Do you know a workaholic?

My new boss has seemed a bit strange. I understand that some people like their jobs (I don't mind mine) and some people like to be kept busy.

When I was chatting with him today, and he had a doctors appointment to get some "retinal migraines" looked into, plus he mentioned high blood pressure, it started to be a bit clearer, but then when he mentioned he hadn't had a vacation in 3 years (the dude is mid 50's, well established, earns decent coin), and was complaining about how he can't get ahold of anybody at the office (government-ish, lots of time off), it finally dawned on me:

dude is a workaholic.

Never met one before in my life. He spends innordinate amounts of time here, time that will not be compensated and furthermore time that doesn't get him any further ahead as the professional bonuses and perks are fairly well regulated (and he isn't high enough up in the governmental ladder to get any nice back door deals). He lives to work.

Blew my mind. Good for him if that makes him tick, bad for me as he is making my life miserable micromanaging everything.

I used to work for a guy who was a workaholic. He was in the office from 7am to 8 or 9pm or later every day (I loved it when he would schedule a meeting for 7pm.) His family was in Dallas, and he would drive home from Minneapolis on the weekend to see them - he'd leave Friday night, drive straight through, then drive straight back and be in the office bright and early Monday morning. He was in his 60s at the time, so he had been doing that sort of thing for 40 years or more.

First company I worked for out of the Air Force, I was chatting with the CIO one day and he was talking about the $100,000 pool he had installed at his $750,000 house and almost bragging that he'd never actually been in the pool.

Screw that, my bosses know I consider my job a means to finance my hobbies.

I work 50 a week and hate it. (yeah, I know there are people here who work way more)

I know WH that brag how little sleep they get. Getting up at 4:00am to work a 12 hour day is bragging material. Most guys like this DON'T need to work all these hours.

Datsun310Guy wrote: I know WH that brag how little sleep they get. Getting up at 4:00am to work a 12 hour day is bragging material. Most guys like this DON'T need to work all these hours.

Yeah, when I get to talking to people like that at the office (who are usually giving me a hard time about leaving on time) I like to tell them it sounds like they have a time management problem as I'm able to finish my work within the allotted 8 hours a day. Puts a little perspective on it.

Our VP of Sales actually instituted a no email after 7pm or on the weekends policy with the entire sales force. Good man.

For some the time at work is a place where they feel they can succeed. Their home life not be as successful. Or being that I am in his age range you start to fear that you have to show your worth or they will replace you with someone younger who they could pay less. Or a million other possibilities. When I was young I was a workaholic but it conflicted with being a parent.

Since I have no kids I work a ton of hours. But my last Boss would put me to shame. At a minimum 12 hours a day for at least 6 days a week. If the surf was big we would not see him for days so he had a bit of a balance. Have no idea how he did it.

You just told us how he did it: he went surfing for days when the waves were right.

Apparently it worked for him.

A guy I worked with at the county had been there for 25 years and had accumulated close to 40 days of vacation, and he'd sell it back all but 15 days. Said he had no reason to take off that much.

I'd take all of it and still only work 4-day weeks!

Define workaholic..

I get home from work and deal with my own business for a couple hours, Saturday morning is spent shipping product.

It doesn't bother me and the side business pays for itself and buys me a motorcycle every now and then.

Shawn

Worked with and for lots of them.

It's sad. Especially in the military. You will see them, after 25 plus years, a list of ailments a mile long, living in a crappy one bedroom apartment hoping their daughter invites them to their wedding so he can watch her "new" Daddy walk her down the isle.

If they're lucky, more than a few of them simply die with a few years of retirement, becuase they have nothing else. Or they go into the civilian side and don't understand why peaple want to leave and see their kids T-ball game.

I passed 20 years on Jan 4, so I am working for half pay and I am now even more vocal in my statements of "If you cannot get your work done in 8 hours, you are incompetent or cannot delegate."

