An interesting article on MSNBC about the rise in "desk rage"--the tendency of stressed out workers to lose it at the office:
Some desk-ragers “go postal,” screaming, cursing, trashing office
equipment, even assaulting others. But desk rage also manifests as a
slow boil that leads to gossiping at the water cooler, backstabbing,
poor productivity, abusing sick days, stealing supplies or becoming
irritable or depressed. Some people simply get fed up, stop
communicating, put on a headset and emotionally “check out.”
Having worked in environments where I thought I might kill someone, I can understand the impulse. But what gets me about the article is the mismatch between the causes and company's solutions.
Anna Maravelas, a psychologist and self-described “corporate
peacemaker” in St. Paul, Minn., says she regularly sees anger,
hostility, rudeness and general inhumanity in the workplaces where she
consults. For instance, a corporate vice-president told her, “I pay my
people well, I don’t have to appreciate them too,” and a bank employee
said, “Being nice here is seen as a weakness. . .
And it’s not hard to find something to be
unhappy with in the modern workplace: heavy workloads, long hours and
technology that keeps workers constantly on call. “They never get a
break from their work responsibilities,” says Enyeart.
With
laptops, PDAs, cell phones, e-mail and pagers, there is an
ever-widening gap between the amount of information people are expected
to keep up with and the amount they can reasonably process, says Dr.
Kerry Sulkowicz, a psychiatrist and founder of the Boswell Group, a
corporate consulting company in New York City. “The technology is
outstripping our capacity to use it,” he says.
Management turnover, downsizing and outsourcing are other sources of stress, making workers feel their jobs aren’t secure.
Hmmm. . . let's see. Work environments that are impossible and management who create an organizational culture that doesn't value workers and that in fact encourages people to be obnoxious to one another. OK, seems to me like the solutions would lie in changing the work environment. But apparently not. As usual, companies are contracting for training sessions about how to deal with stress, the assumption being, I suppose, that you need to just accept that it's there and then figure out how you're going to deal with it.
This is the kind of thing that really pisses me off about corporate America. It's rarely about what organizations can do to address the organizational dysfunctions that lead to bad behavior. Instead, it's about some superficial, "blame the victim" quick training fix that suggests if you bad workers could only get it together, we wouldn't have these problems in the first place. That's like saying that the victim of a rape should quit dressing so provocatively and stop whining.
To me, we have a real problem in our society when there's no corporate responsibility to the people who work for an organization. I get tired of companies acting like it's their workers' fault if the workplace sucks. These are issues that aren't going to be resolved with training--unless it's training management to quit being such jerks.
Sorry--just had to vent.
Michele
I've started buying "Reader's Digest" at the check-out counter. I'm a little disturbed about this because I have always associated this little jewel with my grandmother. But lately, the content titles are speaking to me. Does that mean a) I'm officially old or b) that the magazine has improved? Uh, I choose answer b! The last one I bought had the headline, "Your Money: 10 ways to keep more." Ok, I'd like to keep more of my money so I bought it (um, maybe that was counter productive). One of the suggestions in this article is something I had never heard of but really like the concept: Freecyling. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer. Membership is free. (from the web-site).This is a web-site that features local communities in which members join (I didn't like that part, but maybe it keeps out the the undesirables. What a minute, that's me!) Then you give away things you don't want anymore and search the community for things you want. I like this because I've never been the one to have a garage sale or to need the newest, best of everything. Anyway, you have to apply to join and my membership is pending approval in my area. How do you handle rejection from a recycling group? Go to the web-site and check out the local group for your area. 
