How do you know if you're affected by stress?

[NotAllThere]

I had stress as a permie. I described my symptoms to my doctor:

Inability to make basic decisions.
Dread of going to work.
Tiredness.
Anxiety.

He said they were the classic signs of stress, and signed me off for two weeks. During those two weeks my idiot boss called me to arrange a time for my appraisal... So I was off for three weeks.

OTOH, one of my team had the same symptoms. I arranged an appointment to see the company doc, who said "stress", but let's run a few tests just to be safe. Turned out he had a brain tumour. It was sadly malignant, and he died a couple of years later. However, if it hadn't been caught at the time, he'd have died within a few months, and would have left his wife and kid without a decent pension income. ( When he got the bad prognosis, the company paid up his pension to the maximum contribution ).

[expat]

I had stress as a permie. I described my symptoms to my doctor:

Inability to make basic decisions.
Dread of going to work.
Tiredness.
Anxiety.

He said they were the classic signs of stress, and signed me off for two weeks. During those two weeks my idiot boss called me to arrange a time for my appraisal... So I was off for three weeks.

I don't mean to be callous here, but is that stress not a sign that you shouldn't be doing that job at all? Not just off for 2 or 3 weeks?


An old friend of mine many years ago was working in a lab in the city and commuting every day, not doing research for himself but working for others. Some of the people he worked for had real work relationship inadequacies (to put it politely). Finally he saw the doctor, who diagnosed stress and prescribed some pills. His wife blew her top. "I'm not having my husband on f****** tranquillisers! No f****** job is worth it! You're not staying there!". He quit, they cut their expenses, and lived with it. Over 20 years later, they're still married and have 4 children. They live in the country in a small house, have some chickens, and he does window-cleaning. He isn't stressed any more, when he gets home he never worries about any windows or any IR35, and is not being outsourced. He looks content. He doesn't have as much money as I have, or feel I ought to have, but I'm less and less sure who has done right. I know that she was right: no f****** job is worth it.

[northernladuk]

OTOH, one of my team had the same symptoms. I arranged an appointment to see the company doc, who said "stress", but let's run a few tests just to be safe. Turned out he had a brain tumour. It was sadly malignant, and he died a couple of years later. However, if it hadn't been caught at the time, he'd have died within a few months, and would have left his wife and kid without a decent pension income. ( When he got the bad prognosis, the company paid up his pension to the maximum contribution ).

Boy you are a ray of sunshine on a gloomy day arn't you

[shaunbhoy]

I had stress as a permie. I described my symptoms to my doctor:

Inability to make basic decisions.
Dread of going to work.
Tiredness.
Anxiety.

Let me guess............he recommended you apply for a managerial post?

[northernladuk]

Let me guess............he recommended you apply for a managerial post?

That's when he started contracting!

[NotAllThere]

Let me guess............he recommended you apply for a managerial post?

I was already in a management post, but had to go - I was making the other managers look bad.

I don't mean to be callous here, but is that stress not a sign that you shouldn't be doing that job at all? Not just off for 2 or 3 weeks?

It's a fair call. In this particular instance, my boss (dumb) and his boss (dumber) were trying to get me to resign. They'd be tasked to do this by their boss, as I was a threat politically. It came to a head when there were audit findings, and dumb tried to take control of my project away from me, and put it in the hands of an external consultant (a friend of the program manager), who was on my frakking budget! The audit findings were all null and void, strangely. Knowing the end was nigh, I figured a few days off for stress wouldn't be unreasonable.

Anyway, in the end, I got a massive payoff in return for not going legal, and went back to contracting (nice one NLU). Swiss law does not offer much employee protection, so that fact I got a payoff shows how utterly inept dumb and dumber were at stitching me up.

In my final week in the office, dumber came in looking sick. His new position in the company had fallen through, and his successor was still going to take his old one. Which was nice.

[MarillionFan]

When I was younger, I used to get stressed so would go out, get very drunk and then somehow land up in a punch up in a pub.

Now, I'm older, I go out get very drunk and then come back and then land up in a virtual punch up on a bulletin board.

[northernladuk]

When I was younger, I used to get stressed so would go out, get very drunk and then somehow land up in a punch up in a pub.

Now, I'm older, I go out get very drunk and then come back and then land up in a virtual punch up on a bulletin board.

I just fall over... can't take the drink like I used to

[alreadypacked]

I read some where the main cause of stress is to be responsible/blamed for something you have little or no control over.

Insert Permie slackers where appropriate.

[original PM]

IIRC if you take time off from work with 'Stress' you can be quite easily moved on from that job based on the fact you cannot cope with the job you do.

Obviously need to be very careful to distinguish between those who are using it as an excuse and those we have a really tulip boss which is causing the stress.

Obviously the public sectors slackers are not going to go down that route as to many of them would fall of the gravy train.

Probably