The latest cause of office stress is ‘E-Rage’ – created when email systems crash, according to a new survey.

The claim comes from specialist business ISP Eclipse Internet (www.eclipse.net.uk).

The company’s survey of office workers, owners and managers by across the UK has revealed that our reliance on email as a critical business tool has created a new phenomenon – E-Rage. 

The survey looked at the effects of email down-time on business owners and workers, and found that for some, the frustration of not having access to email can see them resort to extreme measures in an attempt to ‘fix’ the problem, including hitting, kicking and even throwing their computer in anger.

In Birmingham, a whopping 78 per cent of office workers and company owners agree that email downtime causes major stress at work. 

But it would seem that office workers are still more restrained than other parts of the UK. 

Only eight per cent would resort to hitting their computer and seven per cent to kicking it, when the frustrations of E-rage strike, compared to office workers in Glasgow are much more likely to take out their frustration by kicking their PC (18.5 per cent).

Even more chilled-out office workers can be found in Bristol (3.6 per cent) and in Southampton, where only 1.7 per cent of respondents would hit their computer when their email systems crash.

Mark Thomas from Eclipse Internet said: “We wanted to understand the impact of email downtime on small business owners. 

“We know that in at least 40 per cent of small companies (10-49 employees), email is set up and maintained by unqualified personnel.  As a result, these companies are more susceptible to suffering the consequences of E-rage.  For those companies that do outsource their email, levels of E-rage are much lower.

“The message to small businesses is clear.  Concentrate on running your core business, and let a professional third party manage your email communications.

‘‘Just by subscribing to a hosted solution like Microsoft Hosted Exchange, business owners and workers could dramatically reduce the stress in their businesses.

“At Eclipse, we guarantee 99.9 per cent up-time with our Hosted Exchange solution.
  ‘‘That offers business owners great piece of mind, and crucially, will ensure their company hardware is not a victim of E-Rage,” Mr Thomas said.