I’m thinking at least somewhat insulting. If you wanted to compliment someone, you could simply call them “accomplished,” or “quite an achiever.”
And while we’re at it, what would be a good example of an overachiever? Not someone with ability who has accomplished much, I’d think. Instead, I imagine it is someone who achieved more than you would expect given their natural gifts.
Actually I’ve never heard the term used outside of educational/work …
The only positive way I’ve heard it used is when someone is proud of the fact that someone else is like parents or relatives pround of their kids …
But the negative connotations tends to either be "he’s an overachiever (in whatever pursuit )that has no life other than that interest
Or "someone who goes overboard on something and is a smug asshole about it " so it gets used sarcastically
Every spring this happens, and every year it makes me sad: some kid doesn’t get into the college they hoped for. Instead, they end up at a good state school. And they say something like “It’s a good school, but I am so bummed. I could have not played tennis and not been on the Robotics team and still gone where I am going. It’s like all that work was for nothing”. Most don’t feel that way–most do what they do because they like it or believe in it, though the desire to improve their college opportunities may be part of their motivation. And some realize they are more accomplished and talented person because they worked hard and developed their skills-- and that will help them be more successful at their safety school. But some seem to really feel like they wasted all that time because it was all to get into Princeton or whatever, and since they didn’t, they’ve been played for suckers. And it burns them. These are the “overachievers” I don’t like. But I also think the term can be applied to people who just always exceed expectations on everything.
As always, I welcome your perspective. But isn’t what I quoted above a little insulting, as it implies expectations weren’t all that high?
I’ve encountered it a couple of times lately directed at people who ARE NOT the frantically busy students you describe. To the contrary, if you asked them, they would say they are not anywhere near maximizing their potential.
Well, no. I mean, it can be used in lots of cases. If someone goes above and beyond on the office Secret Santa, making cute little decorated gifts when the expectation was just a couple trinkets, I can see them describing themselves as an "overachiever ", somewhat self-depricatingly. It’s a way of saying “I did more than I had to because I enjoy it”. Someone using it to describe the Crafty Cathy might be insulting, implying she was being competitive or precious or trying to show off.
Context really matters here.
To me, an overachiever connotes someone who achieves well above the expectations and norms established for members of their group. I can see how it could connote someone who works just for the sake of working, without any added benefit to themselves or others. So I agree with you that “high achiever” works better as a compliment. But I don’t think I would be insulted if someone called me an “overachiever” unless they said some other things to make me think they were being insulting.
An example of an overachiever (in a negative sense) would be someone who works in a warehouse. Let’s say all warehouse workers are expected to load 30 pallets by the end of their shift, since this is the daily average loading rate per worker. But there’s one guy who has a goal of hitting 45 every day. Occasionally he’ll get up to 50, whereas all the other workers are maxed out at 40. Sure, he’s producing a lot for his employer and stroking his own ego, but he’s screwing his coworkers in the process. And he’s also (unbeknowst to him) killing his back. Maybe if he paced himself better, his back might last him 30 years instead of punking out after ten. I think if this guy winds up getting a promotion because of all his hard work, “high achiever” would be an apt way of describing him. But if he has no chance in hell of ever getting into management or being rewarded monetarily for all his achievements, then “overachiever” is a better descriptor.
Like anything it can obviously be positive or negative depending one who’s using it & the context. In general to me it’s very positive.
As a past senior executive, overachiever was always a very complimentary term. Someone described as an “overachiever” meant that they are highly internally-motived to strive hard to achieve goals. That was exactly the people you wanted on your team. As managers we’d fight for those people and pay them more to keep them.
The only time I heard it negatively was when people were be “too much” of an overachiever causing them to have very unrealistic ambitions. We had a uni grad in entry level marketing (<3 months) who applied (and expected us to seriously consider him) for our head of Eastern European operations. WTF? I had to have a chat with him.
Where I’ve typically heard it used negatively is by an underachiever (aka “slacker”) who doesn’t have the internal motivation to succeed. They do exactly enough to get by and dislike overachievers making them look bad in comparison.
In Monstro’s example: the person that’s doing 15 pallets who says sarcastically, “Look at the overachiever, doesn’t he know he’ll wreck his back working that hard?” Followed by a predictably exaggerated eye roll and slow head shake.
If someone tells me my kids are overachievers, I’m very proud. I’ve done my job as a parent and they’ve got a critical element for life success.
In general complimentary.