Its getting worse. With the dramatic cutbacks over the last 6-8 years, we are conditioning our new folks to stay late and "be seen" by the boss. Thats how you get ahead. You don't even have to do anything, you just have to be at work.

Working for one is unbearable. They simply cannot understand why you would willingly chose to be anyplace other than at work. My snarky reply of "my wife has better boobs than you" might get a chuckle but the piont is lost.

I had one working for me in Colorado. Great guy, two beautiful daughters and I physcially had to chase him from his desk every day. He refused to leave before I would and I refuse to leave when my subordinates are still working. Luckily, I am lazy and the boss, so I would have to tell him at 4:15 to lof off his computer. If he wasn't ready to walk out at 4:30, I threatened to call his wife. We woud walk out together. Finally he got into traiathonlons and running with his kids. It got easier after that.

What these folks need is a old brtish car or motorcycle. Just something else to obsess over.

A few years ago I worked 42 days straight in the summer, save for one day that the club wasn't open and one day that was rained out (caddy). I just looked back, and right now I haven't had a day off in over 2 weeks. Of course, during the week it is a low-stress good job with good career prospects, and during the weekend, it is usually just 2-3 hockey games each day. This past weekend was a little crazy on Sunday as I was at the rink from 10:00AM and left at midnight with only one 2 hour break in there, but that is far from the norm. (I ref hockey, which should be low stress and fun, but recently has been too stressful--a rant for another day).

I work this much so that I can take the time off when I want to though. This weekend I won't be taking more than 2 games Sunday night, and I'll be drinking slighty better beer than my friends coming into town. Also, it helps that my girlfriend is a graduate student who spends a lot of time in the library, so I don't catch any grief.

By the time I have kids, you won't ever see me at the office more than I need to be, and my time at the rink will be either for them, or when they're in bed.

Some people actually LIKE their work.

I'm just saying...

Unfortunately, in my line of work they are everywhere. What some of the others have posted is 100% correct. Most of the people I work with don't have a life outside of work. Very little friends/family, no hobbies, just interested in being frugal and saving money. It's definitely not how I want to live but if it makes them happy, more power to them. I'm a work hard play hard type of guy but last year was too much working and not enough playing. I worked 36 days straight and the 3-4 weeks before that I was only taking Sundays off. I also was working around 105 hours a WEEK during busy season which seemed to have lasted forever. Ended up with over 600 hours of overtime. This year that's going to change however. Last year I rationalized it because I thought my boss would take care of me when raise/promotion time came around but he didn't. Got the promotion but it really wasn't anything but a title change, still doing the same work. Oh well.

I used to be one of the world's worst. Not so much any more, but the work load doesn't really require it right now.

Both my parents are workaholics, my dad's been getting better, working normal office hours with maybe an hour a day on average working from home, down from working 10-12 hours a day when I was in high school. My mom's been getting worse though, she really went down the rabbit hole when she started working in real estate a few years ago and now pretty much works 24/7.

I can see how someone might work hard on a job they like or if they're getting paid based on their output, but most workaholics clearly aren't getting any enjoyment out of it and even those who do get compensated properly for working so hard don't take any time to spend their money on something they enjoy, it's like they're trying to set a high score with their bank account number or something.

Now my dad doesn't make any fabulous amount of money but still, he doesn't really have any hobbies. I'm sure between the closest things he has to hobbies and the vacations he takes, he spends less than I do on just racing-related things, not even counting when I just blew my life savings to fix up the 'rolla.

I put in lots of unpaid overtime on a few projects at work before, one because I found it interesting and others because I guess I wanted to show off how l33t I am by meeting tough deadlines, but I'm cured of that now, it's really not helping me. You could say I was being a sucker.

See also: Anyone in a management position in Japan. Don't leave before the boss leaves like some kind of lazy-ass! Boss will be here until 10pm.

SVreX wrote: Some people actually LIKE their work. I'm just saying...

Yeah.

I logged just over 800 hours of overtime last year.

.... For the 3rd year in a row.

