Conference 7.286::digital

    Many Digital facilities have wellness centers, as a manager I arranged
    to have EAP give my group a series of seminars on stress and how
    to handle it. 
    
    

    In the field we have a two-hour seminar on stress-management.
    
    Jim
    

    Bahamas?  Do you think Digital will pay for us to go to Bahamas?

    - Vikas

    	A stress seminar given where there is stress is short lived,
    in my opinion.  Why not give seminars on how to GO where the stress
    is less for given individuals?  It's difficult to COPE with stress,
    I believe, but not so hard to just, well, get rid of it!
    
    Keith

    On a recent trip to L.A. (folks in LA can verify this) an individual
    told me there were 50 people in her Area out on 'Stress Leave!"
    That amazed me.....She said Digital is encouraging employees and
    spouses to attend therapy sessions for 6 months - FREE.  
    
    Vicki
    

    re: .5
    
    I believe it.  Remember that Los Angeles is in California.
        John Sauter

    I think there was some exaggeration as to the number of people in
    L.A. who are out because of stress.  I don't believe it's any more
    stressful living in this area than in any other large metropolitan
    city.
    
    In fact, it seems to be the California *imports* that get stressed
    -- Not the natives.  Afterall, we're too 'laid back' to care.  If
    you were born here, or you've lived here more than 20 years, you
    get used to thousands of people moving here every year.
    
    Like hey dudes, Chill out.  It'll be O.K.
    
    Linda

    rep 2
       DEC will send all management to some resort for a stress program
    just like they did for the investment in excellent program.  The
    rest of us will get it at the office on a Saturday for two hours
    with coffee and donuts and on our own time.

< RE: Note 591.4 by ERIC::PATTERSON >
 

>    It's difficult to COPE with stress,
>    I believe, but not so hard to just, well, get rid of it!
    
   Okay, I'll bite. How do you get rid of it ?

/Ted

    per .8 - "DEC" doesn't send managers anywhere the don't send employees.
    
    I have been facilitating IEE for a long time now.  As a program,
    IEE is "offered" by FS. at an appropriate, quiet location for to
    keep it away from the distractions of the office.  The vast majority
    of IEE classes are taught at DEC facilities in order to keep the
    costs down.  The recent revision of the IEE program is planning
    to take it offsite in order to isolate the attendees from the feeling
    of being at work, but that is a recent innovation and it has upped
    to cost dramatically (from $50 to $150) so it may cost us attendees.
    
    If a group wants us to teach an IEE program at a location of their
    choosing, so long as they pay, we will be happy to accomodate.
                                                                         
    Back to stress management - the "corp" has no policy or program,
     but innovative organizations and locations within the company have
    tried many approaches to reducing stress and raising moral.
    
    I sure would like a few days anywhere where the diving is good -
    but I guess I'll have to fund it myself.
    
    Have fun!
    
    Tim

    At a Field Service off ice in an unnamed state there was a brief
    seminar on "coping with stress".  Attending this seminar was mandatory
    for all engineers.  By 9:30 the numbers of engineers being actively
    beeped on their pagers was incredible.  By noon only 5 of the original
    25 attendees were still there and they had places to go after the
    seminar.  
    	
    There are people who need stress to get started and who don't function
    well without it.  There are people who function well without it
    but blow gaskets when stressed.  It takes all kinds.

    I'm sorry i don't know what you mean by IEE program.
    I do know that one of the last programs that came down in this area
    for the field [Investment in excellence] was given to the management
    at a resort.  They came back and said what a great time they had
    and we would be going the same thing.
    
    When the program was given to the nonmanagement personnel we could
    go through it in the office on a weekend. Needless to say not many
    came the first time and it was dropped soon after.  Money ran short.
    
    Then we can look at the field awards given out for DEC Excellence
    as for customer surveys.  The management in the top office get to
    go to Hawaii for a week this year.  The people that put him there
    get 46hours +-4 at a hotel.  The management picks up the food and
    room anything else we pay for.  Now that is being fair.
    
    This is only two cases and I am sure others know of some.  It may
    be this way through out the industry in the difference the way 
    who gets what.  I for one can't feel to sorry for the stress that
    some people are under when you look at the difference in the rewards
    that are handed out.

    RE: .5
    
    Could you tell me a more about this *FREE* stress therapy
    DEC is offering.  I'm in the Irvine office (Southern Calif).

    With my luck the *free* therapy is only being offered in the 
    L.A. area which means I would have to sit on the freeway for
    2 hours to get there.   Talk about *stress*!!! 

