S’go
Those scientists better check their hypotenuses, dude.
I love that I’m understood to be one of the most experienced/motivated people and most able to handle any problem at my job and willing to stay late to finish it. Simultaneously, I’m known as the youngest person (at 29) at my company, and also that it’s *rare *for me to be in before 7:15 or 7:30 even though everyone else starts at 6:30. People just wait for me or say “Is Uber here yet? I gotta ask him about this thing (that I don’t understand at all)” All without any irritation or snide remarks about being “late” when I get there.
Being considered “good at your job” offsets punctuality in most non-corporate-stuffy-rules types of jobs. You don’t need to be a morning person just for the sake of being a morning person if it’s understood that you’ll get your work done, and help others get theirs done, when you get there.
Some people are permitted to be dicks because they’re good at something. Others are permitted to start a bit later.
My best guy just got back from a “semi-vacation”. He had to be down in FLA for family drama, and the deal was: he’d put in a super-solid four hours of client work in the morning. Deal with family for an hour max, then hang out by the pool with umbrella drinks for the afternoon.
He was feeling a little guilty for not “doing a full day’s work” until I schooled him that he did more in that four hours than most people do in eight…where that eight includes snacking, chatting, smoke breaks, daydreamin’… and Dope-postin’.
I kept saying “Quality, not just quantity, dude!”
I can totally get behind this Pit. I once printed out the list on Workaholics Anonymous to give to my husband. They say that you are a workaholic if you can say “yes” to at least three of the questions. My husband can say yes to at least 18 of them (maybe not #13 or #14…he really doesn’t “worry” much). He’s the same age I am, but you’d never know. Somehow, he got beat with the “work ethic” stick, and it’s only gotten worse as he’s gotten older.
So, I printed out this list, hoping to show him that his behavior and attitude about work could actually be considered just a little bit on the sick side by people other than myself. Of course, he took it as a huge joke. He actually has it pinned to his bulletin board in his office at work, where his coworkers rib him about it. He lives and dies by #9 on the list, “Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won’t otherwise get done?”
Here’s how sick it is: Our anniversary is next week. He wants to take the day off with me (yay) but only if it corresponds with the job interview he thinks he is likely to get, as he just had a good phone interview. Otherwise, it’s not really worth the time off, since he might need to take time off some other time for a job interview. Yeah, I’m serious. Not even worth getting angry about it.
Sadly I don’t have it here so I can’t give the exact quote, but having read Emma Bull’s “Bone Dance”, when I saw it I bought it just for the part where someone says (heavily paraphrased): “if nobody would do that because nobody considers it worth doing, and you’re only doing it because nobody else would, rather than because you consider it worth doing… don’t do it. It’s not worth doing.”
I remind myself of it whenever I catch myself doing something because “nobody else will do it!”
Last place I worked had great flex schedules - as long as you were present between 9 and 2, you could pretty much start and finish when you wanted to. I started at 6 because I’m definitely a morning person. And I’d whine a bit if I had to attend a meeting late in the day, just because it was an annoyance, but I’d hang around and be a team player. Thank goodness for credit time!
On the other hand, because we all had different schedules, most team leads did their best to schedule meetings during the core hours. It was usually VTCs with overseas folkses that kept me late.
Where I am now, things are pretty flexible, but as a draftsman, I don’t generally have to interface with anyone. I get emails with lists of engineering change orders, I add them to my list, and I work thru everything in order, unless I’m redirected on a priority. I’m in at 6 and gone by 3, clocking 8.5 hours a day - not a bad temp job. My main annoyance is the guy who’s the Admin on the database we use is a late worker - sometimes he doesn’t show up till 10, so if I’m having issues accessing something, I have to wait. But there’s always a work-around, so I don’t much sweat it.
No way would I work for someone who expected me to put in long days, then take work home - OK, maybe if that’s what it took to pay the mortgage, but fortunately, it’s never been an issue. I deserve a life, dammit!
Can someone explain #7 “Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts?” to me? Wouldn’t anyone one with any sort of positive ethic whatsoever take responsibility for their work, no matter the outcome?
Not everyone has a positive ethic. And among those who do, that might just mean ‘getting a task finished’, vs. doing it thoughtfully and looking for opportunities to add value.
Well, I get that. But simply having a positive ethic is already 1/3rd of the way to being a workaholic? I find that thinking rather atrocious.
Oh, and to contribute to the OP – I myself am a bit of a workaholic, and your boss would annoy the shit out of me.
I see it as a matter of control. I take responsibility for my work, but what I do is not just a result of my efforts, but those of my coworkers and customers as well. I cannot control what they do, or micromanage them, or spend my life checking and rechecking ad nauseum. I do the best I can and trust others to do the same. Sometimes, mistakes are made or things are not perfect, but we deal with those things as best we can.
