Is stress catching?

Source: Daily Mail

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Until six months ago, Julie Hall loved her job. She had been with the firm for three years, got on with her colleagues and thrived on the challenges of working in a busy HR department. Then a new manager arrived — and everything changed.

‘At first, she seemed nice, if a bit highly strung, but I put it down to new job nerves,’ says Julie, 38, from Wimbledon.

‘But as the weeks went on it became clear that she was the kind of person who got stressed by anything and everything. When she’s upset, which is frequently, she mutters and curses loudly under her breath. It’s really distracting, but if you offer to help she gets defensive.

‘I am naturally an easy-going person and get on well with everyone, but being around her is hard. I feel myself physically tensing up. I find it difficult to concentrate with her mumbling next to me and so I become stressed because I’m falling behind, whereas I was always on top of my work before.

‘It’s got to the stage where I leave work feeling almost as uptight as she does and dread going in the next day. My colleagues feel the same. She speaks to them aggressively and nobody can relax because we’re always waiting for her to turn on us.

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