Problems at work

‘What aspects of your job present the most difficulty?’ Answers to this question, involving graphic and sometimes disturbing descriptions of the problems and constraints of working life, were provided by samples of chemists, engineers and insurance personnel during 1981. The information was collected as background material, while investigating an apparently different but actually related topic. Results and subsequent speculations seemed, however, to make it worth excising this fairly self‐contained body of data on impedances to effective job performance and presenting it in isolation. Apart from light thrown on the wider subject of the original enquiry, the exercise may be useful in its own right to anyone concerned with studying or improving the nature, quality and productivity of working life. Managers, personnel and training officers, sociologists and industrial psychologists may therefore find it interesting.