I'm trained as a psychotherapist, but sometimes I consider pursuing a degree in career counseling. About half my session time is spent helping patients process their frustrations with bad bosses, cranky colleagues, unrealistic workloads, microaggressions, feeling out of the loop and other vexing work problems.
It makes sense that patients bring their work issues to therapy: Americans spend 40-plus hours a week on the job, our identities are often tied to our careers, and workplaces (real or virtual) and the people in them can be hair-raisingly annoying. Just 33 percent of employees feel fully engaged at work, according to Gallup's State of the Global Workforce: 2022 Report.