Sources of stress have to be divided between those derived from home life or from the office. Wherever the stress originates, there is a common factor. It is the relationship between other people, whether at home or in the office, that causes it. Research carried out in the early 1970s added another dimension to this fact. By studying heart rate and rhythm with a twenty-four-hour monitor, by taking serial blood tests to estimate levels of the stress hormones, and by studying the incidence of angina and even heart attacks, these studies showed that the most stressful periods in any day were at the interface between home and office, and office and home.
Managing the Transition of Home and Work Stress
Bill Atkins was a banker who worked in the plushest of plush offices in the West End of London. Whereas all his equals were driven to work every day by a liveried chauffeur in a Daimler, he pedaled to work on a bicycle. The journey took about half an hour. Frequently he was soaking wet; at other times of the year he was running with sweat. When asked why he did this, he said that he could only tell his doctor the true reason. To everybody else he pretended it was because he wanted the exercise and to keep fit.
The real reason was something quite different when at home, his wife – a good if not tactful woman – disturbed his thoughts as he attempted to marshall them for a hard day at work. The bicycling distracted him; he had a simple repetitive job that took his mind off his wife’s thousand and one anxieties. Once at work, he had laid on a bathroom in the office and he soaked in the bath while he recovered. Having had his bath he could face the world and the finances of his district. He then went to his office, had a cup of coffee before he saw his first client and read the City pages. The return journey home was the same in reverse. He dressed up in his cycling clothes, walked in through the door, shouted a greeting to wife and family and disappeared to the bathroom. Recovered he could face stories of the fishmonger who had forgotten the order, the plumber who had failed to find the leak and made a mess and the telephone call from the insurance company who wanted to know when he was going to complete the valuation forms for the following year. He was even able not only to play with his young children, but to enjoy doing so. The bath over, after a glance through the evening paper and a drink, he belonged to his family.
The usual advice, and it is the advice I have given to hundreds of potentially stressed people dividing themselves between two different worlds (home and office, colleagues and family) is that from the moment people wake in the morning their mind, if not their soul, belongs to their boss. Once awake, they are thinking about the day ahead of them, who they are going to see and what they are going to say to them. They are alerting themselves to the possible hazards of the day and preparing themselves for any necessary crisis management. Their thoughts shouldn’t be distracted by being asked to remember to buy some lettuces on the way home, to find out how Aunt Marjorie is coping with her new house or not to forget to ask the secretary to book a flight because ‘It will only take a few minutes’. So it will. But the need to do it will be a distraction as it weighs down the mind throughout the day. (‘Goodness, I mustn’t forget those bloody lettuces.’)
Once in the office, the potentially stressed worker shouldn’t immediately see anyone who might be demanding or pressurizing. Ideally, for the first quarter of an hour, the busy man or woman should read the favourite part of the newspaper, have a cup of coffee and leave the telephone to the secretary. They are re-orientating themselves and completing the process they began when they woke up. They are now an instrument of the organization for which they work – a cog in the wheel – and home with all its worries is behind them until they eave in the evening. The fewer calls from home, the better. Those that are made should be about emergencies, not chats about fourth-form French.
On the way home the worker should start to think about his or her evening with the family. Work is now left behind, and enough discipline must be developed so as not to take work troubles home. The journey helps. Bill Atkins prolonged his commute by cycling. Commuter trains may seem to be the transport organized by the devil, but when they are comfortable and run to time they perform an invaluable function. They give time for the man or woman to re-orientate from office to home.
When the commuter trains are running badly – when there is no seat, when they are canceled without notice – then they add to the stress and may be the last straw. It is for this reason that any failure of commuting transport has an effect on morale way beyond its importance to someone who isn’t either in a hurry to get to work, or has already been frazzled by the work-day. It is too easy to blame the person who calls in for a drink at the White Lion on the way back to the family, but this may be only the way in which someone living in crowded surroundings can have some time to him- or herself while preparing for the evening’s role as husband, wife, father or mother.
