Isaac Oakeson (00:10): All right. We are rocking and rolling. Hey, what's up everybody? Isaac here with Civil Engineering Academy. Thank you for being here on another sweet podcast episode. We thank you for joining us if you're listening to this, while you're running at the gym, mowing your lawn, or watching the kids. But thanks for being here. Give us a like, give us a subscribe. All that stuff helps us. But we appreciate you being here.

Isaac Oakeson (00:30): So today, I'm excited because I bring my brother Mark on. We're gonna talk about stress in the workplace and how to really handle that and strategies around that so that -- You know, everybody's stressed. Every piece of work, everything you do out there has some stress element to it. And we're gonna talk about it. Strategies to help you in that journey because we don't wanna be stressed out of our mind. So anyway, that's what we're gonna talk about. It's gonna be coming up right after this.

Isaac Oakeson (00:56): All right! Mark, what is going on? Welcome to the podcast again.

Mark Oakeson (01:00): Yeah. Thanks for bringing me on again. We always have fun at these things.

Isaac Oakeson (01:04): Oh, yeah.

Mark Oakeson (01:06): Always enjoyable.

Isaac Oakeson (01:07): You're my go-to source, man.

Mark Oakeson (01:11): Well, I don't know how wise that is, though, you know? That you're trying to seek advice from me, but --

Isaac Oakeson (01:22): Why is because you're ahead of me on the whole career.

Mark Oakeson (01:26): Yeah, I'm old. I'm old for sure.

Isaac Oakeson (01:29): Well, you know, we've both had situations of being stressed at the workplace. And I guess to start this, I guess as a whole, is civil engineering a stressful career path? Maybe we could start there and then we'll talk about kind of things to look for, you know, in yourself. Symptoms or things of that nature.

Mark Oakeson (01:58): Yeah. I would say for sure it's a stressful profession. I wouldn't put it on the same level as, say, I don't know, maybe a surgeon or a physician that's dealing with direct life-and-death situations, right? Maybe an EMT kind of a guy or a person that's dealing with life-and-death situations. I would say that those careers probably have a lot more stress than a civil engineer.

Mark Oakeson (02:26): But, with that said, a civil engineer still has to be producing accurate outcomes, right? Your work has to be accurate. It has to be professional. Because, I mean, in an indirect way, there's lives that are being affected by your work, right? Your design work. And it needs to be -- You need to be competent. You need to be timely. Right? You're working towards deadlines and trying to meet those deadlines.

Mark Oakeson (02:57): And so, yeah. So, trying to be accurate and competent all within a reasonable time frame to make schedules can really throw some stress into your design work, into what you're doing. So yeah, it's definitely a stressful career.

Isaac Oakeson (03:14): Just to add to that, I think there's some things that we do to ourselves that could add more stress to our lives. You know, I'm just thinking here, but frequent job changes can introduce stress into your life as well. Just having to deal with change in people, change in processes, even changing complete career directions.

Isaac Oakeson (03:43): Let's say you were doing engineering, maybe you got into management or maybe you switched from transportation engineering and wanted to do Water Resources or something. That's a total lane change in this industry. So those things can also introduce some stress into your life.

Isaac Oakeson (04:01): But, I don't know. Is there any others I'm missing that we kind of do to ourselves?

Mark Oakeson (04:06): Well, yeah. I mean, you can speak to the job change thing, right? You've done that. I've had a little bit of that. I've been at my workplaces for a little bit longer, but I do remember, you know, when I did change companies that I worked for, there was definitely a component of that that was stressful. Just trying to get to understand all of the new team members at your company that you'll be working with and all the little social dynamics that are going on there.

Mark Oakeson (04:46): Plus, every company has a different way of doing things, right? Different protocols and standards. You know, ways of doing things from, you know, job costing and accounting to whatever. And it takes time to learn all of that stuff. So that comes with a little bit of stress for sure.

Isaac Oakeson (05:06): And we could even dive into the entrepreneurial side of starting your own engineering firm. You know, that's also a whole nother ball of wax there. Getting client work and money in the door.

Mark Oakeson (05:20): Right. Getting work in the door, that's a stressful thing. So I think we can definitively say that civil engineering can be a stressful profession, for sure.

Isaac Oakeson (05:34): Yeah. And that's not to say it's -- You know, other professions also have stress in what they do too. But, you know, as part of that, you know, you introduce more pay, better benefits, things of that nature that come along with that. So you know, it's just part of the game.