    Jodi-

    Re: .13
    
    I'm in Stow, MA and was just told this information from an individual
    working in the LA District while on a business trip.
    
    (I made that LA to Irvine route a few times....you're right, that
    will stress anybody out!)
    
    Vicki
    

    RE: .9
    
    	It depends if stress is an overriding problem.  For instance
    after a heart attack.  If (and maybe only if) it is, considering
    going where there is none, stress, not heart attacks.  Stress is,
    in my opinion, located in certain types of environments.  It sounds
    too easy, and you may have to comprimise in other areas, but it
    sure is an option.
    
    Keith

    Well, I work in downtown LA, and I know of no such thing.  But then
    again, I'm a delivery resident, so if there was such a thing, I
    would lose valuable revenue time and dollars attending it.  I gotta
    go.
    
    Ashley in Gretzkyland

    re .-10 or so about LA natives...
    
    That's fine when your boss is also a native, or the sales rep you
    support is a native, but the stress really builds when that person
    is from some other part of the country and has not or (worse) will 
    not make the adjustment to laid-back thinking patterns. For instance,
    imagine someone from a poverty-stricken region of Texas or Mississippi
    coming here and continuing to promote or act on their world-view of a harsh 
    life and school of hard-knocks on everyone below him or her. Or
    a New Yorker who expects everyone working for him/her to respond
    just like they did back in New York. It just doesn't work. Of course,
    these examples didn't have to feature people from other regions,
    we got poverty here in LA, but I mentioned it because those cases
    feature the additional involuntary cultural hang-over when people 
    are transplanted across regions. I'm not saying that the transplantee's
    culture is bad, just that IT is the newcomer, not mine, but thats
    not how it looks when the non-native has the reins of power. 
    
    Re. the topic on stress going hand in hand with rewards...
    I agree up to a point. When a sales rep is rewarded for making 150%
    of budget, that's a clear and almost fair way of measuring things.
    (Who made the budgets up?). But when we have to endure a highly
    political process of selecting people for the excellence awards,
    often times fairness goes out the window and the manager's biases
    or other factors take over. So quality work and the Hawaiian trip don't
    necessarily go hand in hand. Escpecially when there are so many
    interdependancies on other people's performance (cust sat? sales
    sat?) I look at the ExAwards as something in the same realm as the
    lotto - there's a chance but I'm not going to change my work habits
    or quantity to try to make it. So the stress factor remains without
    the sense of "Well there's the Hawaii trip to make up for it" because
    many people who deserve an award (a real reward: more than a hunk of 
    wood with some scribblings on front) are not selected.
    

    We've had some of these type seminars in our office.
    
    The thing that's always puzzled me, is that the focus is always
    on dealing with stress. When are we going to start focusing on removing
    the *sources* of stress?
    
    Similarly, people talk about rapid change, and managing it.
    When are people going to start focusing on controlling the *rate*
    of change?
    
    Anybody remember Toffler's "Future Shock"?
    
    Dave

    Stress can be eliminated or reduced by controlling the cause or by
    controlling the effect. For almost everybody, controlling the cause is
    impossible. It would mean controlling other people and events. That is
    very hard to do and would increase others' stress. However there is one
    thing you can totally control and that is your reaction to the stress.
    The courses focus on what is possible for the individual.

    Agreed - as an individual, it's nearly impossible to control the
    sources of stress, or the rate of change.
    
    However, as a corporation, management could focus on finding common
    causes of stress within the workplace, and institute changes to
    address them.
    
    Similarly, a more long term, studied approach to business needs
    and industry trends could provide better control on the rate of
    change, rather than the typical react-mode/knee-jerk response to
    short term events. Implementing/scrapping policy, introducing and 
    obsoleting business systems, reorganizations, and changing business
    focus on a yearly basis is counterproductive and an enormous waste
    of resources.
    
    Dave

    Who got 46+-4 hours at a hotel, room and food for Decexcellence?
     Our manager got to go to Hawaii, we got S***...  Fill in the blanks
    yourself.  
       Bitter?  You bet!!!                  
    I'm beginning to realize that thats the way it is in F.S. And it's
    like it or lump it.  
    
    

    re .20
    
    I agree.  Every job has elements of stress that are beyond individual
    control.
    
    However, I see a lot of stress induced by poor business practices.

    I deal with customers, and the problems related to customer interface
    would be a lot easier to deal with if the home office acted like it had
    its act together. 
    
