There's a big difference between workaholics and hard workers.

Hard workers are efficient; will take an hour-long task and get it done in an hour, or find a way to do it in 45 minutes. They get work done and go home.

Workaholics won't shut up, do their jobs, and go home. Workaholics *create* work and turn a one hour task into a two hour task with superfluous, unnecessary bullshit (e-mails, power-point presentations, meetings ect.) or just waste time.

Workaholics do this for various reasons; to look good, they dislike their famelies, they think it's expected, don't have a life, or they don't know any better; equating efficiency with laziness somehow, that leaving at 5:00 pm is a mortal sin.

Real life example:

Had a manager who took pay sheets to upper management. Took her two hours to get done because she'd talk to all their secretaries about....nothing most of the time.

I'd do it in 15 minutes, was polite, but did what was needed, asked if there were any issued to fix, and then move on.

Could give hundreds of examples like this, but it's the same concept. Hard workers work to accomplish a task, workaholics work for the sake of working.

I totally agree. A few years ago I had a manager who regularly worked 60 hour weeks and impressed everyone by staying in the office late and working on weekends. Shortly after I started working for him he told me he expected me to do the same, despite the fact that I already spent over 2 hours each day commuting to the job. I was told that unless I was willing to work those extra hours, I wouldn't be getting any raises. I chose to stay sane and just forgo raises until he left and I got a more reasonable boss. I also got by because I was able to get all of my work done in the allotted time, so he didn't really have anything to complain about.

It wasn't until I'd been working for the guy for a while that I came to realize that he worked so much because he seemed to be driven crazy by his wife and kids, so he'd stay at the office so he didn't have to deal with them. A few other people in the company seemed aware of it too, and those people didn't have nearly the level of esteem for him as others did. I also came to realize after working for him for a while that he would do everything in the least efficient way possible to maximize the time it took.

Unfortunately American culture has developed the "hard worker as martyr" mindset, so people are proud about how much they suffer in the workplace. It's become a serious badge of honor, which is sad. I lived in France for a while and saw how much more time people had with family and friends, and how much it enriched their lives. Sure, they owned older and less fancy stuff than Americans, but they had more than enough time to enjoy what they had and to develop truly meaningful relationships with others, which no amount of money can buy. It's a shame that we haven't learned how important that is yet.

WarOnWork:

I totally agree. A few years ago I had a manager who regularly worked 60 hour weeks and impressed everyone by staying in the office late and working on weekends. Shortly after I started working for him he told me he expected me to do the same, despite the fact that I already spent over 2 hours each day commuting to the job. I was told that unless I was willing to work those extra hours, I wouldn't be getting any raises. I chose to stay sane and just forgo raises until he left and I got a more reasonable boss. I also got by because I was able to get all of my work done in the allotted time, so he didn't really have anything to complain about.

Wow, I think we work for the same boss. At my job, there's the expectation that salaried employees should work 50+ hour weeks. I typically work between 50 and 60 hours/week and in all honesty, it's getting very old.

I've always found it funny that even though I worked 60 hours in a given week, if I took an hour off to go to the dentist, HR (who works 40 hour weeks) would demand I dock myself an hour of sick time. We still pretend we only work 40 hours a week on our timesheets.

I assumed my job from someone else who worked a bunch of OT but wasn't tech savvy and in terms of the technical side couldn't tell the forest from the trees. I do the same job better than her and do it in about 75% of the time while assuming more duties.

My Chatty Kathy co-workers gossip that "I'm not putting in the time". As long as I deliver and keep moving the 1st Down marker and then some, let's forget the Dog and Pony Show of how much "face time" we put in.

Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I've been thinking this for years! At work, you can divide our team up into workaholics and hard workers... problem is, it's the workaholics that are held up as shining examples of what we should all strive to be. Forget it... my non-work life it more important than that. I'll just continue to quietly go about my work efficiently.

My mother always says "Work smarter, not harder."

But I find the raises are going to the dopes who play the "Minesweeper" game until the the hour just before they leave or who only work when the boss is nearby.

Mom never told me it was going to be like this.

Walk around quickly carrying pieces of paper looking angry.