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David Evans

Are you feeling a little under pressure today?

In that case, you probably have been working too hard. Not to worry because this week, the Mental Health in the Workplace campaign has kicked off.

According to accountant and consultant Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, career satisfaction involves balancing professional opportunities with personal fulfilment.

Managing work/life harmony (and therefore mental health) is about having options to reach your full potential.

Lai See  pointed this out to his boss and suggested we swap our chair for a hammock and move the whole thing to Tahiti.

He suggested we propel ourself through the large rectangular hole in his office wall and to stop wasting his time.

Dr Raymond Wu Wai-yung, chairman of the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee, said living in a place renowned for its high work efficiency and fast pace of life such as Hong Kong, you have to be doubly careful about your mental health.

'Employers and managers need to build a work environment which is conducive to promoting the mental health of their employees,' he said.

The Mental Health Month is organised by the Health and Welfare Bureau with the support of the Hospital Authority, various government departments and non-government organisations to promote public awareness on the importance of mental health.

Inspiringly entitled 'Mental Health in the Workplace', this year's campaign is aimed at enhancing the awareness of employers and employees on mental health and ways to deal with stress.

Back to Dr Wu.

'Through this year's activities, we hope to be able to draw the attention of employers and managers to the importance of their employees' mental health and the need to build a harmonious and happy workplace,' he said.

But surely, therein lies the problem. The words 'harmonious', 'happy' and 'workplace' do not belong in the same sentence.

Let's face it, the thing that drives you berserk at work is work.

That and the employee who sits opposite and appears incapable of blowing their nose and sniffs their way through the day.

So what could make work harmonious (apart from replacing all colleagues with goldfish)?

On their Web site, Deloitte gives some indication of what makes employees happy (apart from three-hour lunch breaks and whoopee cushions under the managing director's chair).

Continuing part-time - Job sharing with a co-worker. The tea lady perhaps?

Alternative work arrangements - Deloitte suggests working three-days a week and full-time during busy periods, which sounds suspiciously like part-time to us.

Leaves of absence - A senior staff accountant in our Langley office took a six-month leave of absence and is fulfilling her desire for travel and devotion to her Christian faith, said the company.

Over the next three months in Hong Kong, there will be a series of talks, workshops, exhibitions, recreational activities and visits.

Tantalising seminars include: 'Make Friends with Pressure and Say Goodbye to Pressure.'

Which appears to be a contradiction of terms.

Why invite Pressure in for a nightcap in the first place if you're only going to kick her out of the flat in the morning?

Another seminar is: 'Mothers Reduce Pressure.'

We called the organisers and shouted down the phone that: 'Mothers add to pressure you fools!!!', but they suggested we go lie down and hung up.



Working up sanity not a mad idea