Work Daze

Are you a “caged animal, an internal cauldron of hostility?” If so, there are only a few possible career routes for you. Either you will be promoted to a top management position, probably in Human Resources, where your caged animal hostility will make you feared, hated and highly compensated, or you will suffer from a major attack of “career burnout.”

Or you will become another Michael Staver.

It was Mr. Staver, the president of an eponymous executive training firm on Amelia Island, Florida, who found himself floating in that hostile cauldron, filled to the brim with burnout stew. Fortunately, Staver was able to save himself from this all too common fate of the overworked, overstressed and underappreciated. Slathering on the unguentine of pop psychology, he not only healed his own case of burnout, but went on to create a successful business teaching other wage slaves how to stay cool, calm and collecting their paychecks.

As it happens, I’ve written about Mr. Staver before. It wasn’t until I reached the end of a profile of the burnout guru in The New York Times that I realized that this was the genius who invented the “low-tech alarm clock” for waking yourself up before a 10-minute power nap becomes a 10-month doze in the unemployment office. Staver’s idea – which I personally believe is worthy of a Nobel Prize – is to hold a key ring in your hand when you start your power nap. After about ten minutes, you will be so relaxed that your hand will open, the keys will fall nosily to the floor, and you can get back to work, refreshed and ready for achievement.

[For the purpose of full disclosure, I must warn you not to imitate me in choosing for your low-tech alarm clock, your boss’s Steuben crystal golf trophy. The glass will shatter as will your career.]

The Times article was chock full of other good tips from Mr. Staver on how to diagnose and cure the fatal effects of burnout. Even if you don’t currently have or care about a job, these suggestions are worth noting in relation to other long-term commitments, like marriage. “Mr. Staver thinks he’s probably burned out on the concept of marriage,” the reporter reported on the twice-divorced consultant. But I say it’s worth your time and effort to apply these techniques on your partner. If they married you, they’ll believe anything.

• Don’t assume you need calming down when you may need revving up.

Staver suggests you start each day with music that “pumps you up.” This will give you the confidence and energy to solve the insolvable and schmooze the unschmoozable. I would add that you need not limit your music stimulant to your morning shower. The ubiquity of the office iPod makes it easy to compose a sound track for your work day. The hard-charging horns in “The Ride of the Valkyries” makes an excellent background when approaching a challenging task, like trying to get an expense check from accounting. And a sappy love song, like “You Are So Beautiful” will help set the mood for those daily groveling sessions with the boss.

• Don’t be a news fiend.

Staver suggests that you spare yourself unnecessary pain and suffering by turning a deaf ear to the most depressing aspects of the news of the day. Personally, I actually enjoy listening to and participating in news discussions and political debates, just as long as everyone at the water cooler shares my opinions. You may think this is closed minded, but look how well the technique works for President Bush.

• Fix it, then forget it.

Fretting over past blunders can definitely lead to burnout, especially when you have so many blunders to fret about. But as Staver points out, the person who makes a mistake has learned a lesson and is now a different person. And what is the sense of blaming a person who no longer exists?

This may seem like sophistry, but try it the next time the boss scalds your tender, pre-burnout behind. “You can’t fire the me who made that mistake, because that me is the old me, not the new me, and new me is the kind of employee that you want the old me to be.”

The boss will be so confused, he or she will forget the whole matter and walk away mumbling. He or she may even decide that they’re burning out and immediately quit. And wouldn’t that make old you and new you happy?