I used to be an ATC (in Australia, 7 years), and there is definitely stress there, but its like being in an insane asylum - you don't recognise that you, and everyone else, is mad. There is also significant peer pressure to excel at your job. Not just be good, but to competently handle everything that comes. The regulations state that the purpose of ATC is to provide for the "safe, orderly and expeditious operation of aircraft movements." They apply that religiously, and in that exact order. Mistakes in even the simplest procedure,or even phrasing of comms, are not tolerated. Mistakes are seen as evidence of failure to cope with the stress, and result in operators being swapped out ASAP.

I remember it took about 2-3 months, after I resigned, before I felt free of the stress. I consider knowing how to recognise stress growing within me to be the most valuable thing I took from that part of my career.

As an aside, it is possible there is a similiar mindset, or skillset amongst controllers. I remember very clearly the selection process was very focused on 2 things

- maths and logic

- multitasking

The hardest test in the selection process was a combined map course plotting task, where you had to accurately plot out a course of about 15-20 waypoints, but every 60 seconds the examiner would read out a logic problem "if Jane wears blue on Tuesdays and green on weekends, what would she wear on the day before Monday ?" - stuff like that. You had to focus on plotting, correctly, as many map points as possible, AND correctly answer the puzzles being read out. That was the most directly relevant skill to the actual job of being an ATC, awareness of the task in front of you, and the ability to understand and act on the 'buzz' going on around you. They select for people who can perform accurately for multiple inputs, with time and cognition pressure. JM2CW