If the word “complete” was not in there, I would agree with the statement.
I remember a performance review, where the boss said “You claim to be putting in extra time…?”
*“Yep-- the only way we’re getting this big CUNA project done, is that I’ve been coming in at 6 or 6:30 every morning. It’s great-- I’ve been getting a good two hours of work done with no interruptions.”
*“Well, I just don’t see it…”
Of course not, because he’d roll in at ten (one time in his tennis whites, licking an ice cream cone… when we’d been trying to find him to get approval on a key step of a contract).
Feel my nipples, they’re so hard. They could probably cut glass.
I used to be a consultant, and the workaholism in that particular industry is what drove me out- I was considered a slacker because I (newlywed) wanted to spend time with my wife, and not work 10-12 hour days, and/or sacrifice anything personal or family related on a moment’s notice for work related stuff. Or if I didn’t answer emails at 9 pm wanting me to do work, or for answering the email and not doing the work until the following morning, etc…
That shit is for the birds. Over time, I’ve learned it’s ONLY A JOB. It’s what you do to get paid- ultimately, unless you’re doing something that deserves a high level of personal investment (homicide detective, healthcare professional, civil rights lawyer, etc…) it’s just some crap that you do that probably won’t matter in a year, and that even if you happen to remember it in 6 months, few others will.
I also get pretty annoyed with this sort of “white collar job, blue collar mentality” stuff that goes on- you know, the stuff where you’re paid to do a particular job, and you may be able to do it extraordinarily well in 5 hours a day, but because you’re not busy for 3, you’re perceived as a slacker, and that you need more to do.
Excuse me, I’m not paid by the hour. I don’t mind doing more stuff or other stuff, but the point shouldn’t be to fill up my 8 hour days. I’ll work overtime if I need to, but if I happen to be good enough at streamlining and automating the things I do so that they don’t end up taking 8 hours or more, it seems idiotic that I should be penalized for that because I’m “slacking”. That seems almost like some kind of negative perverse incentive to me- why should I improve the process if it’s only going to get me in trouble?
Yes and no. I do take responsibility for the outcome of my work efforts, but it is also important to remember that I am not the only person working on the team. If I do well, it’s partly thanks to my effort and skill, but there’s always contributions from others; if I don’t do well because my boss decided to completely disregard my advice despite paying me to give it, hey, I’m his subordinate, not his mother! I’m responsible for giving the best advice I can and for doing my best to sell it, but I’m not responsible for other people’s decisions. So, responsibility yes; complete responsibility, or complete… uhm… laudability, no.
I guess my initial reading of that sentence was a little off, but I can see that interpretation too. Makes sense now!
I think it depends on how you interpret ‘your work efforts’. I sure as hell take full responsibly for the parts of a project I do, and I don’t consider the parts of a project that teammates do to be part of ‘my work efforts’, because those are THEIR ‘work efforts’.
I also call bullshit on #2 (seriously, getting in the zone at work, sometimes, makes you a workaholic?) and #10 (bad time management seems at best orthogonal to workaholism, being one of the defining characteristics of a slacker, after all)
I endorse this pitting. I like my job, and I care about my job, but it’s just my job. The purpose of it is to finance my life, which I’d like to get back to by 7:00pmish, please.
I put in a fair amount of overtime because we’re understaffed and on deadlines, and I don’t mind that. But for the love of god, when I walk in the door at 8:00 don’t ask me about the email you sent at 11:00 last night. I do not read my email at 11:00pm. And don’t stop me when I’m on my way out the door at 7:00 on a Friday by actually saying “I can’t believe I’m gonna stop you from leaving at 7:00 on a Friday.” Yeah, me neither.
Look, this work is important to me too. But sometimes you’ve gotta take a deep breath and realize, lives do not hang in the balance. It’s okay to spend some portion of your day NOT WORKING.
I had a boss that’d rush from his office and trap people on their way out (at 5 on a Friday, I can’t believe 7–wow!). And he’d be out of breath and sweating, like someone WAS going to die, and it might be him.
My antidote? I’d stew about it til midnight, when my wife got home from her job at the hospital: “Yeah, we messed up and a guy died on us.” Kind of put my job in perspective.
the_diego, your President is not just a workaholic, she’s being a passive-aggressive PITA who wants to show everyone off as to how they don’t work as hard or fast as she does and abuses the ability to cut down people’s deadlines just because she can.
I have no trouble with a workaholic if they keep their workaholism to themselves.
I have a slightly different problem in that I often work with one of those people who only works well if she’s pulling an all-nighter right against the deadline, and does nothing to enable the rest of the team to get things out of the way with time to spare. At 6pm on Friday she will then look for the first time ever at what has to be presented at 9am Saturday and THEN she will say "But I want … "