But to me achieving something by hard work and tenacity means more and is more … admirable … than achieving something because of some innate talent. To have achieved more, accomplished more, than your innate talent alone would have allowed you to do easily, whatever level that is, by virtue of your effort and tenacity, by dedication to making it happen, to do the very best that you could with whatever the gifts you’ve been granted, to overachieve, that is the goal.
And yes that applies to us all, be they Einsteins or loading pallets. It is the pride of doing your own best.
Expectations from good bosses when encountering a new subordinate are that the subordinate will be within a couple standard deviations of average, i.e., normal. I apply the same principle when I’m coming up with a project calendar and do not know the people involved yet. Those expectations aren’t low: most teams end up having a lot of people in that range, someone who is faster and someone who drags the averages down.
My Stats teacher was surprised that I had only obtained an 85% (no curving) in my final exam because he knew me; both of us knew that I was a likely candidate for a 100%. He didn’t have that expectation on the first day of class, and having it would have been extremely wrong. (Reason for the “low” grade: I took the exam with pen, paper, calculator and a really high fever)
The lil’wrekker was a wannabe overachiever. She was just doing too much in highschool. She stressed over every test or tryout. Always in the AP classes. I used overachiever as an admonishment to try to keep her trying out for another club or play. It was just too much. Her stomach hurt for 5 years. 8th grade to graduation. She sees now. She is a double major at her University. Has a job at the library 3 evenings a week. I’m happy she didn’t do the cheerleader thing or the sorority route. She’s much happier concentrating on her studies.
I definitely hear a negative connotation in most usages. It’s just the prefix “over-.” It implies “too much” rather than “above expectations.” Overfitting means that you shoved something in when it didn’t really fit. Being overworked means your worked too much, and would ideally work less. Being overweight means you weigh too much, and would ideally weigh less. Overeating means you eat too much, and would ideally eat less. To overanalyze means you analyzed too much, and that you would ideally not do so much analyzing. To overdo something is to do it too much, and ideally you would do less.
Sure, if you really value whatever it is you overdid, then it can seem like a compliment to you. But I don’t think you can shake the negative tinge of that prefix entirely.
Now? Yeah, I’d say it’s more insulting than complimentary. I would imagine that saying this from mid-late 1980s through the 1990s would be considered blasphemy, but since then ( and among astute minds even then it’s become all too obvious that most of the RPMs of the hamster wheel being spun by said overachiever benefits “the man”.
Full disclosure though: If someone described me as “competitive”, I’d consider it a slur.
I’ve only heard it used as a term for someone who feels compelled to work much, much harder than is necessary because it’s important to him or her to go above and beyond what’s required: the kid who does twice the work necessary to get an A on a project, for instance, just to be SURE it’s as good as it can possibly be, an anxiety-ridden Type A personality on steroids, so to speak.
I never hear it used as an insult, though I’ve heard people good-naturedly tease each other with the phrase. It’s kind of a compliment, actually. YMMV, of course.
I usually see it as a weird sort of half-insult, half compliment. It’s not just the kid who gets the A, it’s the kid who nobody thinks is smart enough to get an A but gets one anyway due to extraordinary hard work.
Or “keener”. 
It can be insulting but not always. Like if I think my whole group of friends are about the same level of intelligence but one of them just does more with it and has loftier goals, I could call them an over-achiever without being insulting.
Well, in general terms, which would be more desired or seen as a complimentary term when stripped of all context, being an overachiever or being an underachiever? I think generally speaking, the “over” is more positive than the “under”.
Exactly as I know it.
Thanks all. The 2 instances I heard it lately were in social situations, where people were just chatting about what they and their families had been up to. When one person or another would comment on something they had done, another person said, “You (or your family) are such an overachiever.” Maybe I’m too cynical, but it initially sounds like a compliment, but it also sorta suggests that the target had been bragging or something. Or a desire to make someone feel guilty/bad about their good fortune/hard work/success.
I guess I have experienced similar things in SOME (not all) social circles. People seem to almost want to make me feel guilty if I and my family are successful or happy. Does that make sense? It can be awkward when people are talking about their kids fucking up, or their jobs sucking, to say when asked, “Everything’s going great w/ us.”
An overachiever is someone with the short stick of talent and the long stick of work ethic. The “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons Championship teams of '89 and '90 personified the overachiever. Especially players like Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn. Nobody would mistake them for the next Jordan, no matter how drunk but what they lacked in talent hey made up for it with grit.