Second to someone I care about dying or being very sick, significant tech issues are probably my greatest stress factor. I am normally very optimistic and resilient, but that can go out the window faced with issues that go unsolved for days and weeks, no matter how much responsive tech support I receive. 

It occurred to me that good, patient, and persistent tech support people are similar to emergency room doctors. We need quick action, empathetically delivered. 

I have been suffering “a perfect cyclone” (more serious than just a “storm”) of 4 different tech issues – unrelated to each other and not created by me – occurring in a similar time period. A few threaten my ability to work for more than an hour or two – like losing the ability to send and receive email for a week or more at the address most people have for me. This happened recently when I was endeavoring to migrate my email and domain name to a different host provider.(Tech support adviser suspected from his experience that the provider I was leaving purposely sabotaged it in revenge. My apologies to anyone who received “unable to deliver messages” when they tried to email me or missed my emails. 

Another pure nightmare occurred last year when my computer stopped functioning during an upgrade. It literally got stuck! Several tech support advisers tried everything they could think of for over a week. Nothing solved the problem. The last possible option, which was scary to me, was to remove the entire operating system and then (fingers and toes crossed) re-install it. I felt fierce frustration. The head swims. The breath quickens, then slows to barely there.  

The re-install took 15 hours, which I had to do at home with no help and not knowing if I would lose everything. Thankfully it was restored after tons more time having to reset and put in lots of passwords, etc. 

The latest saga referenced above continues. Hopefully, it will be temporary, but after recovery, the fear can persist. Since that calamity, I fear doing a system upgrade to my computer. 

I am writing about this because some of us become temporary emotional wrecks in these situations. So I seriously suggest that both we and employers add high “tech stress.” as threats to the wellness list. 

And I haven’t even mentioned cybersecurity and fending off scams received electronically to the stress list. 

Congenital optimist that I am, we now know it is likely, similar to the physical environment deterioration, these technology dangers are not going away without major changes. 

What managers and employers can do

Re: tech failure stress threatening wellness:

• Be both sympathetic and empathetic. Recognize that workers are suffering over this, feel out of control. This is true whether the tech-induced stressor erupts in the office or at home.

• Know that people want, often desperately, to be productive, make deadlines, and serve both external and internal clients well. They want to feel they are providing value. Not being able to work is not a vacation for them.

• Encourage mental breaks, such as taking a walk or other exercise, meditation, or change their environment for a little while.

• Show sincere caring for tech-stressed people as humans, not just as producers.

  To end on a little bit of an up note for individuals when having a questionable day, here’s a motto summed up on a t-shirt given to me by a male friend many years ago:

Call to Action: I sincerely believe that in today’s technology dominated world and new tech being continually required to learn; the fast-moving addition of new, more powerful forms of AI we don’t even realize is AI; and the real fear of losing jobs to it, tech related stress should be added to the list of threats to wellness.#stressrelief #emailhell #bounceback #questioning

© Phyllis Weiss Haserot 2023