In the past I have worked for companies whose employees have made my life unbearable. These work colleagues were completely two-faced, extremely imature and very annoying – the majority of them deserved a slap. There have been many a time when I have really not wanted to go to work; in fact I would go as far as saying that I feared going to work – yes that is how bad it became at certain stages.

I would return home feeling very drained and would have little energy to do anything in the evenings. I would then decide to go to bed early but would basically just lay their worrying about the next day. This could last for hours on end and at times would last all of the night.

Luckily I am now self-employed working within various sectors including stammering therapy, business cost reduction and DVD duplication.

I have read that plenty of sleep is a good way at reducing levels of stress, the question is, how does one get to sleep in the first place?

There was absolutely no way that I was paid anywhere near enough for the amount of stress that I was being put under – there must be more to life than this, I used to think to myself. I was less than impressed with the way in which my co-workers, including the management, treated me – I was worth more than this – they treated me at times like some piece of dirt at the bottom of their shoes. It has to be said that this stage of my life was not exactly the brightest; I even started to become quite ill – no doubt because of the amount that I was stressing.

I wanted to leave this company a lot earlier than the time that I eventually did, the problem was that I did not feel that I could afford to. I needed to think of a way of escaping this madness. There was absolutely no way that I could continue to work for these and with these idiots. As previously stated it had started to affect my health as well as my overall level of self-confidence. I started to save as much as I could possibly afford to on a monthly basis and believed that within 6 months I could be out of there. At the same time I started to think about the future. Which industry did I really want to work in? Would I be happier working for myself as a self-employed person? These were the types of questions that I was asking myself whilst at the same time attempting to find a new job.

On the day that I left this job, I will never forget my journey home. I could not stop smiling, I was so relieved that this nightmare was over once and for all.