Angerland

This was the first online project of Surviving Work in 2011 playing around with digital visualisation of emotions. In 2010 I qualified as a pyrotechnic with Fantastic Fireworks – 25 Years of Wow and when the time is right I’ll set up Angerland – In It for the Big Bangs where you can come and blow stuff up in a field somewhere outside Swindon.

Whether you actually are doing something you love or not, paid or unwaged, suited or booted, doing what’s necessary to keep yourself in work is a survival skill. It’s not as easy as it looks either, especially given the social no-no’s about openly admitting to struggling with work. And if you’re suffering to the extent that it’s actually affecting your mental health? Well, say the words “mental illness” out loud at work and it’s like you just farted in a lift.

 

The central objective of Surviving Work is to build our capacity to form good relationships with the people around us so that we can collectively build better workplaces.

Essentially we’re interested in how to make the best out of a bad lot.

 

What we do
Surviving work attempts to look realistically at working life and to laugh at every available opportunity. We do this through our blog and social media, Survival Guides, online learning and face to face events.

The Surviving Work Library is a free resource for working people on how to do it. It is filled to the brim with podcasts and top tips about how to survive work from the real experts (people who are actually doing it). From how to use anger to tackling bullying the library is full of honest and helpful stuff.

During 2012-2014 we developed and piloted short courses on juicy topics like bullying, how to manage people without losing your politics and how to protect yourself at work. These courses are now being delivered through the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations. Our current programmes are being delivered through the Tavistock Clinic, including a new course for NHS Guardians.

All of our activities are designed for front line workers and managers, taking a progressive and practical approach. We aim to cost our courses at a level where the non-executives amongst you can afford to come.

How we work
Surviving Work takes a jargon free, de-stigmatizing and practical approach for addressing the real problems of working life such as bullying and dealing with feelings of anger.

We use the LAUGH approach which helps us understand our working environments, to talk to each other and to solve problems collectively.

The LAUGH approach involves three steps:

Stage 1: Starting where you are by Listening and Assessing what is going on at work and what level of resilience you individually and collectively have

Stage 2: Understanding your environment and identifying resources

Stage 3: Getting Help from the people around you and working out how to have better relationships at work.

This model of education uses ideas from different disciplines like psychoanalysis, employment relations, management and active learning methods. LAUGH has been developed within academic and clinical networks including OPUS, ISPSO, Warwick University, Manchester University, London School of Economics, Birkbeck College, Ruskin College Oxford, Unison, NUT and Mind Cymru.

This website is about your heartbeat.  Even if you’re feeling OK, it’s a good idea to learn how to relax and controlling your pulse rate is an easy way of doing this.

First take your pulse. Count the number of beats in 10 seconds, multiply this number by 6 and you have your pulse rate. A normal heart rate should be 60-100 per minute.

Keeping your fingers on your pulse, try to reduce your rate.

You can do this by consciously lengthening the time you take for each breath, in and out.

At the same time use the relaxed firework on the website, which shows you visually what a relaxed pulse rate is like.

Animated background graphics: ‘I feel’ by Jonathan Hogg – a digital artwork commissioned by The Resilience Space.

Resilience is the voice that wakes you up to at 4am shouting “how am I going to get through this?”

 

Resilience doesn’t give you a diagnosis of mad or sane, it puts the human race moving a long a spectrum where some days we can cope and adapt to difficult situations and then other days we just can’t. It’s a pretty democratic idea that  all of us are resilient until we’re not.

 

The geeky research around resilience says that there are in life both resilience risks and protective factors. Risks include things like facing redundancy or numbing yourself by taking to the pop. Protective factors include things like learning and being good at your job but probably the thing that’s always likely to get you through is love.

 

Yes, call us hippies if you like, the key to resilience is other people. Most of our useful stuff introduces you to your own and other peoples’ humanity.

 

Start here at the Surviving Work Library. It won’t make you thinner or richer but it will help you fall in love with the human race.

 

Resilience is the voice that wakes you up to at 4am shouting “how am I going to get through this?”

 

Resilience doesn’t give you a diagnosis of mad or sane, it puts the human race moving a long a spectrum where some days we can cope and adapt to difficult situations and then other days we just can’t. It’s a pretty democratic idea that  all of us are resilient until we’re not.

 

The geeky research around resilience says that there are in life both resilience risks and protective factors. Risks include things like facing redundancy or numbing yourself by taking to the pop. Protective factors include things like learning and being good at your job but probably the thing that’s always likely to get you through is love.

 

Yes, call us hippies if you like, the key to resilience is other people. Most of our useful stuff introduces you to your own and other peoples’ humanity.

 

Start here at the Surviving Work Library. It won’t make you thinner or richer but it will help you fall in love with the human race.

 

Surviving Work

Surviving Work helpful stuff for human beings

Do you ever get sick of people trying to sell you the formula for success? While it would be lovely if we were all leaders and innovators, in these tough times options are limited. The only choice you might have for the time being (at least) is to get through the day the best way you can.

Whether you actually are doing something you love or not, paid or unwaged, suited or booted, doing what’s necessary to keep yourself in work is a survival skill. It’s not as easy as it looks either, especially given the social no-no’s about openly admitting to struggling with work. And if you’re suffering to the extent that it’s actually affecting your mental health? Well, say the words “mental illness” out loud at work and it’s like you just farted in a lift.

So let’s just spell out some harsh realities: we’re in the middle of long recession, everyone’s trying to get their head above water and learning a few new survival skills might come in handy…

The central objective of Surviving Work is to build our capacity to form good relationships with the people around us so that we can collectively build better workplaces.

Essentially we’re interested in how to make the best out of a bad lot.

 

What we do
Surviving work attempts to look realistically at working life and to laugh at every available opportunity. We do this through our blog and social media, Survival Guides, online learning and face to face events.

The Surviving Work Library is a free resource for working people on how to do it. It is filled to the brim with podcasts and top tips about how to survive work from the real experts (people who are actually doing it). From how to use anger to tackling bullying the library is full of honest and helpful stuff.

During 2012-2014 we developed and piloted short courses on juicy topics like bullying, how to manage people without losing your politics and how to protect yourself at work. These courses are now being delivered through the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations. Our current programmes are being delivered through the Tavistock Clinic, including a new course for NHS Guardians.

All of our activities are designed for front line workers and managers, taking a progressive and practical approach. We aim to cost our courses at a level where the non-executives amongst you can afford to come.

How we work
Surviving Work takes a jargon free, de-stigmatizing and practical approach for addressing the real problems of working life such as bullying and dealing with feelings of anger.

We use the LAUGH approach which helps us understand our working environments, to talk to each other and to solve problems collectively.

The LAUGH approach involves three steps:

Stage 1: Starting where you are by Listening and Assessing what is going on at work and what level of resilience you individually and collectively have

Stage 2: Understanding your environment and identifying resources

Stage 3: Getting Help from the people around you and working out how to have better relationships at work.

This model of education uses ideas from different disciplines like psychoanalysis, employment relations, management and active learning methods. LAUGH has been developed within academic and clinical networks including OPUS, ISPSO, Warwick University, Manchester University, London School of Economics, Birkbeck College, Ruskin College Oxford, Unison, NUT and Mind Cymru.