Computers outrank in-laws
in provoking worker stress

Why are these inanimate objects
such a threat to our peace of mind?

By Eileen Smith, Click! reporter

At first, Joe Ronne thought of his computer as his baby.

He made it himself, putting together various components to fashion a PC that would be a technological mate for Ronne's human intellect. He named his creation "Ernie."

But there are days when he thinks of Ernie as Frankenstein's monster – an unnatural being who turns on his maker and drags him into the wasteland of the cold, blue screen.

"I ask, 'Why is he doing this to me?'" Ronne said. "Something like this can affect your whole philosophy of life.''

Indeed. A recent survey of office workers revealed that computer crashes generate significant stress: For two-thirds of the respondents, a visit with the in-laws evokes less dread than the sight of a frozen mouse. One-third said they would rather baby-sit a small child for a day than read the words "unable to connect to server."

The survey was commissioned by ICL, a British e-business services company. Benchmark Research interviewed 200 people by telephone, asking them to compare not being able to access a computer for a day to a variety of scenarios, such as being stuck in a long line at the bank.

"The less we feel in control, the more stress we have."

Tim O'Brien,
stress consultant

While the survey doesn't claim to be scientific, glitches in technology can certainly add to the anxiety of modern life. "The less we feel in control, the more stress we have,'' said Tim O'Brien, director of the consulting company Institute for Stress Management in Tallahassee, Fla.

O'Brien said most folks react to tech meltdown in one of two ways: They either get angry, or play possum and hope the problem will go away.

Ronne, who animates cartoons via computer in Rogers Park, Ill., works with a system that automatically saves his work every six minutes. But sometimes the system conks out five minutes after the last save and part of his work goes down the information drain.

Too often, Ronne views Ernie shutting down on him as a personal affront. Truth to tell, that's because he and Ernie work so closely together, the computer sometimes takes on human qualities.

"You expect it to act in a certain way and it doesn't – much like a child,'' he said.

When Ernie misbehaves, Ronne reacts.

"I call down the evil spirits on his head,'' he said.

While O'Brien acknowledges venting is a common response to computer woes, he believes people can learn more positive ways to cope.

The first line of defense is preventive. He suggested learning how to make even more frequent saves and backing up important work on disk.

"People get mad at the system for not doing something they should have done themselves,'' he said.

'Count to 10'

When your computer does act up, O'Brien recommends getting up from the desk immediately after the system shuts down and literally walking away from the problem, for the short term.

"Count to 10 or go to the water fountain and get a drink,'' he said. "Put some distance between yourself and the screen and realize that the computer crashing is not the end of the world.''

Long term, O'Brien suggests getting in better shape physically to meet the intellectual demands of an increasingly technical world.

"When you're in good physical condition, you'll have the energy to deal with all sorts of things,'' he said. "And we've known for a long time that when we exercise regularly, we handle stress better.''

Other survey findings:

  • Ten percent said they are more upset by a system failure than by missing a flight on vacation
  • Twelve percent said having their computers let them down was even worse than being dumped by a romantic partner
  • Thirty percent said they find tech troubles more stressful than giving a speech before a large audience
  • Sixty percent say their work suffers from not receiving tech support fast enough
  • Seventy-nine percent said they think computer problems are more annoying than waiting for a drink in a busy bar

When asked how much time is lost due to computer breakdown, 45 percent said it takes between five and 30 minutes to resolve the problem. Only 10 percent said it took more than an hour; 23 percent said everything was up and running in less than five minutes.

Liam Ford, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, says having a story evaporate on deadline is far more stressful than other mechanical inconveniences – say, having a car break down.

"It's much worse than when your car won't go,'' he said. "You can always find another mode of transportation – but you might not be able to recapture that spark of creativity in your story.''

For Sherry Kellick of Hagerstown, Md., who sells Depression glass via the online auction site eBay, it's a matter of dollars and cents. When an Internet service provider crashes, or her e-mail malfunctions, she's unable to answer the questions of prospective customers, some of whom she fears she is losing for good. She characterizes tech interference as "an ongoing epidemic.''

O'Brien noted that it's all the more frustrating when you've gone through the correct safeguards, but things go awry anyway. That happened to his daughter recently when she was preparing her doctoral dissertation.

"One-third of it was on a laptop and that disappeared – the equivalent of 50 typewritten pages,'' he recalled. "She had backed it up on a Zip disk – but that turned out to be corrupted.''

So O'Brien's daughter did what folks have done for centuries when paper documents are destroyed.

"She pieced together what was left and did everything else over.''