Mark Oakeson (05:54): Yeah. It comes with its compensation for some of that. And as we're gonna suggest here coming up, there's ways to deal with it, right?

Isaac Oakeson (06:02): Yep, ways to deal with it. Yeah. I'd like to talk about first maybe recognizing symptoms or things that -- You know, we go to work every day. Sometimes we don't recognize, maybe we don't even remember what we did yesterday, but like, what are some things we can look at or some indicators that would help us know that, "Hey," you know, "my stress is going up here?" Getting up there?

Mark Oakeson (06:33): Well, there's always the physical symptoms. So for me, you know, sometimes the tension headaches come on, right? You get a little stress on the shoulders. For some reason I get a little knots in my arm muscles for some reason, which is weird but maybe other people get that too. But fatigue. You know, changes in appetite. Difficulty sleeping is a big one.

Mark Oakeson (07:06): You can also be, you know, a little more susceptible to illnesses, you know? You get little bugs that get passed around the office and, you know, maybe a little more susceptible to those kind of things.

Isaac Oakeson (07:21): I chalked that up to four kids over here.

Mark Oakeson (07:23): Yeah. If you got little ones at home, then that's a whole nother issue. But yeah, your resistance to disease can, can be affected.

Mark Oakeson (07:36): So, I don't know. Besides the physical stuff -- I mean, that's some pretty common stuff. You can have emotional changes too, right? When it happens to me, I'm like -- I don't know. I'm kind of emotionally unavailable to my loved ones, you know? My wife and my kids. I don't know. I'm not very empathetic either when I'm stressed. Like, when a problem gets presented, right? The kids have a problem about something or the wife comes to you with an issue, you're just like, "Oh my goodness", you know? "I don't wanna deal with this," you know? There's no empathy there.

Mark Oakeson (08:18): So that's an indication that, that you might be a little stressed out.

Isaac Oakeson (08:22): Yeah. Could probably relate to that a lot.

Mark Oakeson (08:28): Yeah. You can relate to that, right?

Isaac Oakeson (08:30): That's probably the biggest one, I think, in my life. Because I noticed when I am stressed, I get more snappy, I have less patience, you know? It's just like, "what is going on?" And it's like, "I just gotta get stuff done" and --

Mark Oakeson (08:47): Yeah. You've got your task list that's kind of going in the back of your mind and then all these other problems present themselves that you're like, "Ugh."

Isaac Oakeson (08:58): "Oh, the kids put a hole on the wall. Oh my gosh, I can't get to that."

Mark Oakeson (09:03): Right. And then your thought patterns are another indication that you're probably over-stressed. So, the worrying that you mentioned, Isaac. If you're having difficulty concentrating, sometimes I'll have a design task that I need to do, and when my stress levels are high during a particular day, sometimes it's hard for me to concentrate on the task at hand. And I have to get up and take a walk and shake it off, you know? Before I can dig into whatever design problem that I'm trying to get through.

Isaac Oakeson (09:45): Yeah, and that's especially if you're doing, you know, engineering. If you're doing any calculations or having to really break open books and actually read something, it's hard to pay attention. I mean, it goes back to like studying for your FE or PE exam. You know, how hard was that to study for when you had work and everything else going on, you know?

Mark Oakeson (10:07): Yeah. It was tough. And an example of that, I mean, just this last Tuesday, right? I was trying to get a reshore design done for some escalators that are being installed on a project that I'm working on. And I had just, like, dealt with about six different issues on this particular job that I'm trying to manage. And, you know, my stress levels were up and I was trying to sit down and focus on this problem, and I couldn't do it. It was like, "Oh, I gotta get outta here," you know?

Mark Oakeson (10:46): So I got out of my office and I went on a little walk and just got outside and just kind of calmed down. And then when I was able to go back, my head was cleared and it was a lot better. But I feel that. It's hard to concentrate when you're stressed.

Isaac Oakeson (11:04): Yeah, for sure.

Mark Oakeson (11:06): What's something else? Behavioral changes, right? Your productivity's dropping. You're withdrawing from social interactions. Procrastination.

Isaac Oakeson (11:18): Oh, man.

Mark Oakeson (11:23): Yeah, I do some of that when I'm stressed.

Isaac Oakeson (11:26): That's the big buzzword, right? What do they call it? Silently quitting? Silent Quitting.

Mark Oakeson (11:32): Yeah.

Isaac Oakeson (11:32): And I think part of that is that some people are burned out, right? Like, there is no end of the work, and sometimes people just wanna put it on cruise control, procrastinate a little more.

