Can the stress make you a b?
If you are a marketer, or have to deal with the daily grind of marketing your small business, you probably already know how overwhelming and difficult it can be. But can the stresses of marketing actually make you a nastier person?
Business consultant Mark Schaefer seems to think so. He posted an blog post entitled, “Why working in marketing makes you bitchy.” And while I’m not particularly fond of the “B word,” which has historically been applied to assertive women, the guy has a point.
Hear him out
His article is a response to a report from Workfront, a company that makes work management software, entitled “State of Marketing Work.” Says Schaefer, “reading this report, it’s hard to believe you might work in marketing and NOT be kind of a bitch.”
According to the report, marketers are working more weekly hours than their non-marketing coworkers, and those hours have increased to 45.9 per week since last year.
Marketers seem to be working overtime to make up for the “wasteful meetings” that 62 percent report get in the way of doing their jobs.
Additionally, over half of marketers reported that excessive oversight was also a hindrance to efficiency. In other words, having to constantly check in with supervisors and attend meetings is really slowing marketers down, and they’re making up for it by working more hours.
That’s not all
There are plenty of reasons for marketers to be stressed. Schaefer asserts that marketers are often scapegoated when products fail or profits dip, whether or not marketing was truly the problem.
In addition, marketers have a lot of pressure to quantify their results. But in reality, measuring marketing success is tricky.
Lastly, changes in digital technology are happening so rapidly that it’s tough to keep up, and many marketers are just trying to fake it ‘til they make it. Indeed, marketers have their work cut out for them.
A dose of perspective
But you know what? So do laundresses. And waitresses. And teachers. And nurses. And social workers. And activists.
A lot of people have incredibly difficult jobs that not only demand over 40 hours a week, but are also physically exhausting and expose them to secondary trauma on a routine basis.
Stress has a variety of effects. It can make you unhealthy, depressed, and yes, even “bitchy,” by which I presume Schaefer means mean-spirited and hard to work with. Workfront’s report showed that 98 percent of marketing teams had conflict with other teams.
The difference between marketers and every day working people, who have to serve customers and take orders from their superiors, is that the latter can’t really get away with being “bitchy,” even though they are working just as many hours as marketers, but for much lower wages.
Suck it up
So marketers, I feel your pain. Your job is not easy, and that might make you want to chew out your coworker, or shout down the sales guy in the next cubicle who talks to loud (which 36 percent of marketers said was their biggest pet peeve).
But suck it up.
You’re probably getting a salary, benefits, and a job where you are allowed to have an opinion. Which is a lot more than most working people can say.
Grow a plant, meditate, take a pill. But be nice. Don’t be a bitch. You don’t have any better excuse than anyone else.
