As the holiday season comes and goes, the first semester becomes a memory, and the first set of PSSA tests have been taken and submitted, educators can find themselves with a feeling of exhaustion and stress.  As the job and its expectations expand, it is often a challenge to know when to work harder and when to draw back.  A few years ago, a person who worked 50 hours a week was considered a workaholic.  Today, many people think working 60 hours a week is not very much.  Most schools celebrate employees who work long hours and dedicate themselves fully to their work.  By providing their employees with the use of topnotch technology, educators can readily find computer access, beam information through their PDAs, send faxes and emails, get updated news and call a parent on a cellular phone.  Employees are able to stay in closer contact with their work than ever before in history.   But the more people become connected through technology, the more they become disconnected with the more human elements of life.

The virtue of hard work is taught to many of us as children.  Hearing dad say, “Hard work never killed anyone,” may be an auditory memory.  But, if a work schedule has come to rule one’s life, then it may be time to reassess those values and virtues.  Understanding the true definition of workaholism can help someone determine the actual toll work is having on one’s home life, the ability to sleep, physical problems, relationships with others, and much more.  Economic researchers say that we live in a workaholic culture and the amount of work that people do is a social, economic, and political problem.  The pace of education today further perpetuates the problem.  Although a rarity in the past, teachers and principals are experiencing the phenomena of workaholism.

The concept of being a workaholic is often used in jest, yet it is in fact a recognized addiction characterized by a person whose need to work has become so excessive that it disturbs physical health, personal happiness, interpersonal relations, or the ability to function socially.  The success-oriented 1980s bread the term “workaholic.”  Although it has become a household word, workaholism has not been accepted into the official psychiatric and psychological nomenclature (Pietropinto, 1986).  The most significant problem created by this addiction is the fact that workaholics become less-rounded people.  They experience a sterile lifestyle of work without normal relationships with give and take.  They also lack quality communication.  Hence, workers find that they cannot continue to work indefinitely at such a high pace without personal lives eventually suffering.  Author Ted Pollock (1998), offers a brief quiz for those who believe that they may be suffering from a work addiction.  Those questions include:

Æ Do you find it difficult to enjoy vacations, holidays, weekends?

Æ Does your mind tend to dwell on your job, even when you’re away from work?

Æ Are you uncomfortable in strictly social settings?

Æ Do you find your children’s demands on your time irksome?

Æ Do you habitually work late or come in early to the office or plant?

Æ Do you cut lunch breaks short, so you can return to work?

Æ Do you leave work reluctantly each night?

Æ Have you lost your sense of humor and enthusiasm?

Æ Does an inner voice constantly criticize what you say and do?

All Work and No Play…

Avoiding Workaholism at Schools

 

Tammy A. Andreyko, Ingomar Middle School