Bosses and stress

Nearly every working day I take time out and head to a very nice pub for a cup of coffee. Not always but certainly most days. There three and sometimes four things happen, cup of coffee, close eyes and have a very short moment of shut eye, read and occasionally chat to Sparkling Eyes. The best bit of news which comes out of this is usually what Princess J has recently been up to. When the office has been manic and the stress has piled up (even though I do my best to deny stress any kind of foothold) then news of what my precious, crazy little grand daughter has been up to makes everything insignificant. Everything.

Being under stress has an upside to it. Having experience awful managers in workplaces I'll elaborate. In two jobs bad management led me close to leaving them. However, bad management is not about doing shift rotas, deciding overtime, or giving tasks to do. It is about personality and interpersonal skills.  How an employee is spoken to and they way they are asked to complete a job or reprimanded are factors more important in the workplace than a lot of things. One female boss I had liked to use psychological warfare, each day when she came into work it was amateur theatrics night. She would come in and expect everyone to pay attention to her, to suck up to her. I often did not agree with her and at the same time felt unable to express how I felt. She I learnt later was the reason why another boss had a mental break down and left the workplace. Funny thing was the boss who had the break down was her grand parent boss as well. I wish I'd of gone to him and asked for a transfer and am sure he would of been someone to confide in. Except he happened to be the type of person who locked himself up in his room and didn't particularly leave it to socialise or speak to the staff. The upside to having this difficult and mentally ill female boss was how much I appreciated things outside of work. I valued moments of fresh air in such a way it was startling. All because of the pressures felt in the workplace. 

Although we live in a democratic society the work place is not a democratic place to be. The boss is the one who holds all the power. Any relationship with a boss to this extent is asymmetric.  Further to this the way a boss acts is always under scrutiny, employees watch them and they make judgements. I know for I am one of those bosses now. What is significant for an employee is to feel they have the opportunity to say what is on their mind and at the same time. Further to this what they say has been taken into account and is valued and weighted. My admittance as a boss is I don't know everything but at many a time it feels like the people I manage expect me to know everything. They expect answers from me when they could just as easily work out the answers themselves.  This can be frustrating however showing frustration is in itself something which should not be done. For it stems from anger and impatience and making a judgement about the employee.

Now life as a boss is both easier and harder. I don't get bossed around as much as I did when lower in the hierarchy, yet at the same time there is more work than ever. More work and less time. The workplace is an important place for we spend more time there than with our loved ones. We get to know people in work to an even greater degree than we do anywhere else. I once heard it said there are two instances in you actually know what another person is like. One is at work the other is living with them. This is true and what I will say is I absolutely love my job yet at the same time it is very stressful and I don't want to take this stress out on other people, certainly not those who work for me even if I do get frustrated at them. So I don't. I enjoy my lunch break away from the office a cup of coffee and momentarily find solace, comfort and humour. Which is the the best tool to fight stress with.