What’s the difference between a bad job and a high-stress job? One of them’s a compound word! Cue the cymbal crash, the raucous laughter, an offer letter to open at the Laugh Factory next Thursday night…
Okay, really. Have you ever worked a job that felt right for you, but it was simultaneously extremely stressful? It’s a hard place to be in. You might be extremely passionate about the career field — healthcare, music, construction, marketing, education, the list goes on — but the actual constraints of your specific position make it hard to enjoy your day-to-day workload.
This can happen for a thousand different reasons. Sometimes the company you work for is woefully understaffed. Other times you receive a promotion or change departments only to find that your old position was more manageable. And still other times your boss is breathing down your neck and making note of your every last mistake.
That last situation is exactly what’s happening to our latest Character Coaching client, Retsuko. Retsuko works as an accountant at a firm that constantly gets under her skin. Her boss is too much, and the job itself is really hard. In order to cope with the stressors of modern living, Retsuko has turned to some unconventional recreational activities.
Still, she could use a little advice. How can she effectively deal with her job and maintain a decent social life while simultaneously keeping her sanity? Let’s read her latest journal entries on the subject and see if we can help her find a path forward.