Thoughts on Standards of Mental Health in the Workplace

Able to draw a clear boundary between work evaluation and self-worth, have a resilient and flexible tolerance for career fluctuations, and always maintain a sense of choice to escape from the current situation.

When many people first enter the workplace, the first thing their boss thinks is, "You can't bear even this grievance, you are too mentally fragile." In 2019, I met a girl who had just graduated from an operations position. Because she had an argument while working on a product, the department leader told her that she had "poor emotional management skills and was not in line with the company's values." She cried every day for half a month and even went to the psychiatrist. She felt that she really had a psychological problem. You see, this is a typical misunderstanding that replaces "enterprise employment requirements" with "mental health standards."

In fact, there are two completely different views on this matter in the academic community. In traditional organizational behavior research, "high organizational fit" is indeed regarded as the core indicator of mental health in the workplace - to put it bluntly, the better you fit the company's culture and the better you can meet the requirements of the position, the healthier you will be mentally. However, research in positive psychology and occupational health psychology in the past few years has long overturned this one-sided conclusion. The logic now more recognized by academic circles is: the core of workplace mental health is "individual subjectivity not to be swallowed up by work." To put it bluntly, you are yourself first, and secondly an employee of a certain company.

Last month I had dinner with an HRD who works in cross-border e-commerce. He complained to me that the most fearful candidate when recruiting people now is the kind of candidate who "doesn't show any emotion". Previously, their company hired a planner. After working for half a year, he worked overtime until twelve o'clock every day without saying a word. He nodded and agreed to any outrageous request made by the leader. , everyone felt that this person had a very good psychological quality, but at the end of the year he suddenly sent a naked resignation email and disappeared, taking away all the three major customer resources in his hand, causing a loss of several million to the company. Later we found out that he had been suffering from insomnia every day for the past six months and had been depressed for a long time. He just kept it in and didn't say anything. You see, that so-called "emotional stability" is not healthy at all, it's a time bomb.

In fact, the sense of boundary mentioned just now is to put it bluntly, it means to separate "work matters" from "you". I once took care of an intern, and the last activity plan she made was rejected by the director three times. The little girl sat at her workstation and shed tears, saying that she felt she could not do anything well and was not qualified to be in operations at all. I looked through her plan, and the logic was correct. What the director wanted was a private domain conversion. What she had done before was in the direction of brand exposure, and she didn't meet the demand at all. I told her, go back and complete the conversion path in the plan, clearly mark the traffic links of each activity node, and then show it to the director. If he still scolds you, it’s because he didn’t clearly explain the needs before, and it has nothing to do with your ability. Later, she passed after two revisions. When she became a full-time employee last month, the director rated her as excellent. To put it bluntly, if your boss scolds you for having a bad plan, it does not mean that you are a bad person. If you have not completed your KPIs, it does not mean that your overall value is low. If you can separate these two things clearly, you will have won over 80% of people in the workplace.

Many people also have misunderstandings about "stress resistance". They think that being unable to withstand 996 or being scolded means that they are psychologically fragile. That's not the case at all. I used to have a technical friend who worked on a big project for three weeks last year, sleeping only four hours a day. On the fourth week, he sat in front of the computer and stared at the code, and suddenly started crying. He didn't know why. He told his boss that he wanted to take two days off that day. The boss originally wanted to persuade him to hold on for a while, but he directly said, "If you hold on any longer, I will go to the hospital. If you can take responsibility, I will continue to work." The boss approved the leave on the spot. He slept at home for two days, went out to eat hot pot with friends and climbed a mountain, and was back to work as soon as he came back. You see, true elastic tolerance does not mean that you have to bear all the pressure, but that you know where your limits are. When you can't bear it, you can stop and rest, and you can recover after taking a rest, instead of holding on until you collapse, and in the end you don't even want to touch this industry. Oh, yes, I have a different point of view here. Many bosses who advocate wolf culture will say, "We don't believe in tears in the workplace. If you can't bear it, get out." But if you ask any clinical psychologist, they will tell you that "allowing yourself to be vulnerable is the real mental health." The "frustration tolerance" that you have to endure will only turn into nodules, tumors, depression and anxiety in the end, all of which you pay for yourself.

Another point that is most easily overlooked by everyone is that you must always have the confidence that "I am not just stuck here." I once met a 35-year-old programmer who had been working in a large factory for 8 years. During the layoffs last year, he suffered from insomnia every day and lost most of his hair. He went to the doctor and complained of severe anxiety. He said that he was a senior and a junior, and his mortgage was 8,000 per month. If he was laid off, he would not be able to survive. Later, when he was free, he tried to take on outsourcing projects for two small companies. He could make more than 10,000 yuan every month when he took the time to do it, which was more than half of his salary at work. Now his mentality is so good that he gets off work at the right time and does not work overtime longer than the bosses. He dares to say something to the boss if they trouble him. To put it bluntly, he knows that even if he leaves this company, he can still live a good life. Of course, it doesn’t mean that everyone should start a side job. Even if you have enough savings to survive for half a year, or you often refresh your resume to know what quotes you can get in the market, these are the sources of this kind of choice - you don’t have to really jump, but you have to know that you have a choice. This feeling is the special medicine for dealing with workplace anxiety.

In fact, after all is said and done, how can there be any standard that is universally applicable? You don’t have to force yourself to smile every day at work, you don’t feel guilty when you fish for fish occasionally, you don’t feel ashamed if you get scolded by an idiot client, you can watch dramas after work without having to think about work, you can sleep in on weekends without having to keep an eye on the work group to reply to messages, which is already a very healthy state. Really, don’t be fooled by those “N essential qualities of a good professional” online. Your own comfortable life is more important than any standard.