Post Semester Stress Disorder

The sound you hear are sighs of relief (at least, crying in some cases).

School employees are in full exhale-mode. The semester is winding down.

The holiday/winter/Christmas break is here.

Students, teachers, and parents are happy and relieved (although parents won't be quite so happy after their kids are home for a couple of weeks... and by parents, I mean me).

I'm fascinated how school employees go through an emotional ringer as they face the start or end of something.

The beginning of school brings added stress, but so does the end of a semester.

Do people who work in the regular world face these same issues? Or are they exempt because they never get an end or a beginning?

They have the start of their career and retirement. That's the list. We have beginnings and endings several times a year.

As school employees, we are lucky. Weekends off. Holidays. Summer breaks. Even though these all bring a certain amount of stress, we need to remember we have a good life. A really good life. And as I repeatedly tell myself, working at school beats a real job. Even with the stress.