To be baffled by how everyone on MN claims to have a really stressful job

[T1nah]

Or their DH does. Or they both do.
What exactly is so stressful about your jobs? Does everyone work in Intensive Care or are you being a bit dramatic about the pressures of your job?

@ACPC

I work in retail now and love it as it seems so stress free in comparison to previous jobs I've had. There are colleagues who are stressed but they've never worked anywhere else. It's all about your own threshold and experiences.

Depends how you're treated. I was treated badly in my retail job, I left when I was so miserable and stressed that I wanted to hurt myself so I didn't have to go in.

Now I sometimes have to deal with very distressed people with mental health issues, and hear some awful things. I manage that fine, because I'm not treated like shit by my colleagues.

I envy anyone who can't imagine being stressed by their job.

I think lots of jobs genuinely are busy and stressful, compounded by the fact that people are expected to work longer hours, often with significant commuting distances.

OTOH I have a SAHM friend who has been known to say that her life is so stressful because she has two children with birthdays just before Christmas

My job is not stressful at all - the main stress I have comes from juggling the commute and childcare, and even that is so much easier now that my kids are a bit older.

My husband finds his job massively stressful but I do think that's partly down to his attitude to work (perfectionist/martyr), rather than the job itself.

I'm a civil servant and my job can be stressful at times. Those times are when dealing with particularly complex cases with significant media attention and ministers breathing down your neck, whilst trying to balance the needs of the customers with public accountability and money. But there are often times when it is less stressful and I can enjoy my job. As a senior manager it's only to be expected that I will have to deal with the complex stuff from time to time.

All jobs are stressful, even (and especially) staying at home!

Mid-career academic. Increased responsibility without the ultimate professorial glory. Harder and harder every year as resources are cut and student numbers increase. I love my job but I’m close to burning out.

It's stressful to be not in control, any job where the boss is breathing down your neck, to work with the public, or meet unrealistic targets, have your skills undermined and not be allowed to do a proper job, speak doubletalk about everything improving when you know it's getting worse, be responsible for things you can't make decisions about.

OP, what do you mean when you say stressful?

If 'stressful' is only for intensive care staff, I can get why you'd be baffled.

But other people may mean other things by the word.

And people may have different capacities to cope with stress.

And people's experiences are relative.

Etc. etc. Blah blah.

But also, so what? They think they have stressful jobs. You don't. Now what?

I was WAY more stressed as a SAHM with a small baby & toddler than I am now!

Isnt it all objective though! what might be stressful for you - i might think is nothing at all for me.... i would say my job is stressful - if we dont get certain documents out in time (this month) in a bid window - i lose my job - is that stressful enough for you OP?

OP you sound really grumpy.

Not much stress in my job now unless I get an awkward customer
Previous job was life/death/emergency so yes, very stressful and you took it home with you

I was WAY more stressed as a SAHM with a small baby & toddler than I am now!

Agree with this..I have been way more stressed at home looking after the kids than I ever was at work! At least at work I could escape for 5 mins, at home I cannot even have a shit in peace Mind, my job was not particularly stressful..I can imagine people like A+E workers or something would absolutely find it a piece of cake to look after oung children all day/night instead.

I've worked in jobs that were stressful but enjoyable and later, the same job but intolerably stressful resulting in me having a breakdown.

The difference was the boss: my first boss was lovely and supportive and you felt appreciated. He also expected that you worked hard but that you should have a work-life balance. The guy who succeeded him was a bully who shouted at his team, micromanaged and nothing was ever good enough for him. He said things like "He liked to employ divorced men who had high maintenance payments" as he knew that they would go all out to get their commission. And added to that, his boss by then was a bully too , so there was no recourse.

A colleague of mine left because of the bullying. I was expected to take on her work load and it was then "my fault" that I hadn't delegated enough of it to his EA (herself overloaded) when I cracked under the strain. When my colleague had her exit interview with HR, all they were interested in was minimising the risk of a constructive dismissal case

And yet I had been far more productive under my 1st boss.

