Now let's go to another breed of person. Curtains up please, allow me to introduce to you the “workaholics”. They are the employers' delight, the ones who put in the extra time in their jobs, the ones who find pleasure in their work, the ones who will punch-in 1 hour before the regular hours, then will not leave the office until everything's in order. Sometimes, it could be 9:00, 10:00 or sometimes overnight. We simply marvel at their energy, their drive and their zest. But who really are these people? Let's dissect them.
Workaholics can be categorized into many kinds:
- Those who simply love their job
- Those who are perfectionist (don't know how to delegate)
- Those who are empty, lonely and emotionally depressed (and spiritually vacant)
- Those who have problems at home (and treat the office as their 2nd home)
- Those who feel they need to do it to make ends meet
- Those who live above their means, loves to go the fast lane and have to slave for their indulgences
Those who simply love their job (passion)
How many times have we heard this phrase “She's so lucky, she married a hard-working husband”. Or is she that fortunate really? Better check 1st if your mate is simply hard-working or a workaholic because if he is the latter (workaholic), then be ready that one day “his work will always get in the way of your time together. It will become “you” versus his “job”. And sad to say his work will always win. These types will make good providers but poor husband/parent. There is a big borderline between hardworking and being addicted to his work. Both are basically good-providers but the former always leave room for other things such as family, time for self and diversions, while for the latter it's a consuming passion for their craft. For this person work will always be in his top-priority list and the others are distant second. When you confront them they will simply shrugged off and say “I'm doing this for my family” not knowing they are actually doing it for themselves. By the way these types never complain about long-working hours because for them it's not even called work. Heck, for them it's not even about the money anymore.
The Perfectionist
These types of workaholics are the ones who never trust on the abilities of other people. They want a hand in everything. They don't necessary love their work, but are never comfortable leaving the office with unfinished delegated task. Just like # 1, they are willing to work long hours, but it's for a different reason. Some even hate their jobs, but because of their lack of trust in other people's ability they ended up shouldering all the work-load, then they will moan and complain “How can I leave my work, I'm doing everything here.”
The empty, the lonely and the depressed
We have heard of people who are divorced, just broken-up with their girlfriends/boyfriends or are just simply alone and lonely. Then to alleviate their pain, they turn to their work for solace. These are the temporary types of workaholics. As long as they remain rudderless (life without direction and purpose), they will continue to be such, but once they find proper directions in other aspect of their lives (such as new hobbies or new hubbies) they simply abandon the workaholic mentality. For them work is a healing balm or something to patch up an aching space in their heart.
Problems at home and (nowhere else to go)
People who grew up in a broken family (quarreling or divorced parents) or experiencing crumbling-marriage have 2 choices to make. For the men, (normal places to go are the clubs, the bars or simply drinking with buddies anywhere but home), for women (hang around with friends or partying - lately there are bars and clubs for women as well). Or they can simply spend it at the office and continue working. These types are the ones who will stay up late in the office, then goes home simply to sleep (sometimes they even sleep in the office). Actually the reason they are there and a lot of times they are even unaware of it is that they simply don't want to go home. Just like # 3, once they moved out of their troubled place or found some place to be (aside from the office and definitely not at home), then they stopped their being workaholics.
Purely financial reason (to make ends meet)
These are the types who are willing to go 2-shifts, work 2-jobs or work overtimes for the sole purpose of making ends meet. They are closer to being hard-working than workaholics though in the eyes of others they can be mistakenly coined as the latter. Once their conditions improve, they know when to slacken off and lighten their loads. Of course this is will depend a lot on the kind of lifestyle they chose to live (which we will tackle in # 6)
Living above their means (slave off for their jobs to meet their high demand indulgences)
As I've mentioned in # 5, this will depend on the kind of life-style one chose to live. Two persons might have the same initial purpose (to make ends meet), the 1st one, chose to live a simpler life (slackened off once condition improves), the 2nd one, upgraded their lifestyle in such proportion that they become slave to their indulgences. These people are the ones we see wearing the signature clothes, driving the fancy cars and living the high-life. And they have to work their tails-off day-in-day-out to meet their continuously proportionate accelerating lifestyle. These are literally the “slave of their life-style” types. In fairness to them, at least they are better-off than others who will do anything (from pilferage to the stealing) just to meet their ever non-stop high end lifestyle. At least they simply resorted to being workaholics.
By the way not all of these 6-types are boxed up in one-category , most of them are combinations of others. Some are even 6-way driven.
So we ask ourselves are workaholics happy with their lives? Basically as the rule goes, anything done in excess is a sign of imbalance. As I said earlier, they are the employer's delight and are very admired people but normally these same people have relationship problems that they need to work-out.