    I don't have a problem going into a tough customer situation.  I
    have a tough time being sent into situations that are tough because
    of improper setting of expectations, poor communications, bald-faced
    lying, etc.
    
    I have rarely been involved in a problem situation that DEC didn't,
    in some way, bring on itself.  Worse, the same scenario continues
    to be replayed.  We don't seem to learn from our mistakes.
    
    The idea of dealing with stress through a stress management course is
    fairly typical of the impotent bandaids that are applied to real
    business problems after the fact. 
    
    In fact, I think stress is (roughly) defined as being emotional trauma
    generated because of an inability to control a situation - that
    is, theres nothing you can do, so you get stressed out.
    
    My chief source of stress is from seeing things done poorly, and
    knowing full well that it could have been prevented, and that everybody
    involved knew it could have been prevented, and HOW, but chose to
    let things slide and be cleaned up by the last player involved,
    rather than assume responsibility up front.
    
    Jeez!  I got stressed out just writing this!
    
    Jim
    

    re the last few..
    
    Emphatically agreed.  'Stress Management' is a nonsequitur. As stress
    is caused by having responsibility but not power, one can't 'manage'
    stress, only eliminate its various causes from your life, by removing 
    oneself from its path... I think I see the 'Open Door' policy in
    action lately.. i.e. the way right out of the company.
    
    I was talking to a friend who worked for IBM in the '50s and '60s..
    he said there was one two-year stretch where IBM, by tightening
    down on expenses [two field personell per room], perks [company
    cars], profitability [PPP for field SWS], etc., managed to squeeze
    out, NOT FIRE, more than 20,000 Field Engineers.  Sounds very familiar.
    
    I'm going to SWS Excellence Awards in Hawaii.. I'd rather keep the
    car, or get a decent Workstation, or a reliable Vitalink to the
    Easynet (instead of DDCMP thru Infotron stat muxes), etc. etc.
    
    karl

    .22 You hit the nail on the head.
    Setting expectations, poor (little) communications, and my favorite
    out and out bald-faced lying. The last player to hit the board cleans
    up the mess, and is expected to carry the lies to save DEC's image.
    "Clean up the mess and cope with the STRESS". What really gets me
    is that after the problem is solved and everyone admits what went
    wrong, the same players do it all over again, and again...
    I should just drink gasoline, instead of waiting to generate more
    stomach acid. More zantac please, tagamint causes gas.
    

    LKG has an EAP (Employee Assistance Program) counselor give a workshop
    /class on stress every once in a while.  From an article that he wrote
    about how management can improve things: 
    
    	WAY TO MAKE THE ENVIRONMENT LESS STRESSFUL

        o current job descriptions  
    
        o reliable performance standards 
    
        o career paths  
    
        o clear cut promotional criteria
    
        o goal-setting system
    
        o valid performance appraisal system
    
        o job redesign
    
        o frequent vertical and lateral feedback
    
        o quality circles
    
        o time management
    
        o career/life planning
    
        o peer groups
    
    The list is a little cryptic because it refers to things he discusses
    more fully in the article, but you get the main points.      

    Around my department, boy, are these things missing!  I have repeatedly
    asked for some of these things, and tried to bring various managers'
    attention to the problems, but guess what.... Some things you can
    provide for yourself, but some things are really in management's court.
    It's frustrating--especially when they PAY to send you to a class that
    tells how THEY could make things better.  I feel they're saying
    it's my personal problem, not their management problem.  And I know
    that just aint the whole truth!
    
    
    Nina
    
       

           

    re .-1
    
    perhaps the secret is because (for whatever reason) the word "employee"
    is not meant to mean the same thing as "manager" -- although it
    is, to me.  In other words, the Employee Assistance Program counselor
    should be helping those managers to reduce stress in their segment
    of the workplace. Too often I see it used to counsel employees by
    letting them talk about *things*..... we all know that resolves
    next to nothing until talking produces resolutions/goals that can
    be implemented.
       
    Regards the list of environment stress factors:  I think it's a
    very GOOD list -- it reminded me of all the things I've forgotten
    due to job pressures, customer sat's, etc...  Many thanks!
    
