Workplace stress

“ The strain upon the muscle and bodily strength may be less, but the nervous wear and tear, the mental strain, the storm and stress of the mill, have been also steadily increasing. The history of the troubles of the Lancashire and Yorkshire operative is not then a closed chapter; for that matter no department of industry in these days is or can be. Changes and improvements in manufacturing processes and machinery are so constant and sweeping that the worker is ever face to face with new problems, many of which, indeed, are directly due to the rising standard of his own life. ”

“ They should be men of experience on the particular class of work to which they are assigned, and should be tactful and courteous. Stress should be laid on keeping plain, neat notes, not too crowded; on watchful care of the party working in the field, to prevent accidents, and on the necessity of absolute correctness in calculations and figures, in the multitude of which it is surprising how many mistakes will creep in unless special care is taken to check every step thoroughly. ”

“ This is a very hard world for those who, untrained for any special vocation, find themselves through stress of circumstances driven into the labour market, to oppose with unskilful hands and untrained brain the skilful and highly trained labour of professional workers. ”

“ Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind. ”

“ It is a recognized fact that mental disturbance from such causes as fear of losing his job will sometimes have the same ill effect upon a workman as does overwork, or insufficient rest for overcoming fatigue. It will occasionally wear upon the nervous system and the digestive organs. Now Scientific Management by standardization removes from the workman this fear of losing his job, for the worker knows that if he conforms to the standard instructions he certainly will not lose his position unless the business as a whole is unsuccessful. ”

“ The office has its hardships. Everything is on a business basis, and there is little allowance for feelings or disposition. There are days when trials multiply and an atmosphere of irritation prevails; there are seasons when the constant rush creates a wearing nervous tension, and other seasons, when business is so poor that occasionally there are breakdowns of health or moral rectitude; but on the whole the office presents a simpler industrial problem than the factory or the store. ”

“ Finally, is not much of the objection that work is destructive to the workers applicable to all work and all workers—to men as well as to women—to domestic as well as non-domestic work? Do we not hear on all sides the complaint that, from the highest forms of brain-work to the lowest forms of hand-work, the strain requisite for success breaks down prematurely those who follow them? Is not the choice, too often, virtually between immediate death from want, or a more gradual and protracted death from overwork, or the unhealthy conditions of work? ”

“ The manager of a factory may seldom touch the cotton, flax, iron, or other material, which is manufactured; nevertheless, he works with his head and his pen, calculating the prices at which he can produce goods, inquiring where he can buy the materials most cheaply, choosing good workmen, keeping the accounts straight, and so on. Severe mental labour is really far more difficult and exhausting than manual labour; and in raising up a good business, and carrying it through times of danger, a manager has to undergo great anxiety and mental fatigue. ”

“ The working conditions that we have so far discussed have more or less effect upon all of the workers in a group. We come next to the inspection of the work place of each individual worker. The first consideration here is that he have room enough in which to work. There is an enormous amount of fatigue involved in doing work in an overcrowded work place, yet few workers or managers realize this. ”

“ The day labourer comes home from his work with his muscular strength exhausted, but he has to go back to the same monotonous task on the morrow: his family has to be fed and clothed and he cannot permit himself to say, "I am tired and will stay away from work to-day." The business or professional man comes back from his office with a wearied brain that makes any thought an effort, but he must take up the routine to-morrow; the pressure of competitive business does not permit him to work when and as much as he chooses. ”

“ It is a life that has its peculiar weaknesses. The relations of employer and employee are not cordial; the health and comfort of the worker are often disregarded; the hours of labor are too long or the wages too small; the whole working staff is driven at too high speed; the whole process is on a mechanical rather than a human basis, and the material product is of more concern than the human producer. These weaknesses are due to the concentration of control in the hands of employers. The industrial problem is, therefore, largely a problem of control. ”

“ The hand-worker, the clerk and the small tradesman, generally insecure in the tenure of their occupations and homes, are anxious and restless, while many classes suffer special and grievous wrongs, such as exhaustion and premature old age, due to the nervous strain of certain kinds of work, death and mutilation from machinery, life in squalid tenements, and the debasement of children by bad surroundings and premature work. ”

“ Your intense, convulsive worker breaks down and has bad moods so often that you never know where he may be when you most need his help,—he may be having one of his 'bad days.' We say that so many of our fellow-countrymen collapse, and have to be sent abroad to rest their nerves, because they work so hard. ”

“ Either the work at the office suddenly does itself up in a tangle, or the domestic arrangements show signs of incipient paralysis, which it takes all my available energy to avert, or else it is people who inflict themselves upon me when I’m at my final gasp without a moment, or a single company smile, to spare for anybody. And of all the three forms of irritation, the uninvited people are the worst ”

“ Eat regularly and exercise freely, and there is scarce a limit to the work you may get out of the thinking organs. But if into the life of a man whose powers are fully taxed we bring the elements of great anxiety or worry, or excessive haste, the whole machinery begins at once to work, as it were, with a dangerous amount of friction. Add to this such constant fatigue of body as some forms of business bring about, and you have all the means needed to ruin the man's power of useful labor. ”

“ Even the exhaustion that follows long attention to business is quite as often due to worry and allied faulty mental habits as to the work itself. In most cases the phobias, the doubts, and the scruples, instead of being the result of breakdown, must be counted among its principal causes.
This is why simple rest and abstinence from work so often fail to accomplish the cure that should follow if the exhaustion were due simply to overwork. ”

