Occupation: Between stress and boredom
Until the afternoon! That's hard to do. Having lunch? Let me fail! Why does a day have so few hours? And why does Jonas need a brace just now? I can not cancel my girlfriend Ina again. What if the colleague gets sick? Did not sound good this morning. Milk. I forgot the milk! But today I really have to answer the emails ... I already know that: "I have too much work, too much family, far too much at once."
Juhu, I have too much to do, I would have to call. Because the next phase, in which I have no work at all, will definitely come. As with my friend Anna. Until four weeks ago, the booth builder worked day and night on a large sales exhibition. "There is nothing new here," she said yesterday on the phone. Not more. That can only mean: the fair is over. She has no orders right now. Feels useless immediately. Fears to be unable to pay her rent soon. And is having a hard time using the resulting break for themselves.
This is for many: as soon as the tension that we longed for is over, we develop ambiguous feelings: it is difficult to really enjoy free time. As long as we do not know how it goes on. These phases of uncanny calm, in which there is little to do - except doubts whether the chosen profession is the right one. And worried about our future. Does that stay that way?
Quick change: total hustle and nothing to do
Somehow, life has changed radically in recent years. More and more people only work temporarily, in projects. "Contingent Workers" - in the US already the term for highly qualified, who pull from job to job as earlier harvest workers in the country. The gap between those who have to do and those who have a lot of time is getting bigger and bigger. With changing roles: Who is now completely overloaded, can stand in the next quarter without work, and vice versa.
My life situations change more frequently and faster than before. Stress and idle alternate. Sometimes life rushes completely past me, because I have so much in my ears. The sun is shining outside? I did not notice. A new movie, an evening with your best friend? No time. For the success in the job makes me downright euphoric. But as soon as all orders have been processed or the fixed-term contract is over, my everyday life suddenly looks completely different. The change from completely planned to leisure is not so easy. I try hard to find a new rhythm.
Time-out: time to dream and to gather strength
Speed and limitlessness change our biographies: Entire divisions emerge and disappear at a pace that we first have to get used to. We have to adjust to times of insecurity and unemployment, we have to reorient ourselves again and again - and for that we need material and psychological reserves. For this to work, it is good to accept even unplanned breaks. And to use: for a training, retraining, a job abroad, for reflection or for an unusual journey. "Especially these quiet phases must be recognized as a new task," says the Cologne psychologist Jörg Fengler. Every break offers a chance. Finally I have room to expand my contacts. Time to dream. Can give space to my ideas and enjoy the luxury of working on their implementation. What is really important to me? That counts now.
Prerequisite: do not mourn the last job. "Certainly a certain amount of time is needed to deal with it, but it has to stop someday," writes American psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema in her book "Why women think too much - ways out of the pitfall trap" *. Otherwise we will waste the time-out instead of recharging our batteries for the next stressful projects. Just do not panic. The best way to do that is to make it clear that this is an incision, a short reorientation, and then it goes on. Who relies on it will have it easier.
Mountains of work on the desk? Rituals help
Are we actually working more and harder today than in the past? Or does it feel that way? We feel the effects of rationalization, says psychologist Jörg Fengler. If you have work, you have to get it right. Takes over tasks that did not belong to the job before. Kindergarten teachers also have to clean, administrative employees get - as in Karstadt - suddenly offered tasks in the sale. Officials in the federal ministries type letters under two pages even in the PC. Others have done that before.
When we work, not only more and longer, but also faster and often at the same time on several tasks. Often there are completely new requirements."The traditional dividing lines, the demarcation of work and non-work, between the private and the public, they are porous," says Munich economic educator Karlheinz A. Geißler **. And not only at peak times. One in three is already beaming the office virtually into their living room. Often works a few hours in the evening or at the weekend.
So far our life has been structured. Through clear office hours, weekends, holidays. This rhythm is increasingly dissolving. We have to find our own tact. Rituals act as protective walls for our rest periods and our private lives, says Geissler. Dinner at 19 o'clock, until 20 o'clock all cell phones, phones, computers and TVs. Every day.
I'll think about that. Anyhow, my requirements are good. Geißler is convinced that women have fewer problems with the new complexity and the many changes that are expected of us all. Because they had practiced flexibility for a long time: the project "Beruf" was followed by the project "Kinder", later by profession ...
