Balancing Work Stress

jaigoo · December 2016

Hey ladies!! How are you coping with full time work stress? I am a corporate lawyer. I work 10-14 hours a day 5 days a week and usually a few hours on the weekend. The stress and time is killing me. There are no options for me to work from home during normal work hours (8-5). I take work home every night. My boss knows I am pregnant, but lightening my load is not an option. So I want to I am so hungry, I know I have crazy low blood sugar, and I am wondering how you guys are coping with work and stress?

Thanks!!

jaigoo · December 2016

Gaaaah sorry for the random cut and paste. Last sentence was supposed to be "So I am wondering how you guys are coping with work and stress?"

EmeraldNC · December 2016

After reading the title... I had all kinds of things that came to my mind to complain about my job.... then I read your post.... and I feel bad for complaining.

I don't know how you are doing all of that!!!

Image: https://media0.giphy.com/media/tZGVxXFPzyVvq/200.gif#8

kfry22 · December 2016

I feel you. I'm a supervisor of 14 field employees and split my time between working in the field and working from home or our headquarters. The driving is killing me. Our headquarters is in Lansing, MI, so that's two hours from me. When I work in the field, I can have between a 45 minute to 3 hour drive and I have to be there when the farm starts milking the cows. So, that might mean getting there as early as 3am. Working and being pregnant is no fun.

@jaigoo I don't work as many hours as you, so I don't have advice for that. For the stress, I try to remind myself that me being or feeling stressed isn't good for the baby and try to relax. You say that there isn't a way to lighten your load. Is there a way to reduce your hours? Can you talk to your doctor about you amount of work and stress you are enduring and have a letter written to your work? For me, I rely heavily on my husband for help around the house and with our one year old. On the weekends I try to find a way to relax, even if it's only reading a book for an hour.

Please take care of your self! Happy and healthy nine months to you as well.

virginiaunicorn11 · December 2016

Forgive the long post - this is an issue that hits very close to home for me.

@jaigoo The website Abundant Mama helped me reframe how I was viewing my load. She talks about things like making sure to find 5 minutes of joy for yourself each day, and morning rituals to start your stressful days in a good frame of mind, etc. It's a little touchy-feely but her main messages are good.

It seems your job is way too much. The two options are really either to find a way to lighten the load, or find a way to feel better about the load.

You work a bit on weekends... rather than dread that, can you (for example) get it out of the way early, while your partner cooks - then you celebrate having the rest of your day free by having a meal together. Make an afternoon plan you're excited for after that (even if the plan is a movie in bed and a nap), etc.?

Maybe you can choose one night a week where you absolutely stop at 5:00 (or 6:00 or whatever)? And maybe think about an "integrated work life" rather than "work-life balance." By shifting to that frame of mind, I stopped resenting my long hours as much.

I also blocked off days where I would refuse meetings. Maybe you don't have that issue, but for me, other office obligations and BS were preventing me from just focusing on the tasks that I needed to get done. I also had to learn just to say No. And I started talking to my boss about the unsustainable load at our weekly meetings - it took over a year, but eventually we hired more staff.

It's tough. It is easier if you enjoy your job, at least for some of the hours. I hope you can get some rest and relaxation, and find a solution that works for you. Good luck, mama!

Knottie42089123 · December 2016

I really feel for you. I'm a marketing director at a crazy non profit and concerns about work stress were one of the first things I thought about when I got pregnant. The way I coped for most of these 12 weeks has been to basically offset my crazy work with pure vegetating. I go home most nights from work and get straight into bed. Even if I don't sleep, I'll just rest. Weekends were spent in pure vegetative mode, laying, napping and laying some more. Not sure if that kind of option is feasible for you but I did it out of self preservation. I was also able to get out of some work trips that I would have never survived. I've been so sick and tired this pregnancy that everything else has just gone by the wayside.

If the workload and stress is unavoidable, I really hope you find a way to renourish yourself in off hours. The baby feels what you do.

LAMCH1980 · December 2016

Will you be able to or are you interested in maintaining this schedule once baby arrives? If you think you'll need to reduce hours, maybe you can start the transition now. Work-family balance is so tough, especially in a field like yours where you are competing with men. You will have to take some maternity leave, so it would be tough for them to say you can't lighten the load even a small bit since they'll cover you completely later on. I'm worried about what will happen if you work yourself into bedrest. I did that last time. I wish I had listened to my body a little bit so I wouldn't have had to step away from my job completely the last few weeks. Good luck to you dear. You have a lot on your plate.

theweevee · December 2016

Fellow attorney here and I hear you. I've started to be less aggressive in getting projects or playing an adequate but lighter role on them, because in my organization I'm not going to win any friends having a huge load and disappearing for two to three months. Luckily, (sounds like you too), I have enough coming in my door that I'm still really busy. I've started to defer working weekends in favor of coming in an hour earlier or staying an hour later on the weekdays. For me, that makes a difference in my mental health and my group doesn't really notice.

What I am concerned about is going on maternity leave, being gone that long, and coming back. I have no idea what that will look like or do to my current position and I'm just trying to accept the uncertainty (because I can't really do anything about it).

JAGinMI · December 2016

Gosh, I don't know how you do it girl. What I do is quite stressful some days BUT I work 7-4 each day and my boss understands that my commitment is pretty much between those hours (well...90% of the time). I am the Director of Finance and Administration at a National Historic Landmark and I have a ton of responsibilities but he allows me to get what I can get done each day and not make me stress about what has to wait. We also have fantastic time off and he doesn't give me any grief about using it.

