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Book Review:
Toxic Work
By Matthew Arnold Stern Originally published in the
Founder's District Speakers Bureau Newsletter. I recently left a
difficult work situation brought about by a controlling boss and a highly
restrictive working environment. So, I read with great interest Toxic
Work by Barbara Bailey Reinhold. The book describes how workplaces can
become unbearable, how emotional stress from these environments can make
you physically ill, and what you can do to make these situations more
livable. Bad working environments really do cause bad health. As
Reinhold writes, "[W]e’ve known for more than twenty years that the
greatest predictor of heart attacks in people under fifty – more potent
even than smoking, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, or diabetes
– is job dissatisfaction." These wounds may be self-inflicted. We might
suffer from what she calls Recurrent Career Adversity Syndrome (RCAS), a
series of bad emotional workplace habits – such as blowing problems out of
proportion or blaming others – that put us in the same miserable work
situations over and over again. Reinhold provides a number of solutions
to remedy these problems, including techniques for dealing with difficult
bosses and coworkers (in a chapter beautifully titled "Dancing with
Dinosaurs and Dragons") to quizzes and advice to help us identify and
correct our own self-defeating behaviors. She illustrates these issues and
techniques with examples from people she has counseled. She shows us how
we can create a working life where we feel empowered and in control, and
we don’t always need to leave our existing job to do so. If you find
yourself in a miserable job, read Toxic Work. This book gives you
the tools you need to make your professional life happier, healthier, and
more successful.
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