The Boiling Frog

I heard a story about a frog that I thought applies quite a lot to most people in their Jobs. Not sure if the story about the frog is true or not (hopefully not!) but it makes a good analogy for what I'll say later. Furthermore, P L E A S E don't go and test this on a frog!

The story goes like this. If you'd put a frog in a pot of hot boiling water, it will immediately jump out again. However, if you'd put him in moderate water he'll quite enjoy it. If you now turn up the heat just a fraction, he might get slightly uncomfortable, possibly start moving around, but not enough pain to jump out. After a while he gets used to the warmer water and relaxes completely. You then turn the heat up a little more, similar reactions, but again he gets used to it and settles for the new situation. The story goes that this will go on and on until the frog dies and gets boiled, never realizing he's on his way to be boiled, just getting used to the environment every time.

Now you might have possibly heard this before, but it may just illustrate something I started noticing in the working environments.

My first job was computer literacy training and that did not demand too much after hour work. Here and there we had exams to evaluate and I also studied part time, but this didn't disrupt my personal life too much. Besides that I was still very young and single. I got a much higher paying job and at the same time got married, this was after about 4 years in the training job.

Initially I learned more than anything and I stuck to sort of standard office hours. Later I got better and better at the work I was doing (UNIX System Administration, Programming, etc.) After a year or two this resulted in me getting more work from different projects. The demand on my time and personal life got more and more. The good side of it was that I started earning much more, I got really good raises, although never what I wanted or felt I earned.

This continued more and more and my last year at this company turned out to be extremely successful. I was in a position in the company where I could never have dreamt I'll end up in. Because of some seemingly temporary money problems we (the whole company) didn't get increases for quite a long time, and that was when South Africa still had very bad inflation. I was away from home quite a lot, despite having a baby that was not even 1 year old. I kept on telling myself and my wife it is only temporarily and its necessary to maintain my growth in the company. I have to also say that I did try to set some boundaries at work to not spend ALL my time at work. At the end of the brilliant year, the company however went down the tubes, we were told they won't be able to pay our salaries anymore!

Anyhow, to get back to the boiling frog. My own experience and certainly what I've picked up around the business world is that the following tend to happen. The work at some stage demands a little more of your time, initially its a bit uncomfortable but later you get used to it. Then you become more successful (promotion, etc.) and a little more of your time is required. You think its justified since you got a promotion. Then again more is demanded of you without a promotion. Again you start feeling more discomfort, especially at home, but you get to cope with it. This gets worse and worse.

Then things start to fall apart at home. Your relationship with your wife and children gets worse and worse. Since you start noticing some of the symptoms, you start feeling guilty, although most people won't admit it. Because of all the fights and unhappiness you feel more and more like not being at home. Longer hours, perhaps starting to play some golf or have some time out with the friends, because you deserved it after the hours and hours of work. You probably feel your wife and children does not appreciate how hard you're working. And a vicious cycle gets momentum.

During every step, it seems like a small thing, but just one day you realize your life is a mess. Hopefully this is long before the word "divorce" starts becoming a threat. This might also be caused by a stress related incident like a heart episode, or some other psychological episode.

Slowly, but surely the Frog became boiled and died without noticing what happened. If you realized this was going to happen on the first time you were confronted with working a "little overtime", you would possibly not have started down that road, but you were not placed in a boiling pot, the heat was just turned up a little at a time. The result however may be devastating.

So please feel free to share your experiences, your decisions when the heat was turned up a little at a time, and what do you think is the solution to this.

T: stress work Life Family Personal