The Work Stress Cycle

Table of Contents

Introduction...... .............................................................

Chapter 1: An Unsustainable Situation.........................

Chapter 2: Robert Visits The Coach...............................

Chapter 3: The Revolution.............................................

Epilogue.........................................................................

Conclusion......................................................................

Special Thanks...............................................................

About the Author............................................................

Credits............................................................................

Introduction

In the world of software , endless days are the routine. This causes workers to leave very late and return home without time for anything other than dinner and bedtime.

Imagine a life in a loop, in which one day dangerously resembles the next one, and the next one, and the next one... a life with hardly any time for anything other than work: no family, no friends, no recreational activity, which is so necessary to recharge batteries in this stressful world. That is the life that many workers have, and that many others have experienced at some point in their professional career.

Through this fable I pose the story of Robert, our protagonist, who is burned out for living in a continuously high-stress environment. Robert will discover what has led him to this situation and draw his own conclusions. You will discover the world of coaching, the world of Agilism, and you will learn about the five steps that lead to entering the Work Stress Cycle.

Burning out workers is counterproductive for the worker and for the company itself, so it is good to be aware of the price involved in overtime. Loading the members of a team with impossible tasks is the result of fear, so we will discover that we must eliminate fear from the equation.

Dedicated to:

Rosa, my indefatigable companion and the fruit of our love:

Elena and Laura

Chapter 1: An Unsustainable Situation

Robert

Our story begins with Robert, a young man of thirty-four years old, of medium height, curly and brown hair, and overweight. He is a programmer analyst who has been working in the software world for ten years. He studied Software Engineering, and when he graduated at twenty-four years old he quickly found a job. Since then, he knew the preoccupations of the software world: projects that were twisted, and extra hours that were worked, without receiving remuneration in return, and leaving him in a pitiful state of exhaustion. In addition, the fatigue was so extreme that the coffees were no longer effective, and he made many mistakes during the workday. These mistakes had to be remedied, so that meant more work and more overtime. Until the project was delivered to the client, Robert was in a panic to go through the same situation over and over again.

In addition, the way of working seemed absurd: in each project, a project manager was appointed who directed all the work. Before knowing anything about the product to be designed, they tried to document everything thoroughly, even though it was impossible to have so much detail, and the client did not even know what they wanted. After the initial titanic effort to document the entire product, everything was subdivided into tasks. Some were absurd tasks that would never be done, as they were based on an incorrect vision of the product. Reality always imposes changes, and it is very difficult to adapt these changes to the original plan.

This obsession to adapt to the initial plan leads to the loss of market opportunities, and to design products that were not what the client really wanted. It was very frustrating that, after so much effort invested, the client was dissatisfied with the product shown.

Robert still remembered that client who sold second-hand cars: He asked for an application to show the cars he had in store. A competitor invested in developing a similar application, which clients could easily access, showing their driver’s license to the camera. Robert’s client was left without his own simple access, because his was preset and the contract was signed; thus, after a year, he was given an application inferior to that one that the competitor had, to everyone's disappointment.

Robert, over the years, had met bosses who took into account the opinion of the programmers and trusted their criteria, but he had also met others who distrusted the programmers and treated them as lazy, regardless of their criteria and managing all tasks dictatorially. Any deviation from the plan set was attributed to the poor performance of the programmers, so they were punished with working overtime. These work peaks led to extreme fatigue of the entire team, and they made more mistakes, so the ball was getting bigger and bigger, to everyone's frustration.

During those years, not everything was bad, because he met Victoria, his wife, and married her. Victoria was cheerful, and a faithful and committed companion. Robert went out of his way for her, but, after longer work days, he came home so late that he was frustrated, feeling completely empty and exhausted.

There were also bad economic cycles that impoverished the country; the companies began to have losses and sometimes Robert was laid off, so he had to look for a job, to the despair of the young couple.

With the last crisis Robert was laid off again and ended up in the company where he was currently working. The work methodology was the same as always, and the project manager, Gerard, was the worst of all he’d had so far. He was just as dictatorial as the rest, but he listened less to his team and imposed impossible deadlines, so that each of his projects ended with anger and overtime, to the frustration of the team of programmers. The company where Victoria worked also went into crisis, and she lost her job, so she was now unemployed and looking for job offers every day.

Robert went back into a dynamic of overtime and extreme exhaustion. His health suffered and eventually ended up with a cold that did not get better, and instead worsened day by day. He was so exhausted that he could no longer have any down time with Victoria, as he fell asleep, literally speaking. Victoria felt that Robert was no longer listening to her. They couldn't even watch any of their favorite television series, which they enjoyed sharing when things were going well. After a while, her day was reduced to looking for a job in the morning and seeing her husband's shadow in the afternoon, with whom she could not speak. The love she felt for Robert faded away and she became disenchanted with their relationship,