stress

[eFestivals]

Well it's one thing to privately doubt their word, it's another to act on it.

Like anything, which way you go depends on the particular circumstances - tho of course different people would have different lines.

And anyone claiming to be suffering from stress would have to be thick skinned to lie about it, because they know the stigma attached to it, as with any mental health issues.

that depends purely on the person and their regard for their employer, surely?

The stigma only matters if you care what people think of you. If someone is prepared to take the piss then they already don't much care what others think of them.

[feral chile]

I was thinking about what might be going on with social attitudes to stress, and this is my theory.

When you have a group of social animals, and one member of the group goes into high alert, the others notice, and get more alert too. They'll look for the source of the threat, and hide, fight, or run away, depending on what it is.

It's the same with humans. You see someone who's stressed out, and look around for the threat. If it's a 'visible' threat, shared adverse working conditions, for instance, there'll be understanding and a shared action of some sort. If the threat is particular to the individual, but 'visible', a bereavement, say, then the group might rally round, or keep a respectful distance, as animals might with a wounded member of their group.

But if you've got someone giving out alert signals, repeatedly, and the group can't find the threat, the group will start to see the alerts as false alarms, the stressed out individual as mucking them about, and they'll feel irritated or cheated, and either ignore or disregard the individual, dismiss their alert signals as nonsense, or even turn their own fight/flight response onto the signaller, as the only potential source of the threat.

Thus, hostility or disbelif expressed towards stress sufferers without a tangible reason for being stressed.

Edited March 14, 2013 by feral chile

[Purple Monkey]

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=Cr9DI3YLOTA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCr9DI3YLOTA

[feral chile]

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=Cr9DI3YLOTA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCr9DI3YLOTA

[Guest]

We have a large-ish department where I work, and sometimes I act as a stand-in supervisor. Whenever I have colleagues whingeing to me about others (as they see it) taking time off for extra leave, claiming stress, I have 2 responses... one is you have no idea what the other person might be going through. It might be nothing, and just an excuse, or it might be totally genuine. Response two is, if you feel stressed then you have the opportunity to do exactly the same, and it's good that the employer allows it.

Quite often the reply is, "Well I don't do that sort of thing".. I say.. "good for you, well done. Your whingeing isn't doing you or anyone any good at all. You should do what you think is the right thing and not pre-occupy yourself with what others might or might not be haveing to deal with"

I'm not sure if I'm the best supervisor 'material'....

Edited March 15, 2013 by tonyblair

[feral chile]

We have a large-ish department where I work, and sometimes I act as a stand-in supervisor. Whenever I have colleagues whingeing to me about others (as they see it) taking time off for extra leave, claiming stress, I have 2 responses... one is you have no idea what the other person might be going through. It might be nothing, and just an excuse, or it might be totally genuine. Response two is, if you feel stressed then you have the opportunity to do exactly the same, and it's good that the employer allows it.

Quite often the reply is, "Well I don't do that sort of thing".. I say.. "good for you, well done. Your whingeing isn't doing you or anyone any good at all. You should do what you think is the right thing and not pre-occupy yourself with what others might or might not be haveing to deal with"

I'm not sure if I'm the best supervisor 'material'....

[Guest]

isn't life, in general, more stressful than it's ever been?

[feral chile]

isn't life, in general, more stressful than it's ever been?

[Guest]

i think we have to suppress our natural instincts more, but we in the West should be less stressed, we're less at risk from predators or starvation than ever before,

Edited March 16, 2013 by tonyblair

[feral chile]

and we create so much unnecessary stress...

[nightcrawler13]

from what I've seen in the poorest places I've travelled such as India, Morocco, Argentina and parts of Korea, the poorer people are the happier they tend to be/act.

I guess that as Westerners, we have more things to stress us out, remember when phones just text and call and the battery last two weeks? Now every day I hear at least one person stressing about a dying battery or the internet going slowly, the more we are blessed with the more we have to worry about

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

There are always those that play the system.

[feral chile]

There are always those that play the system.