Cyprus: where the day never ends

Cyprus is one of the most burned-out workforces in Europe.

Or so the data says.

According to the latest European Working Conditions Survey, nearly 44 per cent of workers in Cyprus say they feel physically exhausted at the end of the working day – the highest rate among 35 countries surveyed.

Gallup’s latest country data says much the same thing in a different way: 56 per cent of employees in Cyprus experienced stress “a lot” the previous day, compared with a European average of 39 per cent.

So, there it is. We are tired.

Except, of course, not everyone agrees…

Under the article, the comments told another story. “Lazy,” said one. “Wimps,” suggested another. Others pointed to public servants, coffee breaks, smoking rooms, 13th salaries, 14th salaries and the apparently exhausting walk to the office kettle.

And there, perhaps, is the real story.

Not that Cyprus is burned out. But that our island no longer agrees on what burnout looks like.

For some, exhaustion is still something visible. It is the waiter working 70 hours a week in August. The builder in the heat. The nurse on her feet for 12 hours. The parent coming home from two jobs with no energy left to speak.

That kind of tired is easy to recognise. It has sweat on it. Dust. Back pain. A uniform.

But today’s tiredness often looks different.

It sits behind a laptop. It answers messages after dinner. It checks emails before coffee. It carries the low-level pressure of being permanently reachable, permanently alert, permanently aware that something, somewhere, may need answering.

And that, perhaps, is where the generations miss each other.

Older Cyprus knew exhaustion, too. Of course it did. It knew long hours, physical labour, economic uncertainty, migration, duty, survival. Nobody should pretend otherwise.

But many of those pressures had boundaries. Work began. Work ended. The body was tired, but the day had a shape.

Modern work is often shapeless.

Eurofound has warned for years that digital and mobile work can blur the boundary between working life and private life, increasing stress and damaging work-life balance.

Microsoft calls it the ‘infinite workday’: a world in which employees are interrupted constantly by meetings, emails and notifications; where work increasingly spills into mornings, evenings and weekends.

In other words, the new exhaustion is not always about how many hours you spend at work. It is about how rarely work leaves you.

This is where the word ‘burnout’ matters. The World Health Organisation defines it as the result of chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed – marked by exhaustion, mental distance from work, cynicism and reduced effectiveness.

Not laziness. Not weakness. Not a generation that has forgotten how to cope. Instead, a system that keeps asking people to stay switched on long after the working day should have ended.

And Cyprus, as ever, complicates things beautifully. Because here, work and life have never been entirely separate.

The boss may call at 8pm. But so might your cousin. The office may be chaotic. But someone will still bring koulouri. The day may be stressful. But it will also be interrupted by coffee, gossip, a neighbour, a mother, a school run, a name day, a baptism, a small crisis involving someone’s aunt.

And perhaps that is why burnout in Cyprus is so hard to read. We may be stressed, yes. Overworked, certainly. Underpaid, often. Exhausted, apparently, more than almost anyone else in Europe.

But we are not always empty in the same way.

Because in Cyprus, life still breaks through the working day. Someone knocks on the door. Someone asks if you’ve eaten. Someone sits too close and talks too loudly. Someone brings fruit. Someone tells you their entire problem while you are trying to answer an email.

And somehow, maddeningly, it helps.

Not enough, perhaps. Not always. Not for everyone. There are people in Cyprus working brutally hard for too little money, with too little respect and too few options. That should not be softened or romanticised.

But there is still something here worth noticing: in much of the modern world, burnout is sharpened by isolation. People are tired, and alone with their tiredness. They work in silence, recover in silence, scroll in silence and call it balance.

Cyprus, for all its flaws, still interrupts the silence.

That does not make us immune to burnout. The data says very clearly that we are not. But maybe it explains why so many people argue with the word itself.

Because one generation hears ‘burnout’ and thinks of physical collapse. Another hears it and thinks of mental depletion.

Perhaps we are not arguing about whether people are tired. We are arguing about what kind of tired counts.

Because tiredness changes shape. Sometimes it keeps going. Keeps answering. Keeps smiling. Keeps saying “I’m fine” while checking one last message before bed.

And if Cyprus really is among the most exhausted places in Europe, perhaps the issue is not whether people are exaggerating. Perhaps it is that we have been looking for the wrong signs.

المصدر: Cyprus Mail