Monday 22 October 2007

Leading cause of death: idiots

With thanks to Petar for sending this gem.

Idiots in the office are just as hazardous to your health as cigarettes, caffeine or greasy foods, an eye-opening new study reveals. In fact, those dopes can killyou! Stress is one of the top causes of heart attacks - and working with stupid people on a daily basis is one of the deadliest forms of stress, according to researchers at the Medical Centre of Sweden's Lindbergh University.

The author of the study, Dr Dagmar Andersson, says her team studied 500 heart attack patients and were puzzled to find 62 percent had relatively few of the physical risk factors commonly associated with heart attacks. "Then we questioned them about lifestyle habits and almost all of those low risk patients told us they worked with people so stupid they can barely find their way from the carpark to the office. And their heart attack came less than 12 hours after having a major confrontation with one of these oafs. One woman had to be rushed to hospital after her assistant shredded important company tax documents instead of copying them. A man told us he collapsed right at his desk because the woman at the next cubicle kept asking him for correction fluid - for her computer monitor."
Dr Andersson says: "You can cut back on smoking or improve your diet but most people have very poor coping skills when it comes to stupidity - they feel there's nothing they can do about it, so they just internalise their frustration until they finally explode."

Stupid co-workers can also double or triple someone's workload, she explains. "Many of our subjects feel sorry for the drooling idiots they work with, so they try to cover for them by fixing their mistakes. One poor woman spent a week rebuilding client records, because a clerk put them all in the computer's Recycle Bin and then emptied it - she thought it meant the records would be recycled and used again."

9 comments:

  1. That was a good one Guido....Thanks I needed that. :o)
    Lisa

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  2. I think there is alot of truth in this ,I worked with a woman capable of doing all these things ,it got so I dreaded going into work each day ...love Jan xx

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  3. OMG I hope I never am plagued with working with someone like these people described!  
    Lori

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  4. We've all had our share of idiots to work with! I'm lucky inasfar as I can switch off from these people. Jeannette xx  http://journals.aol.co.uk/jlocorriere05/Welcometomytravels  

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  5. Are these true?  They ought to be jokes, but I am afraid that stress over stupidity does cause some health problems.   I got in seerious serious stress in the cosmetic factory because machine tenders and bosses would turn the line up t top speed even when you told them there was a serious malfunction with the product component, for example a bottle cap that would not screw on.  These idiots would just ignore your info and expect you to screw on the defective bottle caps fast anyway! I collapsed on the job over that one night and never could recover enough to go back to work, it was horrible.   Gerry  

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  6. Omigosh, I'm afraid if I had to work around that kind of stupidity I'd probably have a heart attack too -- and I have a strong heart!!  It sounds like a joke but you just never really know.  I have seen people I've wondered how they've survived because of some of the stupid things they've done.  Ah, well, I suppose that's just the way it is!  Have a great day and avoid the stupids!!  Blessings, Linda  

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  7. This is great...I can relate.
    Lisa

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  8. HOW TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!..........LOL............June:)

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  9. G'day Guido,

    I am glad to share this little gem of a piece with you and your readers. I am an office worker and can relate big time with this article. I cannot stress enough that I have been stressed from stupidity in my office from my boss to fellow work colleagues. I have had to fix up many a mistake from people who have destroyed paperwork that a client filled in to someone deciding to press every button on the alarm keypad locking it up and then stating "I didn't do anything Petar. I found it like that."
    All I know is that I cannot stress enough, when you leave your job each day, please do leave the stresses at work. Enjoy life, the work is just that work, don't allow it to rule your life.

    Cheers,
    Petar

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