Well, I never get an opportunity to use my vacation days when I want it, I need to ensure sufficient coverage when I’m away and only take time off when there is coverage. But I guess that’s the responsibility you have to take when the work you do is of high value. At least I won’t be replaced by some guy from the third world who doesn’t know American English because my job mandates good English speaking and writing skills as well as a strong engineering background.

Not in the job anymore, but the job that really screwed me up was stressful for one main reason: I had responsibility without authority. I knew what needed to be done, and others relied on me to accomplish those things, but I couldn't act because only my supervisor had authority to act (eg spend money or make contracts.) And he never would act, so very little ever got done. He was the bottleneck that every other person there couldn't get through. If I'd only had the authority to purchase what needed to get purchased, hire who needed to get hired, contract for what needed to be contracted, build what needed to be built, do what needed to be done - but I didn't. I always had to go through him. And the other employees couldn't understand why I couldn't just go ahead and do things without going through him. But when you don't legally have authority to sign contracts or access financial accounts or sign off on other people's work, there's nothing to be done.

I worked in the automotive manufacturer world, and we worked minute by minute, hour by hour harder than anyone I ever knew. Our lives were guided by monthly objectives and obtaining the unobtainable numbers. The last 1/3 of my 36 year career was 100% on the road going all over the country working with dealers.

Seemingly constant threat of the various organizations I've worked for looking to downsize, merge or sell their business entirely. It's never ending and I'm now dealing with this YET AGAIN for the 2nd year in a row at another organization. People can talk all they want about "keeping your head down and working" and "don't worry about the things you cannot control" but the reality is, losing a job in this economy would be really, really bad.

The work itself isn't. It's the surrounding politics. I took Friday off. It was only my second vacation day of the year. I get a text about noon asking how to install a certain application. I referred the guy who texted me back to the guy who used to run that system. The second guy then texts me saying "this is urgent" because a CFO needed it. I was at a restaurant and didn't have computer access. I shouldn't be expected to have a computer on me 24x7 when on PTO. I walked him through how to do it, but it's still not right. I had to apologize to the CFO this morning. We are in a situation where it's basically 24x7 availability for service requests. There is no reason this couldn't have waited until Monday.

Having gone through this a number of times now, I can tell you busting your tail and working late hours does not save you from the chopping block. Actually, it might put a target on you as you then become a high performing, higher-earning employee and those are the ones they look to lop off after the merger/sale. No, I'll continue to do my job to the very best of my ability with a smile on my face. But I'm not killing myself with 70+ hour work weeks if, in the end, the business is going to dissolve one way or the other with the CEO riding off into the sunset with his/her multi-million dollar stock options.

For me as a manager the job has very little stress, normally, with an occasional exception. Currently I have one vacancy under me and a hiring freeze due to the pandemic, but at the same time things are slow so we are able to handle it. Typically the stress comes at budget deadline time, late summer, or when doing a major software upgrade that requires extensive testing and training.

There are a few important things I've noticed at the workplace as the followings: 1. If you are a long-time employee and top performer, you have more chance to be getting rid off because some of your managers does not like you due to maybe she is insecure and jealous of you. 2. If you keep doing your best and helping others a lot, your co-workers and management expect you to keep doing so more and more forever. When you feel tired and burned out and speak up, they will say you have changed, and they judge you and dislike you. And they try to give you troubles. 3. No matter how hard you work, but if you don't know how to socialize, flatter your managers and co-workers, you will have hard times at work. Job alone does not make me feel stressful. The things above do.

I tend to agree with other posters who say that it's not the job as much as it is the environment. Not to say that there aren't parts of each job that can be stressful, just that mostly for me, it's been the environment.

Well...that's why they call it work.

I always felt like stress is a choice. You can either do your job or you can do your job and worry over it. All you can do is try and do the best you can each and every day. If your boss makes you justify the extra time spent then do so without being defensive, it's just business.

My job is stressful due to a bully boss and newer staff they hired. They hired some women with no skills but is "nice" (if I hear hire on just soft skills and hard skills can be trained, I will scream. It is not fair for me to constantly train this woman)

Stress is 90% mental. I used to get incredibly stressed, but I do better with it now than I have in a long time. That said, the biggest stress is what could happen if something goes wrong. I often I don't have someone else to go to for help/advice. Many decisions can have failures where the financial cost measures in high six figures into seven figures, so the stress of "what did I miss, what could go wrong that I haven't thought of" is always there.

Boss is out constantly

Laid off employees = absorbing their duties aka more work for me....in less hours