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.

Hello, 2009 Bucket List. Remember Me?

Isn’t it funny how we are? I was just looking through my 2009 bucket list. Okay, before you flip out and jump to the conclusion that this is my Things-To-Do-Before-I-Kick-The-Bucket in 2009, let me explain why I’m using the term Bucket List (as inappropriate as it may appear to be):

• I don’t like the word ‘resolutions’. It’s too pompous, highfalutin. “Oooh, look at all my Resolutions, which I Resolve to do.” So serious, so strong, so resolute, so firm, so purposeful. Since I’m none of those things, I figured aiya, forget the Resolutions, honey.
• I like the word ‘bucket’. Okay, moving on!

So anyways, where was I? Oh yes, I was flipping through my journal (yes, I have one) and was looking at my January 2009 entry. I had lots of ‘buckets’ I wanted to kick. I had 8. And I say we’re funny because out of the 8, only one was related to work – a bucket which had already come to pass, though not in the exact way I’d envisioned (cue: Dan Gilbert and the great concept of synthetic happiness). The other 7 were related to a whole bunch of other stuff from hair to travelling to hiking, running to reading to um – yes, this is weird – moisturising (don’t ask).

But the point of this entry isn’t about my Buckets. It’s about how our priorities get screwed up too readily. It’s just strange that the things I really, truly wanted to do, which I had listed, weren’t the stuff I spent the majority of my time doing. Instead, 80% of my time is spent on the single work-related bucket (which shall, from henceforth, be referred to as Bucket No. 8), leaving me with 20% to spend on the other 7 buckets.

Isn’t that how life usually is? We have all these things we want to do and half of them aren’t even big grand things like conquering Everest. Half of them are just little regular things like say, catching up with a friend once a month or listening to a talk on www.ted.com once a week or whatever. But instead of channeling energy to these things, we let ourselves get swept up in the Great Tide of Life (more popularly known as the Great Tide of Work).

“I’ll get around to these buckets once Bucket No. 8 lets up,” we tell ourselves … but Bucket No. 8 never lets up. That’s why it’s called Full-Time Employment.

So what’s the moral of the story? I’ll give it to you:

1. Don’t wait until things let up to do what’s important to you. There will never be a perfect time. Being a perfectionist suffering from bouts of OCD, this is hard for me to grasp, but I’m learning.
2. Work is work. Work is not life. For someone like me who has all the textbook symptoms of one who’s veering dangerously on the edge of workaholism, this is a mantra I need to keep repeating. My ex-boss used to say, “Life is short and then you die.” That’s a piece of really good advice, don’t you think?
3. Keep up the lists; they’re good things. The concept of list-making has won itself many advocates and, at the same time, detractors. IMHO though, they do work. Sure, I may not have done all that stuff I’d listed early this year (not yet anyway), but my list exists to remind me that I still have half a year left and hey, honey, get cracking. If nothing else, it’s a great reminder.

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.  

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.