It's not being pregnant and working that would worry me as much with your job, it's how you are going to feel when you have a baby and you have to work so much. The stress is going to be much worse than it is now, for sure. Personally, I would have to figure something else out or I would lose it.

lizerspitz · December 2016

Stress related but not necessarily work stress related, I highly recommend this TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tedspread
I've watched it a couple times and helps me reframe stress as a positive physical process.

I'm had a final job interview today and will likely be starting a new job within a month. I'll probably be needing to reflect on this talk again in the next few months.

semicolon · December 2016

I work and am in school for cosmetology. I have asked for extra breaks at work...but school is the hardest. I have 10+ hour shifts on my feet. If I am wrapping a perm, I can't eat or walk away.

I have started asking for buddies ("want to help me wrap this perm, perm buddy?") and dividing my work differently.

For example, I do my basic haircut and get color on the client's hair in the first hour. I eat a small meal as she processes, wash, refine, style...and next meal. Then next client.

Also, allowing myself to say "no." If I don't have enough time for something I'm saying no instead of trying to be everything to everyone.

silliegirlie143 · December 2016

When I was pregnant with DD I had a trainer position with a 100% travel requirement. I left home every Monday morning and flew home at the end of the week (usually late Thursday night, sometimes Friday or Saturday).

I feel your pain on having a job where lightening the work load is just not possible. I worked 10+ hour days, dealt with multiple time zones, had required business dinners after work most nights, and lived out of a suitcase through 36 weeks.

I'm huge proponent of reframing. If I started getting down on myself or felt overwhelmed, I would pinpoint something positive. Hey, look at all the different cuisines I was enjoying weekly! I loved spending time to reconnect with people I hadn't seen since the previous quarter. I got to enjoy weather that was a break from what we were having at home.

I relished in a weekly massage to relax. This made a huge difference. Life was so scheduled, why not schedule something just for me. As I got further along I swear I slept through half the massage! HA!

There are plenty of people who have made it through this before you and they didn't have anything special that you lack. You will make it through this too! Maybe let the baby be your carrot?

Keep us us posted on your progress! BIG hugs and keep your chin up

kitty21436 · December 2016

Fellow corp lawyer (not sure if you do corp law for a firm or work in-house, so some of this may not apply). Sounds like you may have a bit more on your plate than I do and I don't have it all worked out, but here are a few things that i have been trying and seem to kind of be working:

1. Told all my bosses about my pregnancy and had real conversations about my concerns of career stagnation/isolation due to pregnancy/motherhood. I talked about my commitment to my career but also told them this was important to me too and would require balance but by no means did that mean I wasn't interested in my career.

2. I keep LOTS of snacks at my desk. Crackers, trail mix, granola, hard candies, tiny cans of sprite or juice boxes, gum, tea, mints, then I pack fresh fruit, veggies, jello, and yogurt in addition to my lunch. I don't always eat it all, but I bring it all because I still get nauseated and don't know what will sound good later. Also, on the days I don't bring it all, I get hungry and feel tired and distracted (those are always the days w/o time to leave my desk to eat.... which are most days).

3. I started calendaring out how long things will take me to work on in advance so I have clear vision into my weeks and workload (I add an empty time block each day for emergencies). And when new requests come in I try to schedule based on FIFO unless it requires higher prioritization . I try respond quickly that i received the request and will get back to them later or I will ask for any additional things they need to do before it's ready for me. Oh I also block out some time on Friday afternoons/evenings to try to work on things I would be doing over the weekend to lighten the weekend load.

4. I've started putting some of the responsibility for prework back on the project owner/requestor. They should come to me when their project is ready for me as much as possible, I'm not the only person involved in the project so I shouldn't be doing all the lifting. (I might sound witchy describing this, but I just really hate incomplete requests that come to me just because the requestor wanted to kick the ball over the fence. But I do it in a very PC way.) Obviously I play a different role than other project owners/requestors and I have those responsibilities, but when I took a step back and evaluated, I realized I was doing a lot more hand holding through the background of each project than I probably should. This helped put responsibility back where it belonged and helped lighten my load. I.e. I can tell them I need them to get/do/look into XYZ to support their request, but that doesn't mean *I* have to do XYZ for them. (Obviously there are special exceptions, but put the onerous back on those that are responsible for the project, there are probably a lot more of them then there are of you!)

5. I have been working with newer team members/assistants more to train them up. This helps them with their career goals and learning, let's me give them some easier projects from my list, and helps to prepare them to handle stuff when I am out for appointments or leave.

6. I try to keep a regular cut off time for work. Between 7am-6pm is the time for work. Outside of those hours is time for me. There will always be exceptions, but they are exactly that: EXCEPTIONS not the rule. It's a hard rule to follow in our work, but try to make it a priority. (Note: I started following this before pregnancy so it might be easier for me now because it's just status quo.)

This doesn't fix everything and you've probably tried these some of things (and some may not apply), but it's what I've been trying. I'm looking at it/framing it as preparing the team/organization for when I am out. I still take plenty of stress home, but I'm trying to limit it and I feel like these things are helping.

Good luck! I know it's hard because we already work in a man's world, but you also need to draw the line and do what's best for you and your little one. Plus if you end up sick from stress you're not going to get any work done while sick... you'll get more work done by pacing yourself and taking the breaks/rest you need.

TW: I've had losses while in this career already (not that the career caused them, just stress equality perspective), so taking the 'this is my life' stance and 'you're not going to own me' is extra real and personal to me. It was hard enough for me to get to this point and after those experiences, I decided that there is no way work is going to get in my way -even if that means I need to find another job after little one is here.

Besides, let your employer try to fire the pregnant lawyer, I'm sure that will not be easy for them.

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