Millions Of Americans Can't Handle The Stress Of Work Anymore

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/stress-an-epidemic-afflicting-workers-2013-4

Longtime readers know that I see our system not just as financially sick but as spiritually and psychologically deranging.

The illnesses are related, of course—a distorted economic system (i.e. financialization) that rewards parasitic sociopathy and political predation cannot help but make its participants physically and psychologically ill.

Here is a selection of the many entries I've written on this largely ignored topic:

Serial Addictions, Serial Speculative Bubbles: a Sickness Unto Death (Feb. 2, 2010)
Welfare Nation: Addiction, Denial and Magical Thinking (February 1, 2010)
The Wider Context for Twenty-Somethings (Gen Y) in America (February 19, 2010)
Opting Out and the Culture of Entitlement (March 29, 2010)


Read more: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-18/silent-epidemic-broken-deranged-system-stress#ixzz2R6FmTR9t

[midnight]

1. I don't have any data of links, but I was thinking that so many companies that I have read about

have cut staff way back and expect more done for less.... So it makes sense that people are probably worn out doing the job of several people....

[CTyankee]

2. I see it, esp. at the municipal government level here in New Haven.

Social Services cut way back, including my husband's job. His former boss has to handle both his job and that of other laid off city workers. When he has time to sleep, I don't know...

[midnight]

13. O boy.... Govt. jobs should be put under a special protection program... This sounds so awful....

[CTyankee]

14. Hubby got laid off in a job massacre back in Feb. 09. He now heads up as a volunteer the

city's Homeless Commission. When he goes for monthly commission meetings, he says city hall is like a tomb.

[southernyankeebelle]

19. Yes those damn government employees who are so overpaid. We need to get rid

of them all. They suck us dry. That is all you hear from republicans. Yet they are the first to bitch because they can't get the service they need or want. Go figure. It is a mad house out in the country no matter what kind of job or where you work people are having hard times. My husband works for WalMart at night. Recently they changed their hours from 10pm to 7am and now he works from 9pm to 5am. Just some of the people were moved to those hours. My husband has been saying they should change to those hours long ago. Many people like it because it gives them a chance to see their kids in the morning before they go off to school. Well they have been on it for almost a one month now. He told me yesterday that they are going to change the hours back to the old time because they can't get it all done. The problem is they won't hire more people. They expect people to take care of more then one or two sections sometimes. Believe it or not there is a lot to do. He always gives 101% of his abilities to get things done. It is crazy. If only they would listen to the people who do the job.

[CTyankee]

21. I see this happening at the supermarket. The chain advertises specials and then

the stores don't get them or stock them later than they should due to understaffing. So the customer is expected to go stand in the "customer service" line to get a raincheck for the item not stocked, which would be OK except the line is long because they only have one person staffing it (and also selling lottery tickets). As a result, some departments have developed an "attitude" that is both anti-management and anti-customer. It's not a good situation. I go to this supermarket because it is closest and I also get $$ off the gas I buy there. Plus I stalk the sale items (which are often not stocked, of course)...

It's gets depressing sometimes. I feel esp. sorry for the older lady who is behind the fish counter. She is in her 60s and still hauling around big, heavy boxes of frozen fish. But she is a reliable employee who does her job and tries to smile at everybody. But you can only take so much...

[southernyankeebelle]

23. Yes it's like that for sure. My husband is 58 yrs old and works very hard. There are

older women who work there at ages 60s, 70s and late 70s. Many work because they have too. It is sad.

[midnight]

22. Isn't that something.. Howard Dean is starting an organization that is trying to return our State

houses back to Democratic hands and get this austerity nonsense out of our state houses...


http://www.bluevirginia.us/diary/8980/howard-dean-dfa-launch-purple-to-blue-project-target-5-districts-in-virgin

[suffragette]

25. Feeling perennially behind in work is incredibly stressful

And that happens increasingly as more people are in the position of your husband's former boss and stretching themselves ever further to do the work of what should be several people.

[CTyankee]

26. Well, I think we all know that some things just don't get done...

[suffragette]

27. Yes, many things can't get done

At the same time, I think people feel the stress of trying to keep up and falling ever further behind. It's like being the white queen in Alice, but worse.

[CTyankee]

29. At a certain point, you just give up, because nothing is going to get better. How sad!

Most people go to work every day wanting to do a good job. This situation just takes the steam right out of you...

[byeya]

3. Add in the fact that the 10% loss of productivity in the south and SW due to global warming

with the projection of the 30% loss in these regions and the tropics in 25 years(I think the study said) and you are looking at very stressed(and distressed) people.(These are manual labor outdoor jobs)
The studies were commissioned by the CIA and the World Bank.

[Scuba]

4. ...

[midnight]

15. This is what austerity looks like....

[bemildred]

5. Crazy talk, stupid talk.

That's our politics, for a long time now too.

http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/Archives/Crazy%20Talk,%20Stupid%20Talk.htm

[mother earth]

6. It truly "rewards parasitic sociopathy", the workplace is quickly becoming toxic, interpersonally

and on a far wider level than even this article can relay. Is anyone happy where they work? People are becoming demoralized and in turn are demoralizing each other IMHO. It gets played out in a variety of ways, none of which are good.

[marmar]

7. "eliminate the real sources of stress and you bring down the entire economic, political .......

....... and social order."

And perhaps the time for the proverbial "paradigm shift" has come.

