The Happy Workaholics
I used to call my friend, Cindy, a happy workaholic. She’s the kind of person who seems to love works more than anything else, more than holiday and more than drinking nights with friends or colleagues.
Cindy tends to befriend other happy workaholics too. She sometimes grumbles about how regular people do not understand her lifestyle and always accuses her of having no life.
Usually Cindy says things like, “Please, I still go to movie on weekends. I still have time to meet you guys over coffee. But of course I can’t hang out on Monday night.”
Cindy is one of those millennials who read articles like “Reasons to Ditch Your Corporate Job for a Career at Startup” or “Millennials, Do Not Work for Big Organization”. She was led to believe that corporate people are dull and working for big organization will kill her creativity. So a month after college graduation, she accepted a job offer at a tech startup, and she became the typical overachieving 20-something, fresh from college, ready to prove her worth to the world, making it in the industry.
I remember we met during her first weeks at the company. I had never seen her face that happy.
“These people, they are happy workaholics. They don’t mind staying up all night. Everyone is so passionate about works. Everyone cares about the mission,” she spoke with excitement.
Good for you, then. Cindy had finally found where she belongs. Anyway, I always knew she would fit the startup culture. The long hours, the collaborative space, the crazy targets. While many fresh graduates do not want to sacrifice weekends for a mission to change the world, my friend definitely would.
But six months later, Cindy started to tweet (yes, she still tweets) stuffs like:
‘Even Anna Wintour turns off on weekends’
and
‘Investing two hours on the morning to “learn something new”. Who knows it will help me to “advance” my works?’.
The former tweet could mean two things: 1) She actually did not feel like working on weekend, or 2) She tried to remind her workaholic self not to work on weekend.
But the quotation marks on the latter tweet definitely implied a sarcastic tone.
And so, a week ago when I met her again over coffee and asked her ‘How’s work?’, her opinions on her colleagues have completely changed.
“Oh yeah, sure, they are happy workaholics. Too happy, probably. Everyone stays in the office until late at night, working on weekends. They are so happy and busy working that they never meet anyone new, never learn something new. They have no escape outside works. No drinking nights, no volunteering on weekends.”
She sipped her latte and continued, “Sure, they pride themselves for their loyalty and hard work, but they don’t see that there are so many things that need improvement. You know why they can’t see it? Because they do not have even a single day to reflect and think about what they should do to improve their works.”
If one heard her long complaint, one would think Cindy had a crappy corporate job. But she worked at a tech startup. Cindy was promised an everyday exciting journey of continuous innovation, but that’s not what she got. For Cindy, the long hours devoted to a mission were not that exciting anymore.
“I thought those people are happy workaholics. It turned out they simply have no life outside works. They’re dull.”
So my friend quit. The people she once thought as happy workaholics ended up driving her crazy. Her story made me remember the saying ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’.
One of her last sentences that night was “If I have my own company, I’d prefer employees who go home at 5 and bring me fresh ideas in the morning from their night readings or weekend networking.”
Oh, but my friend is only a clueless 20-something. I don’t think anyone would care :).
