October 20, 2023 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Declining Work for Mental Health
October 20, 2023 at 12:40 pm
I identify with this post although i do not work as hard as Steve!! One question i would like to pose is "How do i say no to work?" I think professional phrases like "I can work on this new project but i don't know if i can meet the timeline." works well with project managers. Any others?
October 20, 2023 at 1:12 pm
I identify with this post although i do not work as hard as Steve!! One question i would like to pose is "How do i say no to work?" I think professional phrases like "I can work on this new project but i don't know if i can meet the timeline." works well with project managers. Any others?
Exceptionally good question, Patrick. The pandemic showed the need to take mental health more seriously. My employer has incorporated some aspects of that into our routine, but as a weekly email reminding us to be kind to ourselves, in practice it really isn't followed. I've worked in this state government job for 8 years and have noticed the pressure never lets up. Whenever we finish a project, we immediately start the next, without taking time to reflect upon what's happened, what we might learn from it, etc. I wonder if this is true for other state employees. Anyway, there's an unspoken expectation that everyone must "pull their weight", so no one ever says no, or I can't meet that deadline, etc.
Rod
October 20, 2023 at 1:16 pm
One question i would like to pose is "How do i say no to work?"
Keep a prioritized list of the tasks you're working on. Personally, I use RememberTheMilk.com, but any task tracking software will work, even Github issues or Jira issues.
When someone wants to add a new task to the list, show them your current prioritized list and say, "Here's my queue. Where should this new task be prioritized in the queue?"
This is why the list has to be prioritized: they need to see what you're doing, in order, as you finish each task. Ideally, next to each task, you've got the name of the person or department that you're doing the task for.
Requesters will say things like:
In which case, you say, "Sounds good. I'm going to email A, B, and C, whose work will be delayed due to this new request, and make sure they're okay with it." And then, actually do it. Email A, B, and C, and copy both the person who requested the work, AND your manager. Do it in an upbeat, friendly way.
Sometimes A, B, and C will actually agree that yes, the new person's work is more important.
Other times, they won't, and they'll politely have a discussion with the person who's trying to cut in line. If it happens often enough, your manager will even take people aside and say, "Anytime you want to add something to Patrick's plate, please come see me first."
October 20, 2023 at 2:17 pm
Bro we are not 30 years old.
Relax.
October 20, 2023 at 2:23 pm
29 Years old Hexadecimal ?
October 20, 2023 at 2:30 pm
Crazy Eights - too funny i work a government job too! I am beginning to read about Vertical structure organizations versus Matrix Organizations. Work here comes in from the horizontal - PM's, agency power users, even outside consultants needing dba's in their contract work. I appreciate Brent's comments on prioritization i should begin there.
Much appreciated!
October 20, 2023 at 2:47 pm
If someone asks me to do something and it's not a demand, I usually say no first. Or, I do what Brent suggests and may try to decide where this fits in my list of things.
If it's an order from someone in authority, then I often do what Brent says and let them decide what I should work on. What I don't do is agree to work 50, 60, or more hours to "catch up" or "get everything done". There is a never-ending stream of things, so I don't say no directly as much as I get others to decide what needs to be done first.
October 20, 2023 at 2:51 pm
My age is getting up there, but this was something I learned in my 30s. Most companies don't want to fire you, and they don't want to replace you. They want you to get things done, even if your manager and you don't get along.
You can push back on extra demands, but do it respectfully and professionally.
What you shouldn't do is just agree to do everything you're asked, which is what many people do because they fear not complying with everything their manager says. I did learn that in my 30s, though I sometimes tackled extra work to learn. Or to make an impression, but not constantly.
Judiciously.
Brent, myself, plenty of others who are successful will work 60 or 80 hours in a week. Just very rarely, and in special cases. Most of the time we're ensuring we balance our lives outside of work with work.
I knew this fall would be tough and challenging. I agreed to do it because I enjoy the work, and I have. I'm just worn out, so I've pulled back. That's a skill as well.
I'm hoping to lead by example here, which is why I shared this.
October 20, 2023 at 3:10 pm
Steve, I'm an old cuss and don't generally buy into the current thing of all the 'mental health' issue regarding working a career. Being an old farm boy from the midwest, I think I can relate to the effects of hard work.
HOWEVER, after having put in 42 years working in the IT industry, I can testify that the effects of my farming background far outweigh the effects of the years of pressure and long hours, etc in IT. At 80 years old, I suffer chronic pain from what my doctor says is arthritis.