Mark Oakeson (11:48): Yeah. If your productivity's decreasing, you're withdrawing, you know, increased procrastination, I've done that a lot, you know you got something. You're kind of stressed, but you just, "Ah, I'll get that tomorrow," you know? You push it off.

Mark Oakeson (12:10): And then if you're losing interest in the activities that you normally, like, would be interested in or that you've enjoyed doing in the past, but it's just become more of a hassle, you know, then that's a good indication that your stress levels are high.

Isaac Oakeson (12:25): Yeah, I think another one is, like, your physical environment. You know, are you dealing with an office that is super loud or, you know, is your environment set up to help you with your stress levels? If you're always dealing with tight deadlines, or it's super noisy all the time, or even if you lack support, if you feel like you're lacking support, you can't go to anybody.

Isaac Oakeson (13:04): Which is a little harder when everybody's either hybrid or remote and, you know, everyone says they're busy. It's a little harder to reach out and feel like you're getting support when you need it.

Mark Oakeson (13:17): Right. One of the big things that that gets me is when I'm trying to focus on something and I'm constantly interrupted, you know? And I have this to-do list in my head, "This is what I gotta get done today." And I'm constantly interrupted by different things, different issues. Man, for me, that's what drives my stress level up. It's just like, "I got this list of stuff I gotta get done, and I'm constantly interrupted with issues all day long." And I guess it's kind of the cost of being a manager, you know, of a project. But that's one of the things that does get me that I've noticed.

Isaac Oakeson (14:02): Maybe we need to move to Hawaii and just, you know, get out.

Mark Oakeson (14:06): Be a beach commerce or something.

Isaac Oakeson (14:09): Okay. Well, that's good. So, you know, we've talked about recognizing those stressful elements in your life. Would it be wise for you to take inventory of that sometimes? Maybe even a journal would be helpful to describe what was a stressful day for you.

Mark Oakeson (14:30): Yeah. So those are all the things that maybe triggers for us, right? Or the things that we can recognize as our stress levels go up. And so now that we're stressed out, what do we do about it, right? What do we do?

Isaac Oakeson (14:48): What are some tips you've got on your mind that we can do to [inaudible] some of these things?

Mark Oakeson (14:55): So once we've figured out noticing the symptoms and the patterns that lead to our stress, and like you said, keeping, like, a journal is really a good idea because it helps you look back and figure out, "Okay, that day that I had two weeks ago, that was horrible." You know, "What happened that day?" And you can go back and kind of analyze that.

Mark Oakeson (15:17): And then when you have a good day, and you've noted that in your journal, "What happened on that good day? What was I doing that helped me have a nice experience and it helped relieve my stress," you know? "What was I doing?" Was I hiking? Was I biking? Was I, you know, spending time with my family? What was I doing? Was I meditating?

Mark Oakeson (15:43): You know, it kind of helped you establish that pattern of when things go bad and when things go good so that you can kind of recognize that in yourself. I think that's kind of an important thing. Self-awareness, I guess, is the -- Journal is a tool to help you become a little more self-aware.

Isaac Oakeson (16:07): Yeah, I totally agree. For me, I mean, you mentioned a couple things like exercise, walking. People are, you know, writing that down. I think for me, that's definitely one of them. I think just getting out and moving, getting your body moving really helps drive a better attitude in yourself. So if it's a walk you can do at, you know, a break or lunch or whatever, those are always good things to do.

Isaac Oakeson (16:38): If people are working from home, do you have a home gym you can jump into? Can you get out and, you know, check out things before you gotta come back to work? Those are all good stuff.

Isaac Oakeson (16:49): What else you got?

Mark Oakeson (16:52): Time management, right? So let's try to prevent us from getting into the high-stress environment or the high-stress feelings that we're experiencing. Let's help us avoid that all together. So, efficiently managing our time and prioritizing our tasks can definitely help reduce stress. You know, sometimes things pile up on us and if we're stuck into the procrastination, that doesn't help, right? It'll pile up on us. But if we can look at our tasks that we have to do and break them down into smaller tasks, more manageable pieces, right? That's helpful.

Mark Oakeson (17:38): And then setting realistic deadlines. You know, as a manager, sometimes I expect unrealistic deadlines from people sometimes. And you know, that can induce some stress into whatever design work or whatever engineering's being done. But if you can push back against that a little bit, even if you're working for a manager that tends to be a little more demanding than most, make sure that you're communicating those things.

