Stress at Work - What to do??

Uncertain

Thmas_Covenant wrote: »

SarEl, don't really appreciate the tone of your reply.
If it makes you feel superior lauding your knowledge if equality law over the likes of me, then bully for you.
Because I have taken my leave during the year I have done something wrong have I? Not looking to hold anyone over a barrel, looking for some advice. I am committed to my work, have been there 7 years and had a total of 5 days off sick in that time. The smell is of someone suffering from stress, a first in 25 years of an unblemished career, who doesn;t know what to do and thought a forum like this might offer some help - your comments hurt more than help, was that your intent?

SarEl has actually given you excellent advice, even if you don't like the tone.

I imagine she may have been influenced by the totally wrong "advice" you offered on the Retraction of Job Offer thread which you ended with a somewhat arrogant "Simples"!

LesleyKD

Ive recently returned to work after a period off sick with depression/stress. I feel so much better for doing so. Anti depressants have helped but I really needed time out from the workplace.

I've been to plenty of people for advice but I went to see an IAPT employment advisor who was excellant. Ignore the unhelpful people. if you really do feel that ill, see ydur GP and take time out. Take a closofriend or relative with you if you can't do it alone.

I don't visit the forum every day but if you want to contact me again through this site please do so
Lesley

Scho

Jimavfc82 wrote: »

It is really easy to say when you aren't in the situation, and also easy to try and find reasons why it is impossible to do, but maybe look at how you can change the way you are working?

I sympathise with you anyway and hope you are able to cope with it. I agree with others to be careful on the stress, but ultimately if you are ill you are ill i guess.

Anyway a few ideas from me.

• What tasks can you ignore/delegate to others?
• When your manager asks you to do something ask where the priorities are, and make clear that you will have to deprioritise something else - start getting their expectations managed.
• Make a pact with yourself, you simply won't work over your hours (or over an amount you set) and get used to the fact that some things remain undone.
• Be confident in yourself that when you are challenged on not doing something you have prioritised the right things over it.
• Set aside time every week, which you don't deviate from, to pick up some of the nitty gritty e-mails etc
• Set time in your calender to do certain tasks each week and don't let others drag you away from these times unless you absolutely have to
• When you feel the stress building take a walk around the office, try and have a laugh and a joke with someone etc, remind yourself it is only work, and the only stress is the expectation you are putting on yourself. They won't sack you - they are underresourced anyway by the sounds of it so will be really grateful for you

Great advice.

I'd also recommend making a full task list that shows priorities and time estimates for completion and ensure that your boss is fully aware of it. When the boss tries to add to your list, simply ask where they'd like this new task added into the list and what priority it has. They then decide the priority, and what task suffers because of their changes.
If you have the time, check out AGILE working techniques.

SarEl

Thmas_Covenant wrote: »

SarEl, don't really appreciate the tone of your reply.
If it makes you feel superior lauding your knowledge if equality law over the likes of me, then bully for you.
Because I have taken my leave during the year I have done something wrong have I? Not looking to hold anyone over a barrel, looking for some advice. I am committed to my work, have been there 7 years and had a total of 5 days off sick in that time. The smell is of someone suffering from stress, a first in 25 years of an unblemished career, who doesn;t know what to do and thought a forum like this might offer some help - your comments hurt more than help, was that your intent?

No you haven't done anything wrong by taking your leave. But you told us that you couldn't take it because you didn't have time to take it. And the first solution you came up with is go off sick and they have to treat you as disabled. Perhaps you could get your story straight and then you might sound more convincing.

Annisele

OP - we don't know whether you're one of the (many!) people who think "I have a disability therefore my employer cannot sack me".

If you are, then SarEl's wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee style is far more helpful to you than the suggestions others have made.

If you're not, then yes her comments might hurt. However, one of the things that comes along with posting somewhere like this is that you'll get plenty of opinions - and you can pretty much guarantee that you won't like some of them. You get to choose which suggestions to take up, and which to ignore entirely. You can even choose to put some posters on ignore. What you can't really do is complain that posts don't use the tone you want and expect that your complaint will make any difference.

I do think that your suggestion that your employer "must" do something because of a legislation that isn't even in force any longer suggests that you think your job is protected in some way - and I'm not the only person who doubts that protection. Would you rather SarEl told you she thought that you were wrong, or would you prefer to find out when you got your P45 in the post?

Sambucus_Nigra

SarEl wrote: »

No you haven't done anything wrong by taking your leave. But you told us that you couldn't take it because you didn't have time to take it. And the first solution you came up with is go off sick and they have to treat you as disabled. Perhaps you could get your story straight and then you might sound more convincing.

I read it that he had 'had no time off yet' in that he had taken no sick time off yet; not that he had not taken any leave this year.

SarEl

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

I read it that he had 'had no time off yet' in that he had taken no sick time off yet; not that he had not taken any leave this year.

In that case the OP could have said so when I said to take holiday in post#2. But that still doesn't change my opinion. The OP may not like my "tone" but the OP's "tone" is that the employer will have to do something if they go off sick, and that being sick with certain conditions gives them automatic rights. If they go off sick then yes, the employer may well do something - but it is very likely to not be what the OP thinks.

Sambucus_Nigra

I totally agree; when you are in a senior role, you need to get savvy on upward management, time management, training others and delegation. Doing all those usually solves most of the issues mentioned in the OP.

teabelly

Learn not to care. If the work piles up then too bad. You have stated you can't do it all so your manager decides what doesn't get done. If they are incapable of making that decision then you're up a gum tree and I've been in the same place with a weak manager that wouldn't face reality that one person can't do multiple people's jobs! You're then left with deciding yourself what doesn't get done or going to their manager and forcing them to decide. Bad manager's don't like it when you place it as their responsibility to provide more staffing or appropriate priorities as they don't want the buck stopping with them, they want someone else to blame for their mismanagement of a situation that is really simple to resolve. Good manager's will take on that responsibility and set clear priorities and take the flack from those above. Bad managers won't and will weasel out of any of this and happily let staff be ill with stress and harass them over not getting everything done when it is impossible. You'll soon find out which camp yours is in.

If the work all gets done somehow then nothing changes. If whoever's pet project doesn't get done then things start to change so a little strategic thinking in what not to do is needed. A lot of things just aren't important and if you leave them long enough they won't need doing or someone else will do them.

DVardysShadow

Thmas_Covenant wrote: »

SarEl, don't really appreciate the tone of your reply.
If it makes you feel superior lauding your knowledge if equality law over the likes of me, then bully for you.
Because I have taken my leave during the year I have done something wrong have I? Not looking to hold anyone over a barrel, looking for some advice. I am committed to my work, have been there 7 years and had a total of 5 days off sick in that time. The smell is of someone suffering from stress, a first in 25 years of an unblemished career, who doesn;t know what to do and thought a forum like this might offer some help - your comments hurt more than help, was that your intent?

The thing about SarEl's advice is that it is only ever partial. She will paint the grimmest blackest picture of the legal position and leave it at that, as though it is the full answer. I have had protracted arguments with her in the past over her advice being only partial, but she does not seem to get the point. So just imagine that she had written a sentence along the lines of 'this is just the legal position, other posters will give useful advice which may help address the problem without recourse to law'.

So take the legal perspective as advice that there is nothing for you in the law and look at the other ways of dealing with it.