I’m usually at work by 7am (except today, when I’m waiting at home for an AC repair guy), out around 5pm, and I answer emails pretty much around the clock. To me, that doesn’t feel like a workaholic at all, but sometimes I get called that. When Lifehack ran an article listing warning signs that you may be in danger of becoming a workaholic, I just had to check.
“Workaholics are totally preoccupied with work.” – I’ve had a few SQL books at my bedside for the last few months, and I haven’t been able to crack them open. I prefer sitting with Erika, watching House Hunters or Survivor. Score that as a no, I guess.
“Because workaholics devote so much time an attention to work, little or none remains for forming close relationships.” – Hmmm – I don’t have a lot of close friends, probably under five, and all but one of them were formed at work. Not quite sure what that means.
“Workaholics either don’t take vacations, or time off when they are sick, or they take their work with them.” – Heeeell no. I got a chuckle the other day when I noticed that one of my top 10 most-visited sites (according to Delicious) was VacationsToGo.com. I love me some vacation.
“Workaholics cannot delegate. They are obsessed with staying in direct control of everything linked to their work.” – I believe that to be a good employee, you need to be constantly doing two things: learning how to do more challenging things, and training others how to do your own job. I recently sat through an hour-long project meeting, and at the end, the project manager recapped who owned which action items. She turned to me in shock and said, “How can you talk so much through the meeting, and not have any action items assigned to you?” Heh heh heh…
“Workaholics routinely neglect everything else for the sake of their work.” – I left work to go to the South Beach Food & Wine Festival. I rest my case.
“If they have to undertake non-work activities, they try to link them to work.” – The description of that sentence talks about doing networking. I abhor networking. Blech. I do enjoy meeting my peers at the Microsoft quarterly enterprise briefings because we talk about so many similar challenges and needs. I’ve only saved one guy’s business card, though. (Shout out to Robert at Kurzner.)
“A workaholic’s identity is totally submerged in their work.” – I work for two reasons: to feel like I’m contributing to something, and to get closer to retirement. If I hit the lotto on Wednesday, I’d retire. Period. I wouldn’t start a business, I’d just stop working. My favorite vacation is sitting on the deck of a cruise ship reading a book, and I bet I could do that for two months without feeling the least bit interested in doing anything else.
“Many, many workaholics are permanently in denial.” – aw, come on, how can you use that as a measuring stick? That means everybody who thinks they’re not a workaholic is one, and everybody who thinks they ARE a workaholic is one. Can’t win that one.
