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Career Miscellaneous RSI

A typical RSI sufferer’s day

clockSome readers may not know what it’s like to suffer from a computer related RSI (repetitive strain injury). The following provides a small glimpse into my previous life on a typical day at the office in a full time well paid job with a continual workload.

My typical RSI day

7.00am wake up. RSI pain feels best right now having had a good sleep. May feel even better if I have remembered to wear my wrist brace over night. If I haven’t, then I may have tingling/pain and numbness in the hands and wrists before the day starts – not good! (stress level 0/10, pain level 1/10)

8.30am put wrist brace on to drive in traffic to job. Between busy driving conditions and thoughts of workload ahead, I’m starting to feel less relaxed.  Arrive at work, on time, but a bit stressed after all that traffic! (stress level 2/10, pain level 2/10)

10.00am spent 1hr catching up on overnight emails, creating actions from them and replying to others (stress level 4/10, pain level 5/10)

11.00am spent most of mid morning working on latest priority work (maybe if I get this out of the way now, I’ll get to my real work this afternoon). Pretty absorbed in work, trying to

Categories
Career Miscellaneous RSI

RSI and Job Performance

Performance v Endurance

If you are anything like I was, you are a good conscientious performer in your job. You may have been working extra hours to make sure you did a good job, you may also have worked evenings, weekends and even holidays. This is more often than not done to meet or exceed your goals, improve your chances of promotion and attain the related pay increases. It’s quite often the people who work hardest who are the most stressed in life, because they care about the quality of their work. They may often be the ones carrying the biggest workload, mainly because they are performing the best. This high pressure work may all be being conducted on a computer and therefore exposing the worker to some of the greatest risk factors for an onset of an RSI.

It would be interesting to do a poll of RSI sufferers in the industry and see how many correlated to previously ‘good’ performing employees, although reliable data may be very hard to obtain.

It’s an old cliche, but in your job you have to try to strike a good balance between