A recent study coined a new term:
“telepressure.” This is the stress caused by a need to check and respond to
work emails while at home. It can begin the moment a person wakes up, and can
continue until well past midnight, as one final email reply is sent out on a
smart phone while lying in bed. And take my word for it, being exhausted but unable
to fall asleep while visions of quarterly sales reports dance in your head is a
delightful feeling, especially when the alarm clock is set to go off in five
hours so the cycle can begin all over again.
Researchers have discovered that
people who feel obligated to respond to work emails at all hours of the day
have difficulty sleeping, have higher levels of stress and burnout, and have more
health-related absences from work. Although since it’s possible to reply to
emails on a phone even when in a hospital bed, should we really call these
episodes “absences from work”? I know some people who in all seriousness would
call these episodes “goldbricking,” “a sign of weakness,” and “reason to
question your loyalty to the firm.”
The study did not mention another
symptom of doing work emails at home: people don’t have bags under their eyes,
they have carry-on luggage.
The research found that 52-percent of
Americans check their email before and after regular work hours, and this includes
Sundays, sick days, and vacation days. I suspect the percentage is even higher,
as some people were unable to respond to the survey because at that moment they
were too busy typing out a frantic work email.
There is one very clear conclusion we
can draw from this research: Steve Jobs was an agent of Satan. OK, maybe that’s
a bit harsh. The late, great inventor of the iPhone most likely did not have a
secret master plan to make everyone unhappy and unhealthy. Smart phones are
indeed remarkable devices. (I suppose you could say the same thing about
hydrogen bombs.)
But as is the case with many good
things (to clarify, I’m not including hydrogen bombs here), human beings have a
tendency to go overboard. I’m thinking at the moment of two items:
bacon-flavored chocolate, which I recently received as a birthday present (and if
I’m soon in need bacon-flavored methadone, you’ll know why), and the
proliferation of fluorescent colored running shoes. Really, Nike? You really
think those glow-in-the-dark sneakers look GOOD? We all know your shoes are
infinitely more comfortable than the old Converse All Stars of a generation
ago. But when people want comfortable footwear, do they really need to look
like Ringling Brothers employees?
An interesting aspect about the email
research is that people who are on vacation and purposely force themselves NOT
to check work emails are more stressed-out than if they spent time replying to
emails. This is because they fear they are missing something important, and
worry that a client or their boss or Steve Jobs will be displeased with them.
The only solution to telepressure is
to force yourself to turn off the smart phone at 5 p.m., and don’t turn it back
on until 8 a.m. the next morning. I’ll bet in many cases this won’t even be a
problem. No clients or bosses or agents of Satan will be displeased. But if
this does become a problem, look on the bright side. If you lose your job and
the bank forecloses on your house and your spouse and children leave you, at
least while huddled inside a cardboard box in an alley, you will get the best
night’s sleep you’ve had in years.
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