Stop Pissing Me Off What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy (20 page)

what drives workaholics

According to Bryan E. Robinson, a therapist in Asheville, North Carolina, and author of
Chained to the Desk: A Guide-
book for Workaholics, Their Partners and Children, and the
Clinicians Who Treat Them
, “Workaholics are out of balance. They don’t have many friends. They don’t take care of themselves. They don’t have any hobbies outside of the office. A hard worker will be at his desk, thinking about the ski slopes. A workaholic will be on the ski slopes thinking about his desk.”

According to Robinson, children of parents with emotional problems are often put on the path to workaholism when they must become responsible for their siblings, housework, and sometimes even those checked-out parents. Kids learn that it’s much easier to focus on tasks than to deal with painful feelings, a kind of avoidance that’s often carried into adulthood. Workaholism, Robinson’s research has shown, is closely correlated with the inability to be intimate, and many of his clients enter treatment because their close relationships are falling apart. People who are rigid and perfectionist, or those who are born achievers, are also more likely to morph into workaholics.

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After almost two decades of research, Robinson has identified a few different breeds of workaholics. Here’s a guide to the different species:

The all-or-nothing Workaholic:
He does things perfectly or not at all. He struggles to get started on projects for fear of not meeting his own impossible expectations. When he does get rolling, he binges to the point of exhaustion. His thinking and his approach to work is all or nothing.

The relentless Workaholic
: These types don’t have problems getting started; it’s the stopping they have trouble with. They can’t say “no,” set priorities, or delegate. They may also be people pleasers who don’t want to disappoint others.

The Savoring Workaholic
: These types obsess over details to the point of paralysis. They hate letting projects go and will often create additional work whenever they get close to finishing a task. They tell themselves that no one could do it as well as they could. They may also be know-it-alls. Still think that being a workaholic is an advantage? Gayle Porter, management professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, in her book,
Workaholics as High-Performance Employees:
The Intersection of Workplace and Family Relationship Prob-
lems
, says, “Workaholics are terrible team players. They allow crisis situations to develop because it makes them look like a hero.”

The result is that workaholics often don’t get much accomplished. That’s why Porter thinks more bosses would do well to reward those who clock out at the end of the day. “The employee who wants to go home is the one who will be most efficient during the week, because she’s protecting her time off.”

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combating workaholism

Okay, so what do you do if you’re a Type A personality—and you have the stress to show for it? Cut your electronic leashes: Eat lunch out of the office without answering your cell phone. No laptops in bed or at the table. No e-mail on weekends. Other tips to cut the work chains that bind you:

Prioritize:
Learn to decide what must come first. It’s a way to recognize that some things in life are more important than others. Focus on the big picture in life and at work.
Tame Your To-Do List:
Set a cutoff for the number of tasks that can reasonably be accomplished in a day—no more than five. If a new task must be added, knock another off that demands equivalent time. Schedule time for play and relaxation. Also, most time-management experts agree that you need to list not just the tasks, but also how long it will take to accomplish each task. This can change your perception of why you end up at the end of the day with so many things undone.

I remember once taking my impossible to-do list to a professional support group of colleagues so that they could help me figure out why I couldn’t get everything finished. They just laughed! One glance at the list revealed to them the truth I’d failed to understand: There was simply no way could I accomplish these tasks in the time allowed. I needed to readjust my expectations of myself and those around me or I was going to be constantly angry with myself and colleagues who couldn’t meet my unrealistic standards.

Dire circumstances can push even the most severe workaholics off the treadmill. The hero of the movie
Stranger Than

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Fiction
, for example, decided to take a vacation only when he thought his death was imminent: Mortality made him boldly reassess things. Here are a few other signs that you are working too long and too hard:
You’re experiencing health problems
: Workaholism can contribute to an array of health problems. If that is the case, you need to slow down.

“Dad, Can I Be a Client?”:
Has your family complained that they never see you? Does time with your spouse have to be scheduled into your Palm Pilot three months in advance?

Does your child come home with a drawing of your family that doesn’t include you? I’ll never forget the day I was packing for yet another business trip and my four-year-old son jumped into my suitcase, asking if he could go with me. That was a wake-up call. Put things in perspective: At the end of your life, you won’t wish you’d spent more time at the office. To slow down, consider the following suggestions.

the glories oF power napping

Americans are a nation of insomniacs; that conclusion is the only one to draw from watching all the sleep aid ads on television. According to the National Sleep Foundation

(www.sleepfoundation.org
), on
e-third of us have trouble sleeping some or all of the time; millions take sleep aids or fall asleep at work or on the job. Twenty percent admit to falling asleep while driving.

What’s the cause of all this night-owl behavior? Experts point to various causes, including television, computer, and

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other screen time. There also can be physical causes; for example, sleep apnea, a condition that causes people to stop breathing during sleep, resulting in a net loss of rest, even if they think they’re staying in bed the requisite eight hours. Also, we’re no longer a nation that rises and rests with the roosters. Clearly we work more than ever before. And of course, longer commuting time and family demands add to the lack of sleep. Lack of exercise is also a contributing factor; numerous studies show that regular exercise, particularly exercise done outdoors, results in better quality of sleep.

