Meltdowns in an open plan office

Post Reply New Topic

Has anyone of you ever made the unpleasant experience of a meltdown in an open plan office? Or at least what they call rumble stage? In fact I did. Now I mostly work from home and have a quiet office to myself that I can pull back to whem I'm at work. But are there coping strategies for working in an open plan office?

I have had a great many shutdowns while working but thankfully it was not often that anyone else was around at the time, and also if there was I would have time to make an excuse so no one knew I was having them. (To be honest, it is only the last year and a half or so that I knew they were called shutdowns).
So if I felt a shutdown coming on where I would end up on the floor, I would either pretend to look for something small and have just enough time to lie down in such a way that my eyes would look like I am looking under a cupboard or something... And people would leave me alone and go so all I had to do was wait until I could see again and start to pull out of the shutdown and lie there until I could make my body work again so I could gradually get up and get back to work.
While the full shutdowns were the worst part, partial shutdowns were far more common and were absolutly exhausting to try to work through, which ended up with me eventually burning out and quitting the job, and burnouts took me ages to recover from. Often a couple of years.

Coping stratergies

If I felt a partial shutdown starting and then deepening, while I could still move my body I would walk down to the toilets where I could lock the door and be on my own and just sit on the loo and recover. I did this often as a coping stratergy. I was ok as long as I was able to get there without anyone interupting me and while I was on my way I could not explain what I was doing and why I needed so many toilet breaks.

Yeah my office is open-plan but luckily there are meeting rooms one can pop into - there's a small room for just 1-2 people I sometimes go into for a bit of privacy.
Or if I can hold it off long enough I'll get out of the building and take a walk. Luckily the streets around the office are not too busy.

I’m lucky I have a cubicle....