Workaholics Are People Too!

People who love what they do get a lousy deal. It’s not fair and it’s not right. We have enough people who hate their jobs, why pick on those who love theirs? I tell you, Barbra Streisand got it wrong when she sang, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

No way. People who love what they do are the luckiest people in the world. How often do you find someone who truly loves his or her job? Not often, I can tell you that. Most people just scrape by, doing the bare minimum. If you’re lucky enough to find a job that you love, how is that a bad thing? A large part of your life will be spent working, might as well spend it doing something you enjoy.

I feel it’s my duty to defend workaholics around the world – it’s a campaign I started sometime ago with my first post 7 Reasons Why Workaholism Is Good For You. Kinda like a Save The Whales, but funnier. Today, I shall charge on with my mission by listing 7 things people (read: those who have crappy jobs they hate) say in their misguided attempt to ‘save’ workaholics from flushing their precious lives down the corporate toilet.

1 You need to have work-life balance. What’s this work-life balance thing I keep hearing about? What does it even mean? Why is it so important and why are we all beating ourselves up trying to achieve it? “Work-life balance you must have,” they intone all Yoda-like (insert tinkling waterfall sounds in the background). Oh really ah, why ah? “Because it’s important.” Says who? “The, um … experts.” Who are these experts? “Aiya, I don’t know la. All I know is everything must have balance. Too much of anything is bad for you.” Which brings me to my next point …

2 Too much of anything is bad for you. I disagree. I can think of plenty of things you can do as much as you want, which will not be bad for you – eating spinach, praying to God and smiling. There.

3 You need a real hobby! We all have passions in life (well, some of us at least; for those of you who don’t, you have my utmost sympathy) and I don’t see why work can’t be one of them. If some people can love reading, playing basketball, planting flowers, impersonating Elvis or knitting sweaters for their dog, why can’t some people love working? Why is work taken out of the lineup and demonised? How is it any different from any other activity? Why is work inferior to say, knitting sweaters for your dog? Just because you think my hobby is dumb doesn’t make it any less valid. At least my ‘hobby’ makes me money. What does yours do?

4 On your deathbed, you’ll regret that you spent your whole life working. There’s no point to it, yadda yadda yadda. Uh huh. And what’s a more fulfilling endeavour? A politically correct answer is ‘parenting’. Right. Spending all your hard-earned money, time, blood, sweat and tears to raise a child who might just grow up, look at you like you’re vermin and run away with her no-good bum of a boyfriend … yeah, that’s a lot more fulfilling than working.

5 People who work really hard are compensating for something. They’re single / divorced / lonely / depressed / crazy / etc and are just covering up their grief by keeping themselves busy. Well, have you ever considered that maybe people who love to work are people who love the challenge of setting goals and meeting them, people who love learning new things and meeting new people. Maybe they enjoy the company of colleagues who’ve become friends. Maybe they love seeing their efforts come to fruition … maybe that’s why they work. And this might come as a shock to you but maybe, just maybe, they’re a lot happier than some people are (read: those who have crappy jobs they hate).

6 You work until you neglect things that are important to you. Um, correction: things that people (probably some more ‘experts’) say should be important to you. You work so much, you haven’t talked to your mother / father / husband / wife / brother / sister in months! Has anybody ever considered the fact that maybe you never really talked all that much to them in the first place? What makes them think that sans job, you’ll be cooking porridge on the phone all day with them?

7 You can’t let work be your whole identity! We’re admonished because “what do you do?” is usually our question right after “what is your name?” when meeting somebody new. You’re supposed to be able to answer the question “who am I?” without bringing in your job. That’s utterly ridiculous. Apart from identifying yourself as a mother / father (always a winner) or a Child of God (which will send most people running off in the opposite direction), how else can you describe yourself to a stranger without bringing in your work? I know they say we are what we eat, but I’m thinking the answer “I am pork” might not make the best first impression. “Take away your job and what will you be?” we are asked. Well, take away my job and I’ll tell you what I’ll be – penniless and living under a bridge, that’s what. Duh.

