Feeling Overwhelmed?
I was talking with a colleague who is also a manager of respiratory care and she indicated that she was overwhelmed with work and didn't know how she was going to be able to accomplish all that is being asked of her to do.
I initially made the assumption that she was understaffed and doing a considerable amount of patient care herself in addition to all of her responsibilities as a department manager. However, I was wrong in my assumption, because she is fully staffed and the hospital census is down significantly. So, why was she overwhelmed?
I wondered if my definition of "overwhelmed" was the problem, so I looked up the definition in my trusty dictionary and it gave this definition: "to overcome completely in mind or feeling, to load, heap, treat, or address with an overpowering or excessive amount of anything, to come, rest, or weigh upon overpoweringly; crush."
Well, that was pretty close to what was running through my mind. But I wondered why she felt this overpowering or crushing feeling.
Since that conversation several weeks ago, I have heard this same comment numerous times from other managers of respiratory care.
I have never experienced the "overwhelming" feeling and I am beginning to think that I am either very weird or too old to feel or allow anything to overwhelm me.
Are there times when you feel overwhelmed by your workload? If so, why is that? Are you understaffed or is it just too much work to complete in too short a time?
If you haven't felt overwhelmed by the amount of work you are asked to do, why is that? Your suggestion should be helpful to those that do feel overwhelmed. I look forward to hearing from you.