Workaholics
I read an article today about workaholics. It’s an interesting piece, discussing the fact that “workaholism” is a real issue and can be quite problematic. I really believe it is. Balancing work and life is a difficult task, and it is easy to make yourself believe that you are so important in the workplace that the company would go down in flames without you. There were dozens of people like this when I worked at AT&T, and I always wondered how (or why!) they were able to create so much work for themselves. I’d wonder why they were so afraid to go home.
This was usually followed with guilt and fright, wondering why I was able to leave at 5:00pm without a problem most nights. Why I was able to meet my deadlines without drama. Why I didn’t work weekends. Why I didn’t obsess over my job to the point where it became my entire life. And instead of taking some pride in the fact that I was able to manage my worktime well, I wondered what I was doing wrong. If my job wasn’t nonstop panic and 60-hour workweeks, I was obviously doing something wrong. The people constantly running around and telling me how busy they were seemed so much more important! Then I realized that while they were running around telling the world how busy they were, I was at my desk, doing my job.
Nevertheless, I have always believed that one day I will be “found out;” that the people who pay me will realize that I don’t know what I’m doing. A decade later, my secret still hasn’t been discovered. What I have discovered is that my feeling is very common among women. I don’t really know what my point is, here, but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.
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March 31st, 2006 - 09:43
The industry that I work is is dominated by people who work long hours, and sometimes, it’s necessary. but there are also a lot of people who do this work who have no home life, have gotten divorced, etc., all because of work.
When I got out of school, I did the same, until I realized that the company i worked for didn’t appreciate the extra effort at all. I believe in doing the job, not the hours, so if it takes long hours, I do it willingly, and still do, because it needs to be done. But if it doesn’t, if there aren’t close deadlines, i consider my options.
Then, my next job, I worked for a guy who said he was very close to a divorce over his work schedule, that’s why he started his own company, to balance work and life. But since he was running his life, he started working long hours, he was always there late, getting in early. (I understand when you run the show, there’s additional pressures) But he got very negative about me leaving at 5pm, even though I got in at 6am. He made comments about me “not taking this serious” and about work ethic and responsibilities, etc., all the while he developed into what he said he hated.
And it’s still like that. a few jobs later, I still get looks of distain for leaving at 5. (I get in at 6, people!) and wanting to go home to my wife and new puppy and enjoy life outside this profession. I tell my students that they have to fight in life to make sure they do their work, and do it well, but that they have a life outside, too.
Without life outside work, your life is just about work, and I think that’s a depressing thought.
March 31st, 2006 - 09:44
Haven’t read the linked article yet, but thought I’d weigh in anyway. I really feel that balancing work and life is totally important, because I don’t want to define myself by what I do for a living, and I don’t want to feel like work is my life. That just leads to burnout and hating getting up in the morning.
In real life practice, this was one of the main concerns that led me to leave a job at a small company where I loved my co-workers and loved the feeling of camaraderie and working together to make the company bigger and better, but hated the fact that in real life this meant committing an inadequate amount of employees to unrealistic deadlines and feeling guilty if I left at 6pm and finding myself one night walking outside to get a coffee and calling my husband on the phone yelling about how angry I was and that I was going to have to come in that weekend.
Now I work for a big corporation, and there are people who work longer hours than me, and I do end up doing things like commenting here when I’m supposed to be working, but – the reality is that I still meet all my deadlines and I get all my work done and things are run so well that there are enough resources to get things done and I don’t think about and worry about work when I go home.
Now I just have to stop being lazy and start learning how to be an artist again which is what I said I’d do when I was no longer owned by my job.
March 31st, 2006 - 09:45
I am not a workaholic. My private life is more important than my work. (Says the woman who hasn’t worked in over a year). But on the other hand, I am not happy doing a job that is not somewhat demanding. I need a challenge in my job. Stress is good. Frustration is also good. But it’s never the most important thing in my life.
