OFFICE RAGE:
A psychological analysis of office stress for Canon Europe

by Lucy Beresford

Pointless meetings, rudeness, and equipment malfunctions: working in an office is incredibly stressful. Psychotherapist Lucy Beresford analyses what’s happening to the psyche of the average office employee.

Office life is increasingly frustrating; only 5% of people say that nothing at work makes them angry. We hate: wasting time in pointless or long meetings; the photocopier jamming; people being rude to us; and feeling unsupported. No wonder we lose our rag. 83% of us have seen a colleague lose their temper at work; 63% have lost our temper; and more than 50% have lost our tempers more than once. Without question, the office is a place of High Expressed Emotion (characterised by negativity, over-involvement, and criticism).

The trends and psychological causes

Out of Control!

Human beings prefer to be in control. As children, we grow up believing that we are the centre of the world, that we control it, and that everyone or everything else (our ‘objects’) dance to our tune. Over time we learn that this belief is a delusion, and we have to learn to accept not being in control. But the older we get, the more we like to pretend to ourselves that we could still be in control, as a way of returning to those idyllic days of childhood when we (wrongly) thought we were omnipotent.

Most stressful situations are doubly so for us because subconsciously they reinforce something we don’t want to acknowledge: that we are not in control. This frustration is humiliating for us, and our rage is our inner child stamping its foot when life doesn’t go our way. Significantly, of the 1,857 people who responded to the research, 88% were middle management and below. These people do not feel in control of their work lives.

One problem with office life is that we are part of a group, and therefore we must cope with competing and conflicting demands. The group is united in