Mark Oakeson (18:11): Just like "I can't make that timeline. I've broken down the process, the tasks that I have to do into little more manageable bites, and I think it's gonna take this long." That's just how long it's gonna take, you know? And try to get that time that you need, right?

Isaac Oakeson (18:31): A big one that you always hear, and even workplaces preach about this, is establishing a work-life balance. How do you effectively do that? Sometimes that gets a little crazy. For me, I think, you know, if you have vacation time, make sure you're using it. Try to turn off work when you're at home, so you're present.

Mark Oakeson (18:56): That's a big one.

Isaac Oakeson (18:57): You know, your loved ones want you to be there, and not always beyond for work stuff.

Mark Oakeson (19:06): What does everybody have in their pockets nowadays that really fights against that, right? Everybody's got a cell phone. We're all reachable by whomever, 24/7. And some of us have two of them, right? But these things can, like, they can drive you nuts, right? And they can prevent creating these boundaries that you're talking about when we're trying to establish a work-life balance if you're not creating these boundaries and shutting it off when you get home, right?

Mark Oakeson (19:42): You're continually looking at your email and somebody from work sending you a text, and you're constantly being drawn back into your work environment just mentally through your cell phone, that can destroy the work-life balance. So yeah it's important to establish those boundaries.

Isaac Oakeson (20:01): Yeah. I hate getting like an email from managers at like 10:00 PM. It sets some precedent that, like, "Should I be working at 10:00 PM? Why are they sending me stuff at 10 PM?" Just like, "Why?!"

Mark Oakeson (20:16): I've had stuff at 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM, you know? And I think that exact same thing, like, "what is going on?" Somebody's a night owl, they got insomnia or something, but geez, please. Yeah. That's nuts. So you have to establish those boundaries. I think that's a huge part of work-life balance.

Isaac Oakeson (20:43): I think the, another one we have on our list is really good for younger engineers entering the workforce, but that's to develop some sort of mentorship or support. And I know sometimes it's really hard to do that when you're working with a more senior engineer because they're already busy and sometimes it's hard to like -- You have to find someone that kind of has a willingness to teach.

Mark Oakeson (21:13): Yeah.

Isaac Oakeson (21:13): Sometimes people aren't willing to teach and they don't want to deal with it anymore because sometimes they've been doing it for a long time and, "here's some more fresh meat," you know? "I don't wanna do this again." But I think if you establish yourself, I think if you wanna take steps forward in your career, you need to be more open with them and that, "Hey, I really need a mentor I can bounce stuff off of. Could I have just, you know, 10, 15 minutes of a day just to like bounce stuff off you?"

Isaac Oakeson (21:52): Yes. And one of the things -- When I was kind of starting out in my career, I had some individuals that were willing to help me and I'm so grateful for those guys that did that for me. But one of the big things that helped that dynamic be, you know, the most productive, I guess, that it could have been, is when I would come to that individual that was mentoring me with all of my thought process, right? "This is what I think I should do. This is how I think I should get to the solution. What are your thoughts?" And then I wasn't like expecting that mentor to, you know, hold my hand through --

Isaac Oakeson (22:34): Solve the problem.

Mark Oakeson (22:34): Yeah. Solve the problem completely or hold my hand through the entire process. I was just trying to make sure I was going in the right direction, right? So, I think, um, the one that's learning has a responsibility to at least go down the road and try as as much as they can before they go to that mentor and ask questions. Because you're right, they're busy, right? And so I think you can foster a little bit better dynamic there, a little more productive dynamic, when you have done your homework, essentially, before you approach them.

Isaac Oakeson (23:12): Good points. Well, there's a million of these, but, you know, let's talk about a few others. I think one of the big ones I think is effective communication. When you know something is going sideways on you, are you quick to communicate those issues to those those need to know about them? Are you quick to talk to management about issues that you're facing or are you withdrawing information? I just think open communication, even to define maybe its scope of work or whatever, but communication can be a big deal in helping to reduce stress in your life.

Mark Oakeson (23:56): I agree. There's a lot of stress that's induced into a work environment because, I don't know, expectations aren't set right. And if you look at why the expectations aren't set right or even understood by everybody, it's because of bad communication. And then, like a subordinate, like if a manager gives a subordinate a task or a responsibility, and that subordinate doesn't know exactly what's expected because the communication's bad, that subordinate's gonna be stressed out, right?