March 31st, 2006 - 09:46
Lately I’ve been realizing that if I wanted to, I could really go far in my company, and take a management route that could lead me to make several hundred thousand dollars, if not a good million a year. Yet, that would require me to work long hours, deal with an obscene amount of bullshit, move around the country to open positions, and deal with pressures I don’t want. Some people handle these things willingly and gracefully, but I don’t think I’d be able to sleep at night, nor enjoy any part of the job. I know I could play the game and do it if I were driven to it, and that drive might come from proving something to people (parents? myself? strangers?) but I don’t have the desire to prove anything to anyone, so I don’t think I’m going to take that route. I love leaving my job at 2pm and going home to smother my baby in kisses and making him crack up simply by saying “BOO!” I make a great salary and have the freedom to pursue some things on the side.
I think we’re all motivated by different things, and have different priorities. Some people need others to think they’re BUSY BUSY BUSY and they’re probably more afraid than you of being found out.
March 31st, 2006 - 09:54
I’ve never been a “go-getter” at work. I do my job, I do it well and I do it fast. I prefer to be the worker bee behind the scenes. I would never make it to executive/big money level because I simply don’t have the drive. Like you, Rona, I’d rather make a modest amount of money and be able to visit my friend and her kids on Thursday afternoons. Or spend some time in the mornings talking to my nieces and sister on the phone.
Sometimes I long for the steady money a “real” job brings, but luckily the geekboy takes care of that. I like working at home, having a flex schedule and being able to do laundry and stuff so we have our weekends to spend doing other things. Sometimes I get lonely and have to beg the geekboy to take me on a date when all he wants to do is decompress from work. But I realize that I am very lucky to be able to live the life that I do. :)
March 31st, 2006 - 10:28
I couldn’t open the article. I googled and found a short one about Workaholics Anonymous, was that it? About the guy who would sneak in early on Sunday mornings and work secretly?
I’ve never had a career sort of job. I’ve only worked at retail or food places. In these industries, workaholism is encouraged and they try to get away without paying you. When I worked at a certain furniture store, you were expected to stay past the clock to get your day’s stuff done and if you insisted on leaving on time, they looked at you poorly. I always hated that aspect of the job because I was not on salary. While I gave 100% during work hours, I didn’t feel they paid me enough to give 100% off the clock, or beyond an 8-hour shift.
I might feel differently if I enjoyed my work or was trying to meet project deadlines or something, and it was important to me.
I think the state of the economy lends itself to creating workhorses for little reward as well. If you don’t put in the overtime and work yourself to the bone, there are tons of hungry people out there who will. Companies take advantage of their employees. People are afraid to stand up and demand what they’re worth in case they get let go for someone who’ll work and not complain.
I think family life is very important. Sometimes Jeremy has to work long hours when he’s on a show and I hate it, but those jobs pay well and we need the money so it’s not so bad.
March 31st, 2006 - 10:31
You’d think being unemployed would save me a lot of hassle in this department, but I wind up with similar pressures and identity conflicts regarding being disabled. Being disabled is a 24/7 thing and there’s constant symptoms and monitoring and doctors and records and insurance, it never stops. People are always judging me for how I choose to handle it, and think they have a perfect right to tell me what to do since I’m on SSDI.
While it’s impossible to have a “life outside of disability”, I still have a need to try to have a “normal life” as much as possible. And lots of people don’t really understand how hard that is. I can’t work, but it’s also true that I haven’t been on vacation in over 7 years, since before I got sick. It’s been all disability, all the fucking time. Plus people associate me with the disability, base my worth on it, base their ideas of who I am on it, like, I’m not Jen who became disabled, I’m DisabledJen.
