ways my job WAS killing me, but I do have them:

1. First and foremost (and unbeknownst to me at the time I was working, my job and hours were contributing to speeding up the deleterious effects of the muscular dystrophy. It turns out that working, stress and constantly pushing yourself when you have a disease that is, at its heart, immunological, speeds up the process of symtoms and extended problems. The things I loved most: being an HR Manager, the place I worked, and being an EMT, were the things hurting me the most. That is harder to live with than one thinks.

2. Having no energy; that is partially to blame on my condition but I also wore myself out working. I'd come home, eat, take my "before I go to bed" nap, then do a few things around the house and then crashed. What a charming life, huh? And then I'd be on the ambulance from 1800 to 0600, and that really didn't help.

3. One of the worst things and the item that easily created the most stress and did kill me were harassment complaints. From soup to nuts, this was a process that made me crazy. The only person who wanted to hear from me was my manager; everyone else griped and pissed and moaned about it, and it went downhill from there. I am, however, like a dog with a bone and kept at it - often coming home late and coming in super-early, because this was time consuming, paper consuming and time sensitive. It has to be now, now, now - no exceptions. That often killed me. I won't say it wasn't worth it - I almost always got my man (or woman) and that was the goal; but it was hard and annoying, too.

4. Extraneous issues: what is it that makes anyone crazy? Doing their normal job, or the sudden unseen, unknown, unforeseeable little bombs that pop out of the ether to suddenly become your problem? It's almost never your regular job duties. Those are the things you know. It is the other stuff: unionisation, problems with OSHA, etc. These things usually come to you because there is no easy answer or solution OR it takes so much time, money, energy and whatever else to deal with it that you are suddenly explaining to someone why this or that is late... we all have it, but it is definitely one of those things that kills us all at our jobs!

5. Now I am forced to troll the list, but I have to admit, few of those things apply to me. My most recent manager was a really stand-up guy who should be the GM/COO for the rest of his life (providing it makes him happy, but overall, I think he loves his job, even if he is not one to gush about it). I have had toxic bosses in the past, though, and that is one of the worst things to have. Agreed.

My commute was my wind-down time. I would plug in my iPod, sing and dance and bop in my car and never thought about being upset or frustrated going to and from work. Especially TO work: I couldn't recall getting there most of the time. It's all auto-pilot.

6. Long hours; we covered that above.

7. Layoffs: this was not something that come up at my last job, as layoffs were seasonal and welcomed by many of the seasonal staff who really were ready to see some downtime after working seven days a week for seven or eight months. But my first HR job was with PNY Technologies right in here in Parsippany and five months into it we had to lay off 39% of the staff. Unfortunately, some idiot manager leaked it and of course it just created more misery... and it was my first HR job and that was an ugly, ugly introduction to how awful that kind of thing truly is.

Either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. 

Have an idea for a future question? Click “Contact” in the top nav-bar and email it to me!