Back From The Dead

It’s been 2 months since I last blogged. With this entry, I can now declare that:

1. No, I’m not dead.
2. No, I didn’t disappear to have a kid out of wedlock.
3. No, I didn’t lose the use of my fingers.

I wish I could say that the reason why I haven’t been writing is cos I’d run off to the Bahamas with a male underwear model who bears a striking resemblance to Hugh Jackman and had spent the past two months fashioning hair ornaments out of seashells and dancing under a coconut tree. Unfortunately, the real reason is cos I’d spent the last two months … (how shall I put this in a more exciting way?) … um, doing this thing called work. Think some of you might be familiar with the concept. And for those of you who aren’t, go soak your head in a well.

Because I’d spent all my time working, I don’t have any interesting stories to tell (such a departure from my until-now impressive track record of terribly thrilling tales hor) and therefore, no nice pics to put up. So for this entry, I shall now post this picture:

What is this, you ask? Sashimi la. Now, leave me alone and let me get back to my colour proofs.  

Tokyo: Shiseido (2/5)

… continued from previous Tokyo: Disneyland (Day 1/5)

Okay, today is the day we “work” … that is, if you call attending a forum in an exotic faraway land work. To me, real work is like, you know, tapping the rubber tree, mining the coal or listening to Peter Andre’s comeback album. So obviously, today’s event is hardly “work”. And that brings me to the reason why we’re in Tokyo in the first place: to attend the Shiseido Whitening Forum.

We meet up with Kagami-san on Tuesday morning at the hotel and stroll down to Ginza. We’re going to visit the House of Shiseido. House of Shiseido was first built as a pharmacy, but since 2004, it’s been turned into a museum dedicated to all things Shiseido.

There’s a mini-theatre where you can watch Shiseido TV ads through the ages, check out the products and see how the brand’s advertising evolved over the year. There’s also a library containing books on cosmetic culture and artworks.

To understand Shiseido is, to a large extent, to understand Japanese culture, so it isn’t a bad idea to pop by for a visit if you’re ever in Ginza … you know, take a break from buying all those Burberry bags. Haha.

From the House of Shiseido, we walk on to the Shiseido Parlour – ah, the home of the oh-so-famous Shiseido cheesecake! When we arrived in Tokyo the day before, we each had a gift bag waiting for us in our rooms. Inside was a beautifully wrapped package containing three cheesecakes from the Shiseido Parlour.

After I tasted it (read: devoured all three at the speed of light), I understood why people say, if you ever go to Japan, you must try the Shiseido cheesecake. Omg, it was delicious!

And so now, here we are at the Shiseido Parlour along a main avenue in Ginza. It was originally a soda fountain over a century ago. Today, it’s a swanky place to dine and is well-known for its Western food (Japanese style!). Hmm. Obviously not the place to go if you wanna go el cheapo … unless you consider curry that costs 10,000 yen (that’s RM400) el cheapo la. But since we aren’t picking up the bill, we happily wallop the lunch in our private room.

After lunch, we head to the Tokyo National Museum for the forum.

One message I pick up at the forum is that Japanese women take beauty very seriously. I mean, sure all women want to be beautiful but not every woman makes the effort to cultivate a beautiful appearance. And beauty, to the Japanese, is fair flawless skin. I think back to the women I’ve seen since I got here. I can certainly see that skincare is big business here. Coming from a very selekeh country, I’m impressed by the obvious care Japanese women take in their appearance. They’re so well-groomed – perfectly applied makeup, perfectly styled hair. The eyelashes on these women, I tell you! Long eyelashes and big baby doll eyes (enlarged by their obvious skill with the eyeliner) … all against a backdrop of fair flawless skin. I shudder to think what life will be like for the few unlucky enough to be cursed with problem skin … in a sea of porcelain faces, that’s gotta be tough on the self-esteem.

But for all their beauty, I find that Japanese women all sport the same look. They all fit into this cookie-cutter mould: typical smoky eyes, pale lips, flawless skin, long brown hair and slim figure. Maybe that’s why you have those who revolt and go the totally opposite way with their weird hairdos, goth makeup, strange clothing and all that. The antithesis of conventional beauty, I guess. There’s a ‘freak show’ every Sunday in Harajuku where all the young people come all decked out in their finest (read: weirdest) attire – the perfect time for people-watching!! (We visit Harajuku tomorrow but it’s Wednesday so no ‘freak show’ for us. Shucks.)

We wrap up the day with a dinner and then, it’s the end of the “work” day for us! We decide to go for a drink in Roppongi later that night since early next morning everyone’s flying back to KL. Everyone, that is, except me, Elsa and Liling – we’ll be extending our stay for another three days (*insert big smile here*).