I’ve been surprised by how similar a lot of the struggles are, actually, it’s like the same issues with a different face. And the massive paycut totally sucks. :)
March 31st, 2006 - 10:33
Below is an interesting article that puts into question the actual effectiveness of working longer hours. At what point does working too many hours become a system of diminishing returns?
http://tinyurl.com/gntkx
I ran head first into this recently, when about a month ago, I started getting some bad pains and numbness in my “mouse arm”. At first, I dismissed it, figuring it was just a pulled muscle or something. Turns out I had some pretty bad muscle strain up in my neck, and knot of muscles that had been impinging on a nerve cluster. It’s taken me several weeks to get me arm and shoulder back to feeling even remotely normal, and I’m still not at 100% yet. I’m taking anti-inflammatories, seeing a chiropractor, got a massage, bought a new chair for both home and office, and had work completely rearrange my cube. For a while there, I was taking half-days and asking to work from home, where I could sit on the futon and work from a laptop.
The most important thing I’ve done, though, is just plain cut down on my hours at work. For the past year, I was pushing 50+ hours most weeks, and had begun to consider that “normal”. But being in pain and/or discomfort for a month and working at half my usual efficiency has made me reconsider this. Not to mention the impact that being in pain was having on my personal life. It’s not worth it. 40-45 hours each week is plenty, and some weeks, it’s more than is necessary — anything past that, and I start to break down, either physically or mentally.
March 31st, 2006 - 10:46
Maggie, I fixed the link – but you did find the right article on your own.
I enjoy the geekboy much more now that we don’t have to eat dinner every night at 8:00pm. ;)
March 31st, 2006 - 10:47
I disagree that people have a right to tell you what to do just because you’re on SSDI. In Canada it’s called something different, but my dad has been on gov’t disability since he had his stroke. First of all, just getting the damn disbility money was a life’s work in itself. I would not wish that sort of red tape frustration on ANYONE. Second, it’s a pittance. I have heard little comments here and there about how if my dad REALLY wanted to, he could probably find work. This makes me insane. Do these people not realize that if my dad could hold a job and make as much money as before, he would? Sometimes people think that unless your head is hanging off your neck by a thread you are not disabled. These people don’t understand that my dad would happily work every day if he could get his speech and body back to the way they were.
March 31st, 2006 - 10:54
Oh trust me, Maggie, I disagree, too. Loudly.
It’s the same thing here in the states with the red tape and where you can’t qualify for the govt disability unless you’ve put in enough work credits, etc.; the only reason I qualified at age 29 was because I’d started working full time very young.
Sorry about that crap your dad has to take. I know it’s hard. Hope he’s feeling as well as possible.
March 31st, 2006 - 11:10
My dad has a great coping mechanism that he developed when he got the stroke. People think he’s less intelligent than he used to be, so he uses that. When people start saying stupid shit, he acts like he doesn’t understand. ;) I’m speaking generally, but I have to include immediate family in this. It took my mom years to understand that the stroke did not diminish his intelligence. She couldn’t get past his inability to communicate. She and my grandma (when she was alive) kept referring to my dad as “sick.” “Your father’s sick now. He doesn’t understand.” I know this was really hurtful to him. Sometimes the stroke impaires his ability to decode what you’re saying, but when the words get through, he understands everything, believe me. If you could hear them fight, you’d see there is nothing wrong with his brains, and no mistake. ;)
My dad’s feeling pretty fine, thanks Jen. :) It’s hard but it becomes part of your life, something you have to deal with just like when the toilet clogs. I’m more concerned with how you’re feeling, because we’ve discussed some of your physical issues and they change so often, so fast, I don’t know how you deal with it. Combine that with what you just described and I really wish I could get you that holiday.
March 31st, 2006 - 11:40
Aw, thanks hon.
As I’ve learned over the past year or so, my symptoms cycle so much because I actually have several different autoimmune diseases going on. This is apparently why there has been so much diagnostic trouble, too.
I’m relocating to Ohio in just a few more weeks and hoping that might help with a variety of things, from better medical care to easier access to vacation spots I can handle. Maybe our paths will cross someday in Jersey. :)
March 31st, 2006 - 11:56
I’m sure they will.
March 31st, 2006 - 11:59
You heard her, folks. Ohio is a hotbed of VACATION.
I can safely say that I’m not a workaholic based solely on the hours I spend on freakgirl.com.