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First there was road rage, then air rage. Now, there's desk rage. A New Economy cocktail of longer hours, increased workloads and stock-market tremors is fueling explosions of temper even in once-staid offices. Companies generally do not report instances of worker confrontations, but occupational experts and authorities on workplace stress say that the number of incidents is rising, along with their severity.

Workplace violence culminating in bloodshed -- for example, the recent shootings in a Massachusetts office that killed seven people -- gets the most publicity, but far more common are the shouting matches and fistfights that don't make the evening news. Robert Wichowski, an engineer at an aerospace company near Hartford, Conn., recently watched, horrified, as two engineers in his office had to be physically separated after a disagreement over the proper procedure for filing paperwork on a faulty computer chip. And in a separate incident, a co-worker raised his fist at him over a disagreement about a basketball game. "Some of these guys are really high-strung," he says.

(See related articles: "In Soft Economy, Workplace Stress May Get Worse --- In This Economy -- You Bet; Add Financial Uncertainty To General Job Overload," "At Verizon Call Centers, Stress Is Seldom on Hold --- No Matter How Irate the Caller, Reps Also Must Make Pitch, Often Under Observation," "Mergers Often Trigger Anxiety, Lower Morale" and "IN THE LEAD: Impossible Expectations And Unfulfilling Work Stress Managers, Too" -- Jan. 16, 2001)

Copyright Dow Jones & Company Inc Jan 16, 2001

[A look at rising anxiety on the job]

For months, Costas Tsolkas kept his frustration over long hours, cramped quarters and rushed deadlines at a New York Internet company under wraps. But last summer, when his boss, Ron Yudovich, needled him one time too many, he erupted, lashing out with an obscenity-laced tirade.

"Sometimes you just snap," says Mr. Tsolkas, who quit his job a week later. Mr. Yudovich, for his part, simply calls Mr. Tsolkas a "bad employee."

First there was road rage, then air rage. Now, there's desk rage. A New Economy cocktail of longer hours, increased workloads and stock-market tremors is fueling explosions of temper even in once-staid offices. Companies generally do not report instances of worker confrontations, but occupational experts and authorities on workplace stress say that the number of incidents is rising, along with their severity.

Workplace violence culminating in bloodshed -- for example, the recent shootings in a Massachusetts office that killed seven people -- gets the most publicity, but far more common are the shouting matches and fistfights that don't make the evening news. Robert Wichowski, an engineer at an aerospace company near Hartford, Conn., recently watched, horrified, as two engineers in his office had to be physically separated after a disagreement over the proper procedure for filing paperwork on a faulty computer chip. And in a separate incident, a co-worker raised his fist at him over a disagreement about a basketball game. "Some of these guys are really high-strung," he says.

Lost tempers are probably the most common. A survey on workplace stress released last summer by The Marlin Co. of North Haven, Conn., showed that 42% of office workers said they had jobs in an office where yelling and verbal abuse happened frequently.

Victor Scarano, director of occupational and forensic psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, pins much of the blame on the stress induced by overwork. "You can't run an engine at full throttle for 10 years and not expect it to crack," Dr. Scarano says.

The physical aspects of the workplace also come into play. Integra Realty Resources Inc., a real-estate appraisal company, believes that high commercial real-estate prices have led to the "Dilbertization" of America, whereby workers, as in the "Dilbert" comic strip, spend their lives trapped in a maze of tiny cubicles.

Sean Hutchinson, president of New York-based Integra, says the average number of employees per square foot in many office spaces is at an all-time high. He calls it the "scrunch factor" and says it exacerbates the traditional real-estate caste system separating management and lower-level employees. "The big guys take offices that are just as big or bigger than in the past, while the minions are getting stuffed into smaller and smaller spaces," Mr. Hutchinson says.

The economic boom of the last few years hasn't helped matters either. For one thing, it has led to a big jump in the cost of homes in most cities, sending people farther into the boondocks to live and making commutes longer. By the time worker bees arrive at the office, they are already irate.

Then there is the youth factor of the Internet age. There are more younger employees in high-profile positions -- smart, but unused to organizational pressures. Philip Antonelli, 26 years old, took a high-profile sales job at a technology company in Boston last year, clocking 14 hours a day and overseeing a number of big accounts. The result: He has become so stressed he feels he's "always in the bottom of the ninth inning with two strikes out. . . . I've gone through four phones since I got here because I keep throwing them against the wall."

The Marlin Co. says that men between the ages of 25 to 45 are most prone to act out in the workplace, but the company notes that more women complain of on-the-job stress. "Women are definitely having desk rage," says Frank Kenna, Marlin's president. "They just do it more subtly."

The Marlin study says larger companies have more stressed-out employees: Nearly one-third of employees at companies with more the 1,000 people say they are "at least somewhat" stressed, compared with 16% of employees in companies of fewer than 100 people.

Most companies ignore the problem, says Don Grimme, one of the many "workplace stress" consultants popping up in the last few years. General Motors Corp. has an employee-wellness program that includes meditation and tai chi in its workout facilities and a 24-hour help line for harried workers. And Ernst & Young LLP's new tax center in Indianapolis has putting greens, fish tanks and a recreation room where workers can nap.

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(See related articles: "In Soft Economy, Workplace Stress May Get Worse --- In This Economy -- You Bet; Add Financial Uncertainty To General Job Overload," "At Verizon Call Centers, Stress Is Seldom on Hold --- No Matter How Irate the Caller, Reps Also Must Make Pitch, Often Under Observation," "Mergers Often Trigger Anxiety, Lower Morale" and "IN THE LEAD: Impossible Expectations And Unfulfilling Work Stress Managers, Too" -- Jan. 16, 2001)

Credit: Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal