are you a workaholic?

[Plumdaff]

No.
There's two sides of my job - the people and the administrative. I'm more than happy to stay late, come in a bit early or in other ways help out people I work with but the other stuff, the meetings and the internal politics etc. Bugger that. I'm going home.

 

[campanula]

No, I work till I have enough money to get by then down tools. I also have a seasonal job - this is the easiest time of the year so taking time out ready to get back in the grind in a month or so.

 

[moomoo]

I only work 2 days a week so probably not.

 

[equationgirl]

I'm up to nearly 50 hours a week most weeks. But I refuse to work on a weekend. Fuck that.

Someone called me a workaholic last week. They are a dick though so I ignored them.

 

[Sapphireblue]

i'm doing a fair bit of overtime at the moment. but it's paid so could be worse. my other half does far longer hours than me and gets fuck all for it.

i prefer not to do extra hours, i'd rather make sure i'm effective in my standard hours, but at the moment there's just too much to do.

i do care and make an effort. however, i'm relatively good at switching off when i exit the building. so, no, not a workaholic.

if i won the lottery i'd definitely not work. i could easily fill my time without getting bored. if it came down to it and i needed something else i'd study. i wouldn't work if i didn't have to.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I'm on holiday in Spain and still answering emails

 

[Crispy]

Fuck no. Slackaholic more like.

 

[moon]

A bit, I love making things, doing stuff, learning new things. I also love being in bed, but its not mutually exclusive.

 

[blossie33]

I suppose I am in the sense that I'm in the office from 7am until 5pm and I don't take a proper lunch hour.

However, I'm not actually working all the time (like now, when I'm on Urban ) and I come in earlier than my official time as it suits me to travel and it's quiet in the office and I can get on with doing some jobs better first thing.

In the past I've had three or four part time jobs on the go and have worked 7 days a week - different sorts of work though so interesting.

I just like to keep busy rather than being a slave to work as such.

 

[Diamond]

Definitely not but I've had to work extremely hard for periods of time - mainly driven by partners who are extreme workaholics.

I can remember a three to four week period roughly a couple of years ago where I was getting around 1-3 hours sleep a night max and working right through the weekend. Quite exciting but very unhealthy.

Looking back, with a bit of distance, that kind of routine makes it seem very normal to work intensive 16 hour days and anything less than that is a bit strange and anything more not too much of an issue.

 

[heinous seamus]

No. I wish I was in the house sitting in my pants watching Storage Hunters.

 

[Diamond]

Some of the things that modern law firms do to chain their employees to the desk are pretty ridiculous and governed by an extreme sort of workaholic environment - there are two illustrative examples that I know about:

First, in an unusual move, one firm went for an open plan office, the idea being that everyone could see everyone else's screen (bad practice, but hey ho, they aren't a very good firm...). But the clever thing was this - as a lawyer you are given billable hour targets that are always pretty difficult to meet unless you are working very, very hard. To aid you in billing those hours and assessing those targets, firms buy pieces of software that allow you to record and measure your time, hourly, daily, monthly, yearly - you are always working to a clock that it is often, maybe even usually, difficult to meet. But this open plan office firm went one step further - it made sure that your desktop background was synced with your billed hours against your targets. This meant that when any employee or partner walked into their large open plan office of a morning they could automatically see who were meeting their targets (green screen), who were level pegging (blue screen), and who were failing (red screen). You can probably imagine the type of environment that that fosters.

Second, flowing on from that, another firm I know recently introduced a similar system so that on at least one of your screens there will appear a small graph tracking hours billed against targets throughout the whole day reflecting the big picture of your whole year. It can't be got rid of - it just nags away in the background.

 

[Lucy Fur]

No. I wish I was in the house shitting in my pants watching Storage Hunters.

Thats how I read that first time....soz

 

[heinous seamus]

Thats how I read that first time....soz

I'd probably still prefer that tbh

 

[lolo]

so i have answered yes but i read something recently about the whole work/life balance thing and although i work more than i should in terms of giving myself downtime and holidays i do enjoy most of what i do and i choose to take more work on

 

[High Voltage]

Some of the things that modern law firms do to chain their employees to the desk are pretty ridiculous and governed by an extreme sort of workaholic environment - there are two illustrative examples that I know about:

First, in an unusual move, one firm went for an open plan office, the idea being that everyone could see everyone else's screen (bad practice, but hey ho, they aren't a very good firm...). But the clever thing was this - as a lawyer you are given billable hour targets that are always pretty difficult to meet unless you are working very, very hard. To aid you in billing those hours and assessing those targets, firms buy pieces of software that allow you to record and measure your time, hourly, daily, monthly, yearly - you are always working to a clock that it is often, maybe even usually, difficult to meet. But this open plan office firm went one step further - it made sure that your desktop background was synced with your billed hours against your targets. This meant that when any employee or partner walked into their large open plan office of a morning they could automatically see who were meeting their targets (green screen), who were level pegging (blue screen), and who were failing (red screen). You can probably imagine the type of environment that that fosters.

Second, flowing on from that, another firm I know recently introduced a similar system so that on at least one of your screens there will appear a small graph tracking hours billed against targets throughout the whole day reflecting the big picture of your whole year. It can't be got rid of - it just nags away in the background.

FUCK. THAT.

That's not a workaholic environment - that's a BULLYING ENVIRONMENT

 

[equationgirl]

FUCK. THAT.

That's not a workaholic environment - that's a BULLYING ENVIRONMENT

Unfortunately because of the number of law graduates being produced each year compared to the number of employment opportunities employers do behave like this. I am not saying it is right and you would think lawyers would know better.

 

[Greebo]

strange how no one ever says that to violentpanda or dotcommunist or orang utan, all of whom have higher postcounts than i.

Such things have occasionally been said to VP, but most regulars here remember that there are good reasons why he can be on here so much and can post so heavily.

You, on the other hand, are neither long term sick nor unemployed.

 

[Poot]

The kids stop me being at work too much. They were away last week and I managed to work 8 - 4 every day with no breaks because we were snowed under. I'm only contracted to work 25 h/w. But I do find my job rewarding and challenging and varied and I hate being bored. I don't think it makes me a workaholic though.

 

[Voley]

I just aim for that elusive work/life balance thing. Earn half what I used to but am strictly 9-5, never work weekends and take flexitime for every minute over my 37 hour week.

 

[Ax^]

work a 50 hour week..

so a little

 

[xes]

an hour overtime every day, working weekends sat and sun if it's there to do. Last saturday I worked 13 hours. Only 4 yesterday and 5 today.

 

[chrishowells]

I tend to work hard, sometimes staying overtimes... rarely taking my job home. So probably not workaholic, at least not raging workaholic

 

[jusali]

Some of the things that modern law firms do to chain their employees to the desk are pretty ridiculous and governed by an extreme sort of workaholic environment - there are two illustrative examples that I know about:

First, in an unusual move, one firm went for an open plan office, the idea being that everyone could see everyone else's screen (bad practice, but hey ho, they aren't a very good firm...). But the clever thing was this - as a lawyer you are given billable hour targets that are always pretty difficult to meet unless you are working very, very hard. To aid you in billing those hours and assessing those targets, firms buy pieces of software that allow you to record and measure your time, hourly, daily, monthly, yearly - you are always working to a clock that it is often, maybe even usually, difficult to meet. But this open plan office firm went one step further - it made sure that your desktop background was synced with your billed hours against your targets. This meant that when any employee or partner walked into their large open plan office of a morning they could automatically see who were meeting their targets (green screen), who were level pegging (blue screen), and who were failing (red screen). You can probably imagine the type of environment that that fosters.

Second, flowing on from that, another firm I know recently introduced a similar system so that on at least one of your screens there will appear a small graph tracking hours billed against targets throughout the whole day reflecting the big picture of your whole year. It can't be got rid of - it just nags away in the background.

My dear brother just got himself out of a job that fostered this exact same environment. He thought he was walking into a top firm with great credentials, when in actual fact all the fuckers did were to rinse him for every hour he lived. He was naive as to the ways of some law firms so hopefully this experience has given him a better understanding of my distaste for law mongers.......

 

[Casually Red]

Am I fuck a workaholic .