Roppongi is a happening area with bars where people go to chill and have a drink. We’re cautioned that there will be lots of blacks (Africans) hanging around there and they aren’t exactly a calming presence, if you know what I mean (*raise eyebrow here). They move in packs and exist solely to buat kacau. So, the advice is: no eye contact and move fast!!

We have drinks at this bar called Gonpachi. It’s adorable! It’s rather quiet today but oh, I love the ambience of the place.

We order some snacks … zaru tofu (edible), octopus and okra in pickled plum (weird) and fried chicken (good).

By the time we finish, it’s past 1am. The last train is at midnight, so we wind up taking the cab back to the hotel. Need to get back and get some rest – tomorrow’s the Big Transition. Tomorrow’s also one day closer to that traveller nightmare experience I was talking about in my previous post!

Continued in Tokyo: Harajuku (Day 3/5)

Wah, So Busy

Yes, that’s right. I’ve been busy. No wait. That’s an understatement. My calendar looks like the aftermath of a Stabilo highlighter bloodbath. I’m practically using the photographer’s studio as my personal office (I should reimburse him for using his phone so much – urk). I have half a dozen people climbing all over my head at any given time. I haven’t eaten a decent lunch in days and I have dark circles under my eyes. Oh yes. And I’m on the verge of possibly popping a blood vessel.

And you know the worst part of it all? I’ve not gotten to Move. My. Ass. In days!!! In 10 whole days, in fact. It’s horrible. I feel horrible. I look horrible. And the more busy I am, the harder it is for me to wake up early to exercise. And by the time I get home, I just want to … sleep. I really hope there’s a happy ending to this story.

7 Reasons Why Workaholism Is Good For You

Being a workaholic has its advantages.

Always appearing to be busy, you are therefore seen as contributing greatly to something (even if it’s contributing in some way to the aesthetic value of dog food packaging). You have the luxury of burying your soul, the very essence of your being, under loads and loads of … that’s right: work.

Reason #1: You have an instant, ready-made excuse for anything unpleasant that might crop up. “Congratulations on winning the first prize at the International Parakeet Talent Convention. I wish I could make it to the ceremony but I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to wade through, man.” Now, this lame excuse would only work if you were known to be a workaholic. It would never work if your friend knew that you sped home at five sharp every evening to watch reruns of Mork and Mindy.

The same applies to concocting an alibi for a heinous crime like say, murder, for example. “I was in the office writing a contact report at precisely the same time Mrs Pang was being sliced into giant-sized cubes and turned into carrot soup.” Again, this would only be plausible if you were known to be an obsessive, compulsive workaholic.

Reason #2: Workaholism gives you an identity. It allows you to identify with workaholics all over the world – it’s not all that different from alcoholics, druggies, sexaholics and a whole other bunch of holics. When you have such an identity, it carves you your very own space in this mixed-up world. In a world where war, famine and misery are rife, you can push everything aside, stand up tall and proud and declare, “I work, goddammit!!!”

Reason #3: You will never be lost … mostly because you’re always in the office.

Reason #4: You will never wonder what your purpose in life is … because it is to write insanely long emails and draft out boring quotations.

Reason #5: You will always know who the most important people in your life are … aiya, they’re the ones who dole out your paycheck la.

Reason #6: There will always be consistency. Whenever life spins out of control or goes out of its way to bite you in the ass, you can languish in the knowledge that no matter what happens, work will always suck. You can count on it to always suck. It will rarely get better or worse (hey, when you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, you know it’s pretty much a done deal).

Reason #7: Workaholism doesn’t discriminate! Anyone can be a workaholic. Unlike snooty country clubs, it doesn’t matter how much money you make, how expensive your set of golf clubs is or how many BMWs you own. It doesn’t matter what race, age or gender you are. Workaholism does not discriminate. All you need to earn your way in is the ability to stare at the computer for 12 straight hours without blinking and have an all-consuming (and therefore, unnatural) fervent passion for pie charts.

There. I have made my case for workaholism. Now all that’s left for me to do is to actually become a workaholic. So far, I fear that success has eluded me – especially since I just spent the last fifteen minutes blubbering about the virtues of workaholism instead of doing any real … you know … work.