What to do about all this vampire behavior? In a word: surgery. Cut out tasks and commitments that aren’t absolutely necessary. Do whatever lifestyle surgery you need in order to get at least eight hours of sleep. Some people need even more, but the average American is clocking in at six and a half. No wonder we’re all so cranky! You simply cannot do your best and control your own mood if you’re constantly sleep deprived. Lack of sleep makes all of us less than our best and can cause depression and weight gain, in addition to irritability and the feeling that we want to slap someone. So get at least eight hours of sleep; you’ll feel much less pissed off if you do!

eat your greens

Is there a mom who doesn’t harp about eating your vegetables? Fortunately or unfortunately, Mom was correct! There is no question that good eating—including those vegetables—

impacts our mood and performance. If you can keep your mood stable and your body healthy, you’ll be better able to deal with those annoying coworkers. Check out the book
Food and Mood
, by Elizabeth Somer and Nancy Snyderman, if you have doubts that your pissed-off state is influenced by what you eat.

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We all have our crabby days. Sometimes you can blame it on the weather (a blizzard, a heat wave) or your boss (he’s given you a last-minute project) or even the post office (where is that check?). But other times bad moods strike from nowhere—and suddenly, you’re snippy with the first person to cross your path. Depressed? Perhaps. But you may just be hungry for the right kind of food.

What and when you eat, even at a single meal, can affect whether you feel happy, sad, irritable, alert, calm, or sleepy. If you pick the wrong foods or skip eating, you may ratchet up your chance of having a stressful or emotional day. Food helps regulate an array of chemicals called neurotransmitters, which circulate throughout the brain, facilitating communication among the hundreds of nerves that help govern your mood. Serotonin leads the pack in name recognition among these brain chemicals. Low levels of this chemical contribute to many types of depression. Many of the popular antidepressant drugs work by moderating serotonin activity in the brain. Diet also has a profound affect on serotonin secretion. In the absence of certain foods, including protein to produce its precursor, tryptophan, and carbohydrates to trigger its release, serotonin levels can go haywire, leading to irritability and cravings for carbohydrates, which is your brain’s way of self-medicating. Serotonin is just one of the players in the orchestra of brain chemicals that regulate mood. The others include neuropeptide Y (NPY), galanin, dopamine, and the endorphins. In addition, blood sugar levels and certain nutrients, including the B vitamin folate and omega-3 fatty acids, play a role. If you think that you can go without breakfast and still function, consider the data: Breakfast skippers, on average, score poorly on cognitive and alertness tests, report more hunger throughout the day, and feel more irritable, fatigued, and cranky than do people who feast in the a.m.

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Poor diet, little sleep, and lack of exercise can send us into uneven highs and lows that do not help us gain the emotional stability we need. Investigate your diet and lifestyle choices to see whether they’re contributing to your road rage in the hallways.
clean living will do you good

There’s no question that the workplace is more stressful and requires more from us than ever before. The best way to offload that stress is to make sure that you have the best possible health habits and health care. Having a heavy load on your body clearly affects your mind and emotional state. When you’re dueling with difficult coworkers, the added stress of dealing with a fading body is just too much for most of us. Here’s a clean-living checklist. If you answer no to any of these questions, it’s going to be difficult for you to control your stress well enough to deal with the inevitable people who will piss you off:

1. I have excellent health care. pyes pno

2. I sleep at least eight hours but no more than ten every day. pyes pno

3. I enjoy caffeine and alcohol in moderation or not at all. p yes pno

4. I enjoy the social and emotional support of family and/

or friends. pyes pno

5. I have someone to talk to when I’m upset, whose counsel I respect. pyes pno 6. I have something I look forward to doing every day. p yes pno

7. I enjoy hobbies and my spiritual and social life; work doesn’t define me. pyes pno

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If you answered no to two or more of these questions, no wonder you’re pissed off. You need radical lifestyle surgery.
Managing other workaholics

What if it’s not you who works too much but your boss or workplace colleagues, who then expect you to do the same? How do you cope? In a word: limits. Effective limit-setting is a skill that every worker needs. You have to be crystal clear about what you will give personally and professionally. Of course, the reality is that most of us (unless we’re trust-fund babies) need to work; however, you may not need this particular job if it’s killing you or you’re consistently neglecting your family and friends. Other chapters of this book contain suggestions about how to communicate limits; here are a few additional suggestions:
1. Determine your boundaries.
For example, you may be willing to travel away from your kids once a month but not once a week. You may be willing to work one

weekend a month but not every one. Talk with your spouse, a therapist, or religious adviser to find out what’s realistic for you.

2. Communicate your limits without judgment.
Once you know what you can and cannot realistically handle, discuss your findings with your boss and
relevant
colleagues (there is no need for the entire office to know). You don’t need to cast any aspersions on their sanity

or character (in other words, don’t belittle them if they choose to be workaholics). Simply communicate what

you will and will not do, calmly and without emotion.

Here’s an example. After several sessions with me,

one of my clients went to her boss with her bottom-line

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assessment during a business reorganization in which

everyone was working too much. “I realize that everyone is stretched thin,” she told him, “but I just can’t keep doing this. I’m willing to work two jobs, but not three.” Surprisingly, he apologized, and rearranged her workload. He had no idea how much she was actually doing.
3. keep your boss and relevant coworkers informed.
Sometimes your boss may not really know or understand what you’re doing. Find out how your colleagues want

to be kept up-to-date (reports, e-mails, face-to-face meetings, and so on) and let them know what you’re

doing and how long it’s taking. They may be surprised

to learn how hard you work.

4. accept the consequence of doing less.
Life requires painful compromises and choices. Contrary to what Hollywood may imply, nobody is running around out

there with a perfect life: impeccable hair, model kids, a high-powered job, a well-behaved dog, and romantic spouse. You need to decide what’s most important to you and those you love. If working less results in less money or necessitates a search for another job, the tradeoff may be well worth it.