Should We Dread Tough Times at Work?

Tough times come to most (maybe all) of us at work. Should we dread tough times at work?

We're not talking about tough times ahead here. We've spent a lot of time over the last year or so talking about tough times ahead and seeking ways to deal with them. Our analysis of what we're facing and likely will face for some time may not have been 100% accurate for each and every one of us. But, for the most part, those items currently impact us at work, and will likely continue to do so for the time being.

But now we look at particular instances that touch, or have touched, each of us in different ways at different times. 

A couple of examples of tough times for employees:

• Your company lays off employees: You're one of them. 

This one's about as tough as it gets from an economic point of view. You're income disappears. Even if you get some sort of severance package, that will run out eventually. If it does before you can find another job, that's pretty tough.

• Your company is bought by another company.

Most incidents with which I'm familiar, including a personal experience, have resulted in either in: 

• a slug of folks getting axed due to redundancies created by employees of the acquired company being combined with the acquiring company
• a seemingly endless stretch of uncertainty over how the combined company will function - including shuffling of roles, bosses, departments, etc. Uncertainty notoriously spikes anxiety.

Having been through an acquisition as an employee of an acquired company, this one hits home. There was a period when rumors, eventually confirmed, of being acquired shook everyone up. Then came the actual acquisition and a stretch where the new management arrived, displacing our bosses (old boss tossed, new boss takes over their desk). Finally, actual lay-offs ensued (including me). The whole drama was quite wearing - especially with a growing family to support.

A couple of examples of tough times for Business Owners:

• The economy, your industry sector, or your geographical location changes for the worse, and your company can't adjust quickly enough to avoid a significant decline in revenue.
• Your clients/customers age and you don't have younger prospects to replace the dwindling revenue from a dwindling client/customer base. This can apply especially to sole practitioners in professional practices.

Now, these are just some sample tough times examples. Tough times have a habit of coming at us in various forms, some recurring, some completely unique. And they have an even nastier habit of coming at us just when they're the last thing we need. (The voice of experience talking here.)

So should we dread these virtually inevitable occurrences? And, to be clear, we're using the term "dread" as a kind of anxiety on steroids. The steroids consist of injections of unbridled fear. Clear?

Moving on, it's only natural, when thinking of past tough times and anticipating either a repeat or something worse, that a certain feeling of dread might plunk itself into the pit of our stomachs. On a practical level, we can argue for developing some discipline here. Dreading what hasn't happened yet just drains our energy, potentially having a negative impact on the timely completion of today's tasks.

From personal perspective, I've noticed a tendency to imagine disasters in all sorts of variations. So I've developed various practices to either head these off at the pass, or - if they slip past my meager defenses, addressing the feelings right away before they mushroom and take on a life of their own. 

The key here is "right away." I used to try to ignore such feelings, figuring they'd eventually fade away of their own accord. Big mistake. While the feeling will eventually go away, "eventually" can be an annoyingly long time. So, if necessary, I'll stop what I'm doing as soon as feasible, and engage my noodle in some reasonable exploration into what exactly has generated the dread and how likely is it that it's about to descend.

Most of the time, it's an overactive imagination at work. When that's the case, taking the time to think things through will mostly expel the unwanted intruder. Sometimes, though, that feeling of dread may actually be the result of a good intuition developed over the years. In that case, the anticipation helps to cope with what may very well be some impending disaster.

"Disaster"? Maybe a bit dramatic, to be sure. But part of my own work involves risk management. And with that as a habitual component of my work, the "worst case scenario" comes second nature. Hence "disaster."

Whatever your emotional make-up, the first important lesson is that dreading tough times when there's no particular reason for their occurrence in the near future can and should be managed with some sort of mental and emotional discipline.

We'll get into this in more detail next time...