On the farm, as you well know, there is constant lifting, carrying, straining ourselves just to get the work done. I have had serious back pain for about 50 years, and now experience severe joint pain especially in my shoulders, likely from lifting 80# bales of hay and 100# bags of livestock feed, even carrying them up a stairway to the second floor of a livestock barn. I experience stabbing pain in my shoulders simply from shifting my position in bed at night. So far I have been able to resist the use of serious drugs, nothing stronger than Tylenol, to ease the symptoms, instead using topical solutions for relief, and that is amazingly effective.
Mental health? Well, I think I'm doing OK. At one point I experienced professional psychiatric evaluations over a period of time with family, and the net results were that the doctor's opinion was "We've never tested anyone as 'normal' as you are." At that point I was probably three-quarters through the IT career.
In my undergraduate studies I had many credit hours in Psychology and Sociology, parts of which were dealing with persons from grade school students through patients incarcerated in mental institutions. My conclusion is that mental health problems are not caused by career effort so much as by our internal response to such pressure. And further, we have to make responsible decisions on how we handle these situations.
Trying to affect and change internal operations of employment likely contributes more to mental health problems than it does to relieve them. Mental health is a response thing.
Now in saying all this, I have to add that I admire and am encouraged by your realization of your situation, and think you are taking a healthy view for yourself. I encourage you to continue considering this and to make necessary adjustments as needed to take care of YOURSELF.
I'm reminded of an old saying that I have no idea of the source which goes "Sometimes the gain ain't worth the pain".
If any of you find yourself in a career sitution where you are concerned about mental health, then GET THE HELL OUT, otherwise GET OVER IT. It's up to YOU. Somewhat related to this point of view, when I was raising four sons, my advice to them was often "If you don't want to get in trouble, don't be where the trouble is". (By the way, three of the four are following careers in IT and they range in age from 52 to 57 years old).
I wish you all the best.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
October 20, 2023 at 3:45 pm
Crazy Eights - too funny i work a government job too! I am beginning to read about Vertical structure organizations versus Matrix Organizations. Work here comes in from the horizontal - PM's, agency power users, even outside consultants needing dba's in their contract work. I appreciate Brent's comments on prioritization i should begin there.
Much appreciated!
Patrick, I've never heard of vertical structure organizations and matrix organizations. I've got to look into that. Thanks!
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
October 20, 2023 at 3:49 pm
I don't know about calling it "mental health", but I think its important to recognize that work is a means to an end. Work to make money to support your family or be able to do the things you love. I think we've all had co-workers whose entire identity is defined by their work. They constantly talk about how they were working all night or all weekend. It may help to distract them but we're not made for work and work won't provide true contentment.
If you view work in the right lens, it makes it much easier to say no at the right times and achieve a good work-life balance.
October 20, 2023 at 4:15 pm
Most stressful year of my career was 2019 due to the projects involved. Three datacenter migrations, several distributed applications doing once a decade level upgrades with almost no back out plan, and the first all application DR test for the company in many years. Worked almost every weekend through spring and early summer as well as quite a few in the fall. Worst part of the hours was that there was no time to decompress and release the stress. That took a large toll on my health both mental and physical.
So in various year end meetings I became very vocal that I would never do a year like that again. The response from my manager as well as the team leads responsible for scheduling was surprisingly positive. Folks knew I was busy, but until I laid it out nobody had realized I was on the critical path for every major IT event of a very busy year. In never saying NO I had enabled the insanity. The importance of saying NO was a painful lesson to learn.
Fast forward to this year and several of those same projects were scheduling another round of major simultaneous upgrades. I've said no much more often and have made myself unavailable to work two weekends in a row. Response from the various application managers has been supportive and positive. Nobody wants to push out their project timeline, but understand that resource constraints exist.
October 20, 2023 at 5:53 pm
"So in various year end meetings I became very vocal that I would never do a year like that again. "
Reminds me of an incident I have related to you all before. I was in my office at my desk working through a program failure that was holding up prodution in a wholesale distribution center. My younger boss sidles in, hand in pockets, and asks "Don't you have that fixed yet?"
My response was "Jeff, if it is so ... easy to fix, why don't you go do it yourself?" That got me an interview with the president and one of the owners of the company.
That was back in my years with Burroughs/Unisys DMSII hierarchial DB days. It did work wonders for my on-the-job mental health.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
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