[xchrom]

8. ...

maybe IF we can admit we're sick -- we can stop the denial.

[leeroysphitz]

9. But we must all try to be useful engines.

[PETRUS]

10. Agree with this:

"the subtle ways that our worldview is molded to make certain forms of political and financial dominance so "natural" that we lose awareness of its arbitrary, carefully engineered structure."

But there are still like 3 applicants per job opening, so I'm not sure this - "people just want to drop out from it all, as they are reaching a breaking point, and have decided less income and dependency on entitlements will reduce their stress, and is not so humiliating, so giving up working becomes more acceptable" - is an adequate explanation for unemployment.

[byeya]

11. 3+ jobless for each opening is the government statistic on the situation

[BeyondGeography]

12. Eliminating income by not working is an even greater stress

Not a good situation either way for many, many people.

[duffyduff]

28. It's much, much worse, let me tell you.

I have a hard time sympathizing with people who at least have jobs and pay a halfway decent income.

Try "living" on 300 a month plus whatever substituting one can get.

Today is the fifth anniversary of my being illegally fired from my last "real" job.

The stress from work is nowhere near the stress of being unemployed and underemployed.

I am sick of nickel and diming EVERYTHING.

[Newest Reality]

16. This article and some of its

referenced articles hits home in many ways.

Debt is one pillar of this system and pivotal to how it functions and manages to keep people beholden to its dominant paradigm.

Stress can be seen as problem-based. When life is primarily seen as a problem that needs solving, (or worse, multiple and compounded problems in a steady stream) then we miss living, in and of itself, and live with various forms of conflict at various stages of resolution.

Now, if we pull back and take a careful look at what we actually need, (all current, cultural inducements aside) to live as an organic entity, then we are talking about air, water, a couple thousand calories or so a day, shelter and clothing relative to our surroundings. Anthropologists have speculated that, in a hunter/gather scenario, under the right conditions, that's about 13 or so hours per week. The rest being devoted to ritual, art forms, reflection, sex, getting high, etc.

Now that's just for perspective and one can debate it or resort to a pragmatic argument that is based on our current situation in all its complexity. However, if we establish a base and consider our basic needs while sincerely questioning our wants, (which are often seductively induced by advertising, peer pressure, etc.) then it might become easier to compare our results and quality of life with the amount of time, energy and peace we are required to sacrifice in order to appease this system and its incessantly driven, sociopathic, malignant and most certainly unsustainable march to extinction.

The win-win factor is not there and the decimation of our species and all species is the new and grave concern that we can add to the toxic and detrimental impact of rule by the Fortune 500 with its Kings and Wizards working behind our backs in the board room.

[MOTRDemocrat]

17. Too many jobs feel like a hamster wheel. nt

[LiberalEsto]

18. The Japanese have a word for death from overwork: karoshi

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi

I believe increasing numbers of workers are becoming ill due to work stress, if not actually dying from heart attacks or strokes related to work stress.

My husband has worked in IT for 30 years. It seems that every year his work week gets longer, the requirements get more extensive, and the workplace (regardless of which company) becomes more toxic. People get fired, and the remaining workers are forced to take over those workloads in addition to their own. One of his co-workers has been hospitalized for stress and overwork, but that doesn't protect him from having to work many hours ever weekend as well as many late nights.

People apparently become managers because they lack empathy for those they manage. These managers know how to use threats and apply stress in order to force the most work out of their victims. If this is what the average workplace in America has become, it's no wonder to me that from time to time vulnerable people snap from stress and go after their supervisors.

At my last job before I was laid off almost five years ago, my employer rarely, if ever, criticized us. She praised every good thing we did, and I worked my ass off for her. She was several years older than I am, and it was a small, woman-owned business. We all took a great deal of pride in our combined efforts. The only reason I stopped working there was that a major client I worked with decided to change focus entirely and no longer required our PR services. In other words, she was old-school management, in which you offered praise and carrots instead of whips, chains and psychological torture.

Since then, the few jobs I've seen that fit some of my skills seem to want someone who can do almost everything: write, edit, proofread, do SEOs, know html, know Adobe Illustrator, Dreamweaver and or Photoshop, have proficiency in Excel and Power Point, know Quickbooks, write speeches and grant proposals, do technical writing, have an MA in Communications and/or a law degree, and so on. Unfortunately, all I have is a BA in English, a modest ability to write well, 25 years as a newspaper reporter and seven years as a semi-technical, semi-marketing writer for energy-related publications and web sites. And no money with which to get training in any of the above. I don't know whether, at 61, I have the stamina to handle such a job.

I think strong unions are the only thing that will protect people from work abuse.

[LWolf]

20. I'm not handling it well.

The increase in stress, in hours, the decrease in pay, and the increase in age is taking a toll.

During my entire lifetime I've had a strong immune system, and the ability to move forward like a locomotive to get things done.

This year I've been sick more than I have been in the last decade together, I'm constantly exhausted, and I'm seeing more and more things I used to do fall by the way, until I basically get up, go to work, come home, do a minimal amount to keep the house functioning, and collapse. Nothing else. I don't answer the phone, and avoid going places and doing things.

[jwirr]

24. This is so easy for me to believe. My children and grandchildren are working longer hours than we

did at lower paying jobs or if not lower paying then just barely keeping them afloat especially with not health care that they can afford.

I see not the joy of living we felt but a tension that is on the edge of exploding at any time. This is not a better world.