26
STRESS MANIFESTS

We had to undergo a routine health and safety training session and signed up as a department to attend the daytime session. The training included both office and plant workers, so I figured that some of it wouldn’t be super relevant for my team. I knew we were in for a treat when the moderator opened with: “When you’re shovelling gravel all day...”. Neither the plant nor office workers’ tasks involved shovelling gravel, so it turns out the training wouldn’t be super relevant for most people. We continued to discuss workplace accidents and then spent a lot of time discussing workplace homicides. The analogy given here began with: “If someone comes at you with a hammer”. Somehow the training became even less relevant for everyone. I think it’s  safe to say that if you’re in a work environment where someone might attack you with a hammer, you should find a new workplace. 
We then discussed workplace threats and how they could lead to a workplace homicide situation. My older colleague proudly exclaimed that someone had once threatened to kill him. I laughed and asked if the person had been joking. He was completely serious and insisted that he indeed had been threatened. We all chuckled to ourselves and moved on to the next topic: workplace stress. 
The moderator asked us about sources of stress, how to reduce stress and impacts of stress on our bodies. A few folks overshared as expected, but we were given an activity to place a sticker indicating where our stress manifested itself on an outline of a body drawn on a piece of chart paper. Everyone put their stickers on the head, neck, shoulder and back areas. Everyone except my older colleague, that is. He placed his sticker on the knee and proceeded to insist that his knee pain flared up when he was under stress. The moderator was excited at this newfound knee stress manifestation since he had never heard of it before.
While I had expected to learn about work station ergonomics and preventing workplace accidents, instead I discovered how stress manifests after a long day of shovelling gravel. And also how that could lead to a workplace homicide situation. It was definitely a memorable training session!