Dear Bob ...Thanks for the advice in "Positive traits to unlearn," Advice Line, 5/21/2007).Unfortunately for me (professionally and personally), I've not been able to put my own interests first. After 50 years that's unlikely to change. And I'm paying the price; overloaded, impossible assignments, trips to the hospital with heart attack like symptoms.Last week I drew the line with my boss: he resurrected a proje Dear Bob …Thanks for the advice in “Positive traits to unlearn,” Advice Line, 5/21/2007).Unfortunately for me (professionally and personally), I’ve not been able to put my own interests first. After 50 years that’s unlikely to change. And I’m paying the price; overloaded, impossible assignments, trips to the hospital with heart attack like symptoms. Last week I drew the line with my boss: he resurrected a project that has no chance of success and asked me if we should make it a goal for next year. It’s been tried three times; I was in charge of the last two. There was no positive result, it collapsed badly. My final response this time was “If you want to put me in the hospital, then I guess we’ll do it”.Luckily another party who’s seen these attempts intervened and told my boss this is an impossible project.– Can’t say no Dear Won’t …I don’t think I’ve ever given this advice before, but I’m going to give it now: Seek professional help.If you told your boss, “If you want to put me in the hospital, then I guess we’ll do it,” and you consider it to be drawing the line, I really do think you should ask someone with a deeper knowledge of psychology than me why you’d be willing to accept a near-certainty of physical harm because your employer asked you to do so. If, on the other hand, it was a rhetorical ploy intended to stop the request because of the consequent guilt … first, it didn’t work (someone else had to intervene), and second, why impose guilt instead of simply saying, “The last two times we did tried this it failed and I nearly ended up in the hospital. Why would either of us want to try it again? Not a chance – if you’re going to resurrect this you’ll have to find someone else to run it this time. Life’s too short and I value mine too much.”Among combat troops it’s understood that some missions are going to be very risky. In exchange, soldiers have the right to expect that these missions are important enough that they should be willing to accept the risks.It’s rare that a business project could have the same level of impact and importance. – BobPowered by ScribeFire. Technology Industry