I nearly resigned without a job to go to, but then a new manager was brought in between me and the bully. I was very worried before she started because the bully had recruited her - but it turns out she had a bully for a father so had been able to mirror the right character to him. he ended up being lovely and I survived another 2 years in the place, before the company was taken over and most of the team was made redundant (including the bully ).

My job isn't stressful really. I sometimes have quite tight deadlines, but I enjoy my work and am good at it so it doesn't feel like negative stress.

I find juggling all the life admin around work is the most stressful bit. The school drop offs, sorting wrap around care, taking fun and interesting photos of the fucking class bear as well as making sure all the other homework is done on time in a weekend, filling out the reading diary, taking time off for sick children, moving meetings so I can be at the prize-giving assembly, etc. That's what I find the most stressful. Work is a welcome break.

My job isn't stressful really. I sometimes have quite tight deadlines, but I enjoy my work and am good at it so it doesn't feel like negative stress.

I find juggling all the life admin around work is the most stressful bit. The school drop offs, sorting wrap around care, taking fun and interesting photos of the fucking class bear as well as making sure all the other homework is done on time in a weekend, filling out the reading diary, taking time off for sick children, moving meetings so I can be at the prize-giving assembly, etc. That's what I find the most stressful. Work is a welcome break.

My job (benefits adviser) isn't stressful at all. Challenging, at times, especially when you have to deliver the bad news that no, they don't have any chance of winning an appeal because they have a duty to tell the DWP when their circumstances change and they didn't bother, but not stressful. Sometimes it's distressing, because the system is so stacked against claimants.

But we are very lucky and have a tremendously supportive manager. She stops us from taking on new work if she feels we're at capacity and doesn't micromanage us. It could get stressful if she was the type of manager who insists we just take on more and more work.

And I only do 17 hours, so even if I was stressed, I'd still have plenty of time to chill out!

Mine isn't but I think it helps when you step down from a very stressful job into something else. Many people don't have much comparison.

@Lavellan definitely. I still ask my manager if I can go to the toilet or make a brew

My DH is a scientist in the nuclear sector. If he messes up at work he could kill himself and take out half of northern europe with him. I'd find that pretty stressful. Strangely enough he doesn't. He gets stressed by by funding applications and their deadlines.

Those of us who don’t have stressful jobs are hardly likely to post saying ‘my life is so easy and under control. I have no stress and nothing to worry about’. In the unlikely event someone did they would be flamed for being smug bits.

I am a town planner working in a local Council. There are lots of elements of my work which are intellectually satisfying. The team I work with is also great and we do have a laugh. And I believe in what I do, which is important.

However ... I find it stressful that we are blamed for everything, whether it's our fault or not. I work in a very affluent area where existing home owners can't bear the idea that we might need to build new homes for people that need them. Wealthy, entitled people come along to our exhibitions and (literally) shout at us, call us names and blame us for every short-coming of the entire public sector. I find it stressful when a complete stranger is telling me that everything is my fault, even though I know for a fact that he is wrong. I have been asked whether I enjoy ruining people's lives. My team is slated on social media on a daily basis, by people that have never met us and have no idea whether we are doing a good job or not. So yeah, it's less stressful that intensive care, but that doesn't mean it's a walk in the park.

Wasn't there a famous study that suggested that the people who were the most stressed at work were those in middle management, who had little control over their work and who were vulnerable to the caprices of more senior staff? Stress doesn't necessarily equal seniority. Equally, precarity is inherently very stressful. There are plenty of people working 2 or even 3 minimum wage jobs, often on pretty crappy contracts, which is extremely tiring and pretty stressful though perhaps in a different (and certainly less financially and socially rewarded) way to being a CEO.

Everyone has different threasholds of what is stressful, I wouldn’t say any of my jobs have been constantly stressful.

But target pressures , having the place I worked at held up at gun point, a guy threatening to smash up the place I worked ( travel agents ) they were stressful times ...