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Office Addict By Brenda Goodman
“One sec,” I said. “I need to get this last sentence down.” I had begged for an appointment because a scratch on my chin had become much more than a little boo-boo. The lower half of my face was swollen to twice its normal size. I had a fever off and on all weekend. But in spite of the fact that I was borderline septic, I had turned the doctor’s waiting room into a temporary office, spreading books, papers and interview notes across three chairs. When the doctor came in, he asked me what I was writing. “An article about workaholics,” I said. He raised an eyebrow. The irony of the situation struck me. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, so I put down my pen. “Workaholics are out of balance,” says Bryan E. Robinson, a therapist in Asheville and author of “Chained to the Desk: A Guidebook for Workaholics, Their Partners and Children and the Clinicians Who Treat Them.” “They don’t have many friends. They don’t take care of themselves. They don’t have any hobbies outside the office. A hard worker will be at her desk, thinking about the ski slopes. A workaholic will be on the ski slopes thinking about her desk.” Americans now put in almost 200 more hours on the job every year than they did in 1970. That’s like adding an extra month of work! Juliet B. Schor, an economist at Boston College and author of “The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure,” says logging long hours isn’t necessarily problematic. After all, there are rewards for hard work: a fatter paycheck, bonus points with the boss and a sense of accomplishment. It’s only when the daily grind eclipses other areas of your life that it’s time to stop and rethink your schedule. Paying attention to how you’re feeling away from work may offer the best insight, says Robinson. Try this test: On a scale of one to five, with five being most satisfied, rate your satisfaction with your family life, friendships, health and hobbies. If your total is less than 10 points, it might be time to cut back on work. How did this happen to you? Children of parents with emotional problems often wind up on the path to workaholism when they must become responsible for siblings, housework and sometimes even those same checked-out parents. Kids learn that it’s much easier to focus on tasks than to deal with painful feelings, a kind of avoidance that’s often carried into adulthood — something Robinson is familiar with. After his father died when he was in college, he became obsessed with finishing three big papers rather than dealing with his grief. Workaholism, Robinson’s research has shown, is closely correlated with an inability to be intimate, and many of his clients enter treatment only when their close relationships are falling apart. Regardless of what kind of home they grew up in, people who have certain personality traits — rigidity and perfectionism — or those who are born achievers are more likely to morph into workaholics. After almost two decades of research, Robinson has identified the following different breeds of workaholics: • The All-or-Nothing Workaholic. She does things perfectly or not at all. She struggles to get started on projects for fear of not meeting her own impossible expectations. When she does get rolling, she binges to the point of exhaustion. Low self-esteem leads her to worry compulsively about work, while constantly blaming herself for not doing it. • The Relentless Workaholic. This person doesn’t have problems getting started; it’s the stopping she has trouble with. • The Savoring Workaholic. She obsesses over details to the point of paralysis. She hates letting projects go and will create additional work whenever she gets close to finishing a task. She tells herself that no one could do it as well as she could. “These people think, ‘If I don’t do it, it won’t be don’t right’ or ‘It won’t have my mark on it,’” says Robinson. Workaholics of all stripes make terrible team players, says Gayle Porter, a professor of management at Rutgers University. “They try to control other people, control information. They allow crisis situations to develop because it makes them look like a hero.” The end result: Workaholics don’t actually get much accomplished. That’s why Porter thinks more bosses would do well to reward those who clock out at the end of the day. “The employee who wants to go home is the one who will be most efficient during the week,” he says. “She’s protecting her time off.”
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"The doctor will see you now.”