E36 M3 happens. I work more, i get more money, which means i get to enjoy what little time i'm not at work that much more. It's a fine line.

I've worked with many, particularly at my last gig at a large, international solar energy concern which was acquired about a year before I left by a huge international silicon concern.

People who were there when I arrived and when I left, every time I was there. If I drove by on a weekend, they were there. These were the kind of people who'd bring an old suit jacket and leave it on the back of their chair so in the event they happened to leave the premises to choke down lunch for 15 minutes people would ~think~ they were still there.

I was poached from there by an old colleague from my biotech days in the late 90s-early 2000's. My new gig is a 1099 contract thing for a government agency which is open ended and should last as long as I want to do it. As usual I'm the sole mechanical design/prototype fabrication guy, and my schedule is 25 hours a week (108/month).

Zero benefits, no real schedule, base pay exactly equal to the solar place but with zero stress and plenty of time to renovate a house and race a needy, complicated race car.

It only took 33 years of crap jobs to get here....

Swank Force One wrote: I logged just over 800 hours of overtime last year. E36 M3 happens. I work more, i get more money

That doesn't make you a workaholic. Being a workaholic (in my mind) is defined as working excessively for no particular gain.

As for the "love your job" crowd, there are probably better things for you to (presumably) be doing after an 8-10 hour day, unless it is earning you more money. Spending time with family is probably a big one.

HiTempguy wrote: As for the "love your job" crowd, there are probably better things for you to (presumably) be doing after an 8-10 hour day, unless it is earning you more money. Spending time with family is probably a big one.

Don't be judgemental.

I posted that because it is obvious there are a lot of people here who really don't like their job.

I am not suggesting it is a good idea to avoid your family, or pursue any other unhealthy expenditure of time.

But some people don't feel the need to escape from their work. Most family run businesses have some level at which business is integrated into life. Sometimes well balanced, sometimes not so much.

But let's be honest... there are plenty of ways to spend time that don't qualify as workaholism, yet don't count as family time either. Racing every weekend, watching football every other night, wrenching 'till midnight every night, drinking half the family's budget while playing cards with the boys, or excessive time spent surfing the internet or GRM all would not be considered workaholiism, but often contribute nothing to the family either.

Balance matters.

Some people enjoy their work, and don't need to fill their "off" time with all those other things. Just because it may not be the way we choose to spend our "off" time, doesn't mean we should cast stones and assume their family is suffering.

I work a lot. Mostly because I like it. There are a lot of people who can't keep up with me. Sometimes I get out of balance, but I generally do OK. I also spend much more time with my kids than most men. I coach youth teams, lead Scouts, volunteer with my church. I don't race or watch sports nearly as often as I'd like. These are the choices I've made.

I don't have a lot of money, and don't take very many vacations. But I also have no debt, healthy kids, a wife who loves me, a good home, savings for retirement, cars paid for, and minimal stress.

I wouldn't trade my life with most guys with 9-5ers. Don't feel sorry for me. But don't assume because I work hard that I am failing in some manner.

But I am not a workaholic. I am a hard worker, and I understand the difference.

when i had my shop 5 years ago i was one. i went in at 6 am and stayed till 9 pm everyday. never left for lunch. never took days off. nothing. then my first son was born and everything changed.

and i was a salary employee well sorta i got 10% of net sales. we didnt open till 9 am and closed at 7. i was there just cleaning and when my techs would go home without a job full done id finish it for them so they had a fresh start in the morning when i could.

It's our culture. Pretty much only in Japan do you find people who work longer hours. People in Europe generally work fewer hours and have more vacation days. They also presumably spend less time commuting to and from work.

There's something wrong when you can't afford to live closer than an hour to where you work. So if you work an 8-hour day, you are already spending 10 hours doing nothing but work-related things. (And I submit that it is very difficult to enjoy "driving" in commuting traffic.)

And for the record, I bloody hate my day job. I have no idea how you can earn a living doing something enjoyable. Either there's something wrong with you or with me.