    -bwe

    
                     25 Ways to cope with ~~~~STRESS~~~~
                     -----------------------------------
                                                        
1.  Jam miniature marshmallows up your nose and sneeze them out.
    See how many you can do at once.

2.  Use your MasterCard to pay your Visa and vice-versa.

3.  Pop some popcorn without putting the lid on.

4.  When someone says "Have a nice day", tell them you have other plans.

5.  Make a list of things to do that you've already done.

6.  Dance naked in front of your pets.

7.  Put your toddler's clothes on backwards and send them off to pre-school
    as if nothing is wrong.

8.  Fill out your tax forms using Roman Numericals.

9.  Tape pictures of your boss on watermelons and launch them from high
    places.

10. Leaf through "National Geographic" and draw underwear on the natives.

11. Tatoo "out to lunch" on you forehead.

12. Go shopping.  Buy everything.  Sweat in it.  Return it the next day.

13. Buy a subscription of "Sleezoid Weekend" and send it to your boss's 
    wife.

14. Pay your electric bill in pennies.

15. Drive to work in reverse.

16. Find out what a frog in a blender really looks like.

17. Tell your boss to "Blow it out your mule" and let them figure it out.

18. Sit naked on a hard boiled egg.

19. Polish your car with ear wax.

20. Read the dictionary upside down and look for secret messages.

21. Start a nasty rumor and see if you recognize it when it comes back to
    you.

22. Braid the hairs in each nostril.

23. Write a short story using alphabet soup.

24. Stare at people through the tines of a fork and pretend they're in jail.

25. Make up a language and ask people for directions.


    

    re: .27
    
    The best laugh I had in a long time.  I'm on my way to try some of
    them.
    
    

    
    re: .27                       
    
	>  Dance naked in front of your pets.

    Oh, I can just *picture* the look on my cats faces! 
    

    re:.27
    
    HELP!  I don't know how to cross post this stuff, but .27 has GOT to be
    cross posted in the CSC Notesfile.  Can someone instruct me?
    
    Thanks for a real gut-buster.  I needed it.  Who knows, you may have
    saved someone's life today (maybe mine)....
    
    Toodles.....JP
    

>    HELP!  I don't know how to cross post this stuff, but .27 has GOT to be

type EXTRACT X.X (or some other bogus file name)
go to where ever you want it and WRITE/REPLY and include file X.X

Or the tricky only-the-notes-weenies-know-how-to-do-it-this-way way, position
yourself at the note you want to read, EXTRACT/BUFFER NOTES$EDIT, go to the new
notes file, use REPLY/LAST or WRITE/LAST and the note will magically appear.

I do most of these things every day and I can attest that they work.  I never
feel stress.

j.

>I do most of these things every day and I can attest that they work.  I never
>feel stress.

	Yeah, sure. But what about your poor pets? 8^)

	Hi Jeff.

	Roy

�	Yeah, sure. But what about your poor pets? 8^)

The cat dances naked on my head at 5:00 every morning, so it's only fair to
return the favor.

j.

    re 591.27 - 
    
    Best laugh I've had in a long time..
    
    Thanks..
    

Rules for easy living, from Satchel Paige:

1. Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.

2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you walk.

4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society.  The
   social ramble ain't restful.

5. Avoid running at all times.

6. Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you.

    
    re:-1
    
    satchel paige, a wise man, and one of the best pitchers in baseball
    history.
    
    this brings to mind a question: what happened to wisdom?  we no longer
    hear about it, or talk about it.  where did it go?
    
     
    
    bill

re Note 591.37 by GLDOA::SHOOK:

>     this brings to mind a question: what happened to wisdom?  we no longer
>     hear about it, or talk about it.  where did it go?
  
        You just did -- are we the better for it?

        Bob

Re: Note 591.37 by GLDOA::SHOOK:

>     this brings to mind a question: what happened to wisdom?  we no longer
>     hear about it, or talk about it.  where did it go?
    
    	I hear it's available on CD-ROM now...;-)
    
    Phil
    	

>     this brings to mind a question: what happened to wisdom?  we no longer
>     hear about it, or talk about it.  where did it go?

    Marketing hired numerous consultants to conduct focus groups on
    it and it didn't test well.  They recommended something with quicker
    payback instead...


    dlm

>     this brings to mind a question: what happened to wisdom?  we no longer
>     hear about it, or talk about it.  where did it go?

TFSO'ed last week.
    It's just got an Internet account however so you can keep in
    touch. It's at [email protected] ...
    

    .41 reminds me about the story I tell about the ersatz DIGITAL logo
    that someone whomped up for the DIGITAL sweatshirt I picked up a couple
    years back at the PKO employee store.  Emblazoned on the front is a
    circular motif with, you guessed it, the clock tower, surrounded by the
    above logo.
    
    Whenever I wear it around the office & folks ask about the logo,
    whether it's the "real" corporate logo, I say 
    
    "Well I guess it *used* to be, but we laid off one of those guys last
    week."