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?

It's an unfair post tbh OP. Stress is like bullying - it can only be really be measured by the stressee not the onlooker. My Dads a war baby and says this generation don't understand the meaning of stress - stress then was a lack of food, shellshocked fathers and no home. But stress today manifests in a very different way - low wages, lack of voice in the workplace, low level bullying and exclusion, high housing costs, drugs etc etc. You have no empathy if you can't see or try to understand the nature of modern work place stresses I'm afraid.

I’m retired.

My job can be stressful, it can also be really easy. There are many jobs that I can see as being stressful especially those working in health care where people’s lives are at stake?

I was a prison officer prior to having ds. All in all I loved it, but some days were unbelievably stressful. The actual cause of the stress varied. The fact that myself and my colleagues sometimes felt stressed was not an indication of how ‘competently’ we could do our job.

I run my own business and it's not stressful.

I do think a lot of jobs are stressful though. The pressure to perform in difficult circumstances, working with people you don't get on with, not following your heart, not making enough money etc etc etc

I work long hours now for myself on my farm, but it's not stressful just tiring, I'm bottle feeding some lambs at the moment so up all hours!
Previously I worked in an office job and I found it incredibly stressful, the office politics, manager pressure, unrealistic goals put in place etc. I used to come home and cry. As others have said different people have different stress thresholds.

Youlikethebadones yes, sounds like a stressful job, I work in a slightly similar job but within mental health, there are days where it’s emotionally draining and it’s hard to switch off when you get home. I only work part time, I don’t think I could do my job full time and not have some kind of breakdown 🤣

I work as a social worker. I’ve had threatening letters sent to me, been sworn out, yelled at, had to work unexpectedly until 8 because people are unpredictable and can’t be ‘time managed’. I’ve had young people try to jump off bridges, bringing knives and drugs into homes of foster carers, and had to deal with adult carers being borderline aggressive and threatening with both the service users and myself. I’ve also had to carry out an investigation into a carer I had a good relationship because we had evidence he was a peadophile (and though not proven he almost definitely was)

And I don’t even work in frontline child protection. So yes I count my job as a very stressful.

Any job can be stressful and not stressful, depend on individual person.
Maybe you hear more from stressed people because they voice it more.

I don't save lives or have the kind of role where lives could be ruined by a mistake I make, but I have a lot of responsibility to both clients and my team. I'm a director in a media/PR agency, and I'm constantly at the beck and call of my clients, and there are times it can be incredibly stressful, with conflicting deadlines and priorities.

However, I love it, and well paid, and have flexibility so I never miss an assembly, sports day or nativity performance. I can work at home to get some peace and quiet, and I love my team and my clients, so it's worth the stress.

My job is not stressful unless I'm managing idiots.

I know what you mean op.

The funny thing is, I do actually work in intensive care, and it’s not stressful at all most of the time.

Maybe it’s as much about the person as the job?

I'm a teacher and my job can be stressful but I work 2.5 days a week so I find the stress much easier to manage than when I was working ft.

I find my job stressful. I am prone to anxiety which doesn't help. I'm in a very complex department in the NHS where am I am one of the longest serving staff members (we have very high staff turnover). I have been there 12 years due to part time hours, can't move to full time due to DC in special school. The department is about 5x the size as it was when I started plus all the increasing reporting requirements from the trust and the Dept of Health. So many more stakeholders and partnership working as well. I'm a line manager to 4 people which I wasn't when I started. I feel like everyone wants a piece of me but I have to leave on time for school run due to not having wrap around care. No pay rise from all this extra responsibility.

So, yeah, I feel stressed.

Lovemusic33 I did love it, but you’re right, it can be very difficult to switch off. Although it did mean I was never grossed out by any of the baby/toddler stuff. I’ve pretty much seen it all 🤣

I'm stressed right now because I had a big deadline (big big job with less notice than usual) and I just sent it in and now we have to wait for the outcome.
My job isn't life and death but it's quite often "hurry up and wait". I have not had this recently, but there's also an element of harassment sometimes as we sometimes have to deal with very entitled members of the public - I've been in tears on occasion after comments I've had to deal with - and bosses - a colleague has been off with stress due to this.

What is your job OP?

My job involves working with seriously ill children, some of whom don't make it. Supporting families at the lowest point of thier life and being responsible for thier life if you make a mistake is stressful. Add to that young children who don't sleep, no family support and s long commute and yes my resilience is lower than it was 5 years ago. That even begore we start on the austerity measures which means services have been cut to the bone.

Older generations did have it tough but I'm different ways. It was physically harder, but with better community support and less uncertainty with jobs. Plus mental health was not talked about in the same way. I imagine there are a lot of people who have ptsd from that generation but dare not open up

@prequelle nursing 13 seriously ill patients is dangerous. Rather than thinking your colleagues are soft I would be raising concerns to management about unsafe staffing levels. It's all well saying your ward manage but people end up burnt out over decades or mistakes happen, people die, staff get blamed ....

I think it has a lot to do with control. If you are a skilled nuclear scientist and are given the authority, resources and support to do your job properly that would be (weirdly) far less stressful than an unskilled warehouse worker on a zero hours contract with an arbitrary manager who plays favourites and can deny shifts to anyone who annoys them.

I'm a partner in a big law firm and my stress levels have always depended entirely upon the colleagues and clients I have worked with. Luckily as you get more senior you can have a bit more say in who you work with (or just move firms in my case until you land somewhere decent) and you have more confidence in your own technical skills and are happy to say "I don't know - I'll find out for you" when you are stumped. The things that tends to stress me more these days is the internal decision making about staffing and people's career progression - that gives me sleepless nights because managing ambitious people working ridiculous hours is tricky.

Yes actually I do work in intensive care and yes it is #%+*%# stressful. No idea about anyone else’s jobs but people die if I’m not on the ball.

My job is stressful due to my enormous workload. I applied for a part time job but quickly discovered it’s actually a full time workload crammed into 25 hrs a week. I never have enough time to do my work! This morning I actually thought I was going to have a heart attack at my desk. My phone is constantly ringing, emails pinging, meetings to attend, deadlines to meet, etc. I’m surrounded by full timers all on the same scale as me and they seem so relaxed and not under pressure! I work at a million miles an hour. I have raised it and was offered full time but I can’t right now due to kids at school. Something is going to have to give and I hope it’s not me... My DH says I should stop trying to do it all, let things slide so management realise the resource issue but I’m a perfectionist and would hate that to reflect badly on me. It’s shit because on the face of it, it should be my dream job.

My DH also literally works in intensive care. He doesn't find it as stressful as some of the other aspects of his job.
I find it a bit irritating that his job always beats mine- if someone has to leave early because the DCs have been sick at school or something then he always tells me that he has a terrible emergency that he can't leave, so that's stressful for me.

It’s physically and mentally demanding, but I’ve been assaulted a few times, threatened, last one tried to stop me leaving his flat and I’ve had no support from my managers. Quite the opposite!

I’m an electrician!!!!

I don't have a really stressful job! I don't have any job at all! I'm an out-of-work nanny. But when I have been with families it's not been really stressful, it's been awesome! Basically getting paid to play!

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?

Maybe the issue is that MH problems overall are on the increase. Basically that we are all getting more and more stressed out. From the way our society is build and people are treated in general.

I mean you could argue that teenagers have few reasons to be stressed but still about 1 in 5 are stressed and suffering from MH problems....

And you are struggling with your own MH, then a lot of things feel stressful, even if other people who aren’t ill are finding them ok.