Jamie Ceaser doesn’t sleep much.
How can she with five projects going on at one time–and always another project in the works?
“I’m like the plate spinner on the Ed Sullivan Show with all the [plates] going in the air at once,” said Ceaser, an independent producer in Chicago.
Between starting her own production company, teaching a class, working on a documentary, doing jobs for museums and news shows and trying to sell TV shows, she’s beyond busy.
The reality of such a workload isn’t always fun, but Ceaser said she’d keep up her frenetic work pace even if she hit the jackpot. “Historically, I’m a workaholic,” she said. “I like what I do. It really makes me thrive. I know people who get an adrenaline rush from relationships. I get a rush from work.”
Sound familiar?
Chances are, you or someone you know is a workaholic–a person who lives and breathes work, whether at the office or not. But when work becomes the sum total of a person’s existence, everything else–family, friends, even vacation–can be shut out. And that’s a problem, experts say.
The number of hours Americans work has increased in the last decade, to the point that America is catching up with Japan as the world’s hardest-working nation, according to Dean McFarlin, professor of management at the University of Dayton in Ohio.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that Americans worked an average of 49 hours a week in 1999, and experts say that the numbers are going up–especially among overburdened workers in today’s down economy.
“People are nervous. Today, it’s more likely that you’re going to [put in extra hours] on your own to preserve your job than you would have three years ago,” said McFarlin, adding that round-the-clock working also has become the norm in a global economy.
The technological revolution also has made workaholism seductively easy. Between cell phones, personal digital assistants and the Internet, there is no such thing as “time off.” Combine all these factors with an achievement-oriented society, and you have a recipe for workaholism.
From a psychological perspective, workaholism is a form of obsession.
“If one is obsessively focused on work and always driven by that to the exclusion of other things, that’s probably extremely unhealthy,” said Robert Mark, a clinical psychologist and corporate consultant in Chicago. “I suspect that workaholics, the ones who are success-driven, are really looking for a sense of power or control and they do it out of fear that if they didn’t do this, what would happen to them?”
Are you addicted to work?
If you answer “yes” to three or more of the following questions, you may be on your way to becoming a workaholic:
– Do you get more excited about work than your family or anything else?
– Do you take work to bed? On weekends? On vacation?
– Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most?
– Do you work more than 40 hours a week?
– Have your family or friends given up expecting you on time?
– Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won’t otherwise get done?
– Do you believe that it is OK to work long hours if you love what you do?
– Do you get impatient with people who have other priorities besides work?
– Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships?
– Are you afraid that if you don’t work hard, you’ll lose your job or be a failure?
– Do you believe that more money will solve the other problems in your life?
SOURCE: WORKAHOLICS ANONYMOUS.
