There's only one cure for stress

IS your office kitchen a sort of drop-in centre for People Who Love Antacid Tablets Too Much? Do they mutter things about your company that consultants are paid thousands of pounds to say in gobbledegook? Is The Little Book of Calm your Jackie Collins for the Nineties? If so, don't worry - you're just stressed out of your mind like the rest of us.

I wouldn't say my last company was any more stress-inducing than thousands of others, but most of us gave up asking each other how we were because of the predictable reply.

But it was as if the gods had heard our prayers because we received a sign from our senior management. It was literally a sign - a poster which told us how to deal with stress. It told us to talk to a friend, take more exercise, take up a hobby and probably to eat more bananas, except few of us managed to reach the end. We were too stressed.

No one quite expected what happened next. We weren't sure if it was a harbinger of downsizing to come, but a stress management workshop was announced. Debbie, an ex-school dental nurse (victim of the cuts) who had fortunately retrained, was to be our link with a caring world. Soon there was a queue outside a door with frosted glass.

Through it you could see blurry hunchbacked people. It looked very authentic although it was a pity the room said "Stores".

By the time I got to see her she wasn't exactly manic, but did have that look of one relaxation exercise too many. I poured forth my troubled litany, full of the usual suspects.

Debbie, ever the professional, listened patiently as if she was hearing Joanna Southcott's Book of Revealed Truths. We checked on my personal life (okay, my sex life). I sensed an internal sigh of relief from us both as we agreed it was all right.

Eventually I ran out of woes and she explained that she'd like me to keep a diary so that we could locate my "key triggers". We both needed to keep up the pretence that centuries of civilisation hadn't been in vain - even though we both knew that until a maximum 35-hour working week and proper flexible working arrangements were introduced this was simply aromatherapy.

Did it work? Well, yes and no. The only diary my partner could find was a Dairy Crest one. Every day my doleful recordings of a day at the coalface would appear under such perky headings as "Order an extra pinta!!" or "Discover the magic of milk puddings". By the end of week one (Friday: "Give your haddock a treat - cook it in milk") I got the giggles and had to stop.

Others were the same: a colleague couldn't take herself seriously whinging about her toner problem in an Oxfam diary. In fact it was so ridiculous that hysterical laughter was the only option.

We all felt much better for it.

But the good news is that my stress rating soon plummeted. I found the best therapeutic stress-buster going.

I left.

Copyright 1998
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