“ Writers on sociology are beginning to realize [1] that such conditions of work inevitably produce a morbid psychological condition in the worker, dulling his mind by the meaningless drudgery and depressing his body and nerves by fatigue-poisons, so that even in his few hours of leisure his perfectly natural seeking for pleasure does not take entirely normal paths. ”

“ As a matter of experience, a sense of weariness commonly precedes collapse from "overwork"; not mere bodily or nervous fatigue, but a more or less conscious distaste for the business in band, or perhaps for some other subject of thought or anxiety which obtrudes itself. It is the offensive or irritating burden that breaks the back. Thoroughly agreeable employment, however engrossing, stimulates the recuperative faculty while it taxes the strength, and the supply of nerve-force seldom falls short of the demand. ”

“ His faculties had been confined to a certain groove all day, and refused to work any longer on those lines.
That parson was only a type, if a pronounced one, of many other people, business men, lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers and any other you can mention, who cannot make out how it is that if they think of their work in the evenings they only worry over it. Yet it forces itself upon their notice, and they cannot shake it off. They seek [Pg 129] rest and find none because they seek it in the wrong way. ”

“ Every worker, young and old, should remember that these times of depression will recur. In good times when we are earning good wages we must prepare for these bad times when wages may be lower, or we may be out of work altogether and have no wages for some months. If we are not primary producers, such as the people in the classes named above, then it is wise for us to learn how to do some necessary work so that when a business depression comes, if we lose our usual employment, we may turn to this other vocation which we have learned. ”

“ Under these conditions the brain gradually loses its healthy tone, and, although quite equal to the daily calls of a routine and uneventful existence, it is unable to withstand the strain of special sudden emergency, and, when a heavy load of work is unexpectedly thrown upon it in its unprepared state, then we see all the worst consequences of what may be called overwork develop themselves. ”

“ Truax doesn’t, but you do know—that the whole office system makes pale, timid, nervous people out of all the clerks—”
“But, good heavens! child, the employers have just as hard a time. Talk about being nervous! Take it in our game. The salesman does the missionary work, but the employer is the one who has to worry. Take some big deal that seems just about to get across—and then falls through just when you reach for the contract and draw a breath of relief. ”

“ Who, among the hard workers of our eastern cities, needs two months' vacation, and can only get away from the desk or office for two weeks?
Who feels the confined work tell on his lungs, or his eyes, or shudders at that tremulousness of the shoulders and arms which precedes the breaking-down from over-work? ”

“ Be you teacher, manager, worker, or simply a member of the great public to which we all belong, begin to work for fatigue elimination, and begin now.
The good in your life consists of the quantity of “Happiness Minutes” that you have created or caused. Increase your own record by eliminating unnecessary fatigue of the workers. ”

“ If the strike lasts a month, one half the population suffers every hour, and suffers more in mind than in body. Anxiety gnaws the soul. Men go about pale, gloomy, and despairing; women sit at home suffering even more acutely ”

“ Conditions of life which result in continued overwork, and mental overwork in particular; worry, excitement, insufficient recreation and exercise, and other kinds of nervous strain typical of modern life, especially in cities. ”

“ Under the strain incident to overwork, a man may break down at forty and be discharged because he is physically or nervously unable to continue with his duties. Modern industry is run at a terrific speed which leads inevitably to a shortened working life, or decreased efficiency. ”

“ The danger in shortening hours is that, if the whole problem is not thoroughly studied, the worker may not be sure of the same or a larger wage for work which he is able to do in the shorter time. Fatigue elimination is fundamentally the duty of the management. The worker cannot afford to pay for the fatigue elimination, directly or indirectly. ”

“ When you see that one or another is getting genuinely scared, and ready to throw up his place, go to him, tell him to send in a report the next morning that he is too sick to come to work, and then put him to work in another office somewhere downtown. Gradually you will transfer a goodly portion of your force in this way, and also you will accomplish more than that, if I am not mistaken. The man who is killing off your employees will know that he is not responsible for the new sick ones; so he will be puzzled, stop and let the other fellow—as he will think—finish the job. ”

“ Where harm comes the blame should not be put upon the mere work, but upon the unhealthy surroundings, bad work-rooms, long hours, great monotony, over-specialisation and excessive use of the accessory and neglect of the fundamental muscles. ”

“ It is a grim story of the unpicturesque and horribly anxious lives of working-folk, specifically of the house-painter and his mates working on a job, elated and satisfied at the beginning, depressed and despondent as the work nears completion with the uncertainty as to how long it will be before another job comes along. ”

“ Forced work, as a rule, tells on a man much more rapidly than purely voluntary work, for in the former case it is usually associated with anxiety. Real overwork gives rise to loss of memory, a general sense of fatigue, and particularly of discomfort about the head, poorness of appetite, lowness of spirits, and other similar symptoms. ”

“ Most of the breakdowns that we meet with are put down to work or overwork. It is, therefore, looking at the matter from the personal point of view, a burning question as to how work can be carried out without bringing in its train this much-dreaded climax. ”

“ The first practical inference to be deduced from these considerations is that brain-work in the midst of mental worry is carried on in the face of ceaseless peril. Unfortunately, work and worry are so closely connected in daily experience that they can not be wholly separated. Meanwhile the worry of work—that which grows out of the business in hand—is generally a needless though not always an avoidable evil. ”

“ It is a method of bringing a pressure on the Management to concede to the demands of the workers. Any employer or manager will say that strike is a worst form of putting pressure. Then how do employees express their dissatisfaction, express their demands or ask for the increase in the price of their labour? ”