Mark Oakeson (24:37): "Am I doing this right? Am I going in the right direction? My manager gonna get mad at me?" You know? So yeah, that's a good point. If we can, you know, clear up those things and, you know, be good effective communicators, that reduces a lot of stress. It does.

Isaac Oakeson (25:00): Yeah. That leads to, I guess another tip, and that is to delegate when you can. So if you are a manager or supervisor, how important is it to delegate versus a manager that is more hands-on?

Mark Oakeson (25:18): Well, as a, as a manager, I struggle with that because sometimes I get in the mindset that, you know, "if you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself," you know? And I get stuck in situations sometimes where I feel like that. Like, maybe I have a subordinate that I could pass a task off to, but I'm, you know, feeling like that person's not gonna do it the way I would do it, and so if I want it done right and I gotta do it myself, you know?

Mark Oakeson (25:55): As a short-term strategy to get something done that might work, but as a long-term strategy, where we're talking about, you know, if you're a manager trying to bring your people up, training them and get them competent in the task that they've gotta do, it's not a good long-term strategy, right?

Mark Oakeson (26:14): And then it adds stress to a manager's, I don't know, already pretty heavy workload if that's the mentality. "Nobody else can do this but me." And then all of a sudden you have too many things to do because you're the only one that can do them, right. None of the people that you work with, any of your subordinates have anything to do because you're the only who are just going to do it anyway.

Mark Oakeson (26:40): So if that's the case, if they can't do it the way, then you gotta teach them and that takes time. And sometimes that's, you know, it requires some patience. But as a long-term strategy, you have to do that. Otherwise the manager is just gonna have more and more stress because there's more and more things for that manager to take on.

Mark Oakeson (27:03): So that's something that I've definitely struggled with in my career is letting others do tasks and having essentially enough time to teach them, bring them along so that they're doing it correctly. And sometimes things can be done differently and still correctly at the end of the day.

Mark Oakeson (27:22): But when I've been able to, you know, train people and let those things go and been able to delegate, it definitely relieves stress. And it's a great long-term plan for your projects is to always be training your people. I was always taught, you know, in my career that you're always trying to train your replacement, right? That's your mentality that you gotta have. If you're an effective manager, you're training your subordinates to essentially replace you eventually, if you're doing the job properly.

Isaac Oakeson (28:05): Well that's definitely another tip. And that kind of leads to, you know, developing problem-solving skills. Getting the training, you know, whether it's workshop, webinar, whatever it is. Continue education, your mentor. But continually learning to find somebody that can problem solve, find your replacement and doing that will help you, you know, in stressful situations, to know how to better problem solve when things come up, because you kind of know what you should be doing. So pretty straightforward there.

Mark Oakeson (28:41): Yeah.

Isaac Oakeson (28:41): Awesome. Any other tips that you have on top of your mind before we wrap this one up?

Mark Oakeson (28:47): Well, what about -- I think we've, we've mentioned everything. Maybe we ought to mention some more coping mechanisms. I think we've gone through a lot of the big stuff, but you talked about hiking and getting out in nature and those kind of things, Isaac, what else do you do to cope with the stress? What's some other good --

Isaac Oakeson (29:16): Yeah. For me, you know, other things people do, especially younger people, but they love to game. It takes your mind off of whatever you aree doing at work. People love to binge watch a Netflix show or something that's on. And maybe there's too much of that, so you gotta keep it all in balance. But those are definitely things to help remove your mind from work, or other coping mechanisms that you can do. Self-awareness, like journal keeping also falls into that as well. But find something that works for you.

Mark Oakeson (29:53): What about hobbies? Hobbies?

Isaac Oakeson (29:55): Like golf. Maybe even playing in a basketball league. Something like that. Or maybe it's basket weaving. I don't know. There's a million things you could do with hobbies.

Mark Oakeson (30:08): Right. And then making sure that you're practicing that mindfulness that we talked about earlier, recognizing those signs. So, yeah. Okay.

Isaac Oakeson (30:20): Well I think we kind of hit it. So we've talked about all the symptoms, we've talked about some strategies. Combine those things and you'll have a much better place and a mindset at your own workplace. We all get stressed. Find ways to reduce that stress in ways that work for you. And hopefully these tips can help you on that journey.

Mark Oakeson (30:46): Mark, thanks for jumping on and doing another one with me.

Mark Oakeson (30:49): You bet. Anytime, man.

Isaac Oakeson (30:51): Okay, we'll talk to you later. Bye.