A German doctor has published a research paper which will delight the hearts of 20-year-old X-Box addicts everywhere.
Dr. Michael Linden, head of the psychiatric clinic at the Free University of Berlin, delivered a paper to the World Congress on Psychosomatic Medicine claiming that laborophobia is “a genuine medical disorder which doctors have overlooked until now.”
Laborophobia is an irrational fear of work which manifests itself in panic attacks, hypochondriac fears, post-traumatic stress, or work-related social anxieties. According to Dr. Linden, fear that your boss is intentionally burdening you with inhuman workloads and impossible deadlines is one sign of possible laborophobia. Linden estimates that as many as half of all workers on long-term sick leave may show symptoms of the disorder.
My prediction: It won’t be long until the government, for fear of discrimination lawsuits, is paying “laborophobics” to stay home and play video games. In fact, I’m considering filing a lawsuit against one of my former bosses whose “inhuman workloads and impossible deadlines” must certainly have caused the onset of my own laborophobia disorder.
“inhuman workloads and impossible deadlines”
I’m assuming you’re not talking about …
No staff meeting before 9:30AM
Half day of work on Fridays
A month off for Christmas (I wasn’t the one who made you work 80 hours the first week of January)
No dress code
Unlimited coffee reimbursements
Paid Spring Break trips
Summers off
I realize there was PrEFACE, but no job is perfect …
DT
A former boss
DT-
Not to poke my head in the middle of a this, but why would you respond like that? I’m pretty sure this was intended to be a humorous blog post, not calling out a former boss. Anybody who has a boss would know of the sense of discomfort one has towards the boss– and yes, this even exists in Christian ministry. Even the very best boss-employee relationship is going to have elements of conflict. Its just the way it is. Bob’s posting on ‘laborophobia’ is poking fun at this discomfort everyone (even Christians) have for their boss and, in my opinion, was in no way trying to hurt you or any other former boss.
I must ask, was it really necessary to respond like that? Why do you feel the need to defend yourself? What good are your comments giving for this situation? Maybe I’m misreading you completely and you were trying to be funny too, but I don’t think that is the case.
Where may the gospel fit into all of this? How may love prevail in this situation? How can we encourage eachother and build eachother up?
May Christ be at the center of all of our relationships.
Peace,
Youtz
Youtz,
No need to mediate on this, bro. DT is a longtime friend and his post is rife with inside jokes. Sorry, but you got caught on the outside on this one!
Bob
DT, the PrEFACE thing was enough to outweigh all the rest. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.
Hooray! Feel much better. 🙂
youtz – so sorry to cause so much consternation – on reflection I see where it would have been more helpful to play along by e-mail rather than comments. For the record, like Bob said, I took his post as all humorous. I was merely poking fun at some of the oddities of our past life in Austin. Love what you guys are doing through Coram Deo – will pray you do not get distracted by comments from guys like me on the outside. Peace.
DT
DT-
You did nothing wrong man! 🙂 I completely misread you and somehow missed the obvious sarcasm.
I’m sorry for making your funny posts serious!
Bob…you gave me laborophobia. I love saying that word! By the way, I’m not “a gamer” but I might start now!
Bob – Does Tom Cruise know about this disorder?! You should tell someone that cares…I mean…him.
(This is what he would hear: “blah blah on PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE blah, blah…”.)
Clarification: What I meant to say was, “You should tell someone who also cares deeply about this”…
Dusty, whatever patterns I might have displayed as a boss were simply picked up from DT, thereby absolving me of any legal responsibility for your laborophobia. But I do care about your condition, so perhaps we could discuss a class-action suit against DT…
Man, I can’t believe I missed this conversation. . . . I was playing x-box, what were we talking about?
Aaron
Aaron…we were talking about halo 3… it comes out on september 25th.
oh ok. . . .well then, yeah, I’m totally in favor of whatever the major points were!
j/k (I don’t own an x-box,. . not that there’s anthing wrong with that)
Aaron