Trying so hard not to cry

To view this email in a browser, [click here](. INC. THIS MORNING Trying so hard not to cry Good morning, [A new study]( out of the U.K. about work stress found that 40 percent of employees -- out of 2,000 surveyed -- say they're "close to the breaking point" at work. The numbers, compiled for a British charity called the Chartered Accountants Benevolent Association, are pretty eye-opening: - 60 percent say they get stressed about work when they go on holiday. - 31 percent say they call in sick due to work stress. - 30 percent say they've been "pushed to the point of tears." - 10 percent say they use alcohol to cope. - 14 percent say they "used their own children as an excuse to avoid the office." It's tough to read, and perhaps surprising. If you're the boss, I don't think many employees will eagerly tell you how stressed and upset they are about their jobs. Would they share that they drink too much, or call in sick, or use their kids as an excuse? Would they admit that they're sometimes at "the point of tears," outside of an anonymous survey? I ask because I've been there. This study brought me back to 10 years ago this month, when [I quit a job after a single day](. It was at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affair, and it was one of the worst days I've ever had working. Even though it paid about $100,000 a year and I had nothing else lined up, I came in early in the morning on Day 2 and quit. It wasn't the department’s fault. It was just so obviously the wrong fit. I told nobody about this for nine years. Then, last year, I started writing about it. This past May, [I wound up talking about it]( on CBS Sunday Morning. With the passage of time, and the natural self-protection I think we all have, I'd forgotten the true details of just how bad that day really was. But during the taping of CBS Sunday Morning, reporter Tony Dokoupil looked closely at the notes I'd saved from that day. I had written them as I sat through the world's most depressing new employee orientation, then reported to the poorly lit desk I'd been assigned, deep in the bowels of the bureaucracy. The job was too close to the worst parts of jobs I'd had before. Dokoupil spotted six scrawled words I'd forgotten about: "Trying so hard not to cry." His discovery took me right back, instantly -- an interesting experience in the middle of a television interview. That day at the VA was probably the nadir of my professional career. But at least three good things eventually came out of it: - I wound on both CBS Sunday Morning, and The Tonight Show. (That part is a bit crazy and a little bit PG-13. [I wrote about it here.]( - The winding road from that day, through a writing business I started (pretty much out of necessity), leads directly to me now writing for Inc.com -- and you reading these words. - I have empathy for people who find themselves in the wrong job, stressed or discouraged to the point of tears. I've talked with so many entrepreneurs who started or run their businesses -- and who joke about how they couldn't have been happy working for someone else. If that sounds like you, well: You're the leader now. You're the one who wants your employees to enjoy working for you -- or, at the very least, not for 30 percent of them to secretly fight back tears when they wake up in the morning. That means you need your eyes open enough to notice, even when those employees don't want to tell you. HERE'S WHAT ELSE I'M READING TODAY: I wrote about [the three types of resumes]( and why recruiters at Amazon and Google only want to see “format #3.” --Inc. [Uber just laid off around 350 employees]( bringing the figure to roughly 1,185 layoffs over the past three months. --TechCrunch Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly been [hosting private meetings with conservative pundits]( since July. --Politico According to Simon Sinek, [the best way to run a business]( is without an end goal in mind. --Inc. [How to tell your employees]( they can't have pets in the office (without breaking their hearts). --Inc. Here’s why open-plan offices are [especially bad for women](. --Quartz Two giant record-breaking marathon performances are [challenging long-held ideas about the limits of human physiology](. --The Wall Street Journal Another one I wrote: People think Netflix killed Blockbuster, but there are [seven other reasons it died](. --Inc. --Bill Murphy Jr. Contributing Editor, Inc.com Story ideas and feedback actively solicited. Find me at [billmurphyjr@inc.com](mailto:billmurphyjr@inc.com?subject=), or on [LinkedIn]( [Facebook]( and [Twitter](. [Click here]( to forward to a friend. This email was sent by: Mansueto Ventures 7 World Trade Center, 29th Floor New York, NY, 10007, [Unsubscribe]( • [Update Profile]( • [View in Browser]( • [Forward to a Friend](