How to handle job stress?

Job stress is a very commonly used word.

 You feel stressed if you don’t have a job but at the same time, you feel stressed, if you have a job.

Getting a job and finding the right one are two of the most crucial parts of living since a job takes up eight to nine hours of your life. Then you have to work for someone else and also have to come up to the expectations. 

I have met many people, who are not happy because of their job and have met many people, and who are unhappy because they don’t have a job. When people are in a particular situation, I simply talk to them to find out what is bothering them. What is it that is causing them stress? When you don’t have a job, you have a feeling that nobody wants you. Nobody’s asking you, ‘Hey, where are you at nine o’clock?’ When you have a job, then somebody is above you, and asking you to perform and do whatever you know the best. But when you don’t have a job, you are your own owner, you decide your time, you decide your calendar, and your work schedule is your own. And all of a sudden, when you get a job, or then you are not your own owner as far as your time is concerned and as far as your choices are concerned. 

 Many times I have asked people to look it up in the dictionary ‘What job means’.  Job means service. Service means serving somebody- there is a master-servant relationship in the job. Having job stress is when you want to do the job but then you do not want to serve; it is having a conflict between wanting to do the job and not wanting to serve. You want to act like the boss. It is natural because you want to be in a position of power and you want to control other people. That’s why being a boss is a fun thing. However, doing the job and serving the boss in whatever capacity you were hired for removes the confusion of whether you are the boss or the servant. If you are a servant, then your boss will be happy.  If you don’t like your boss then leave the job. The purpose of finding the meaning of this one word is to make you understand that when you find a job, then your whole task is to serve.  You must be at a point where you must be always saying to your boss ‘What can I do for you?’

 If you have more than one way to serve somebody, then also you have less job stress, because you can do this for somebody you can do that for someone else too.

 Different skills make you more wanted. That also takes away the job stress. And if you have a job and if you have to maintain the job, then also you have to be an efficient piece of the machinery. You must not be a person who is stopping the job from completion. You must be a  person who is accelerating, accelerating the machinery – Being the catalyst in the whole process. 

You also have to see whatever job you said you can do, are you faster than that? Are you enhancing and increasing the product? What are you working on? 

I have been an employee and I have been an employer also. From the employee’s perspective, I’ve seen that an employee looks for job security. An employer looks for an employee who will take care of the job or the task assigned to him. 

The security of your job depends on your ability to make your employer dependent on you. Surely that does not happen by smiling more at him, making him happier by cracking jokes. To a certain extent maybe that also counts, but what matters the most is delivering what you promise, delivering timely, and delivering a good product thinking that maybe someday you will be better than the boss or the employer. That is what brings you job security.

Remember that when you are in the job, you are serving and there is a master-servant relationship. Remember this and serve and do a good job by helping to accelerate the machinery. Also, when you are without a job, have more skills in your hand so that you can help multiple people so that you’re more wanted than others. 

This is my simple solution. You may not like it, this is very different from what you might think, and it’s more complicated than what I might think. My experience working with my employees, and my boss, observing layoffs, watching hiring freezes, talking to people one-on-one, and simple things have helped me to understand how the employer-employee relationship works, how to deal with job stress, and how to handle layoffs and hiring freezes. 

YouTube Channel Name: Dr. Alka Chopra Madan

Check out our YouTube channel for more videos!