workaholic

There is a really dumb article on CNN about workaholism. The full article is here.

A few of the dumb things this article says:

"working more than 40 hours per week can be an indication of workaholism"
--well, for most people I know, working 40 hours per week is the bare minimum allowed to keep your job! Working a few more than 40 hours is probably true for 90+% of full-time employees.

"Workaholism is unrelated to how people feel about their jobs. It's about their behavior...[a] major indication of workaholic behavior [is] spending time thinking of ways to do one's job better."
-- First workaholism is not about feelings, but about behavior. Next, it's all about thinking? Then he confuses thinking as a behavior (it's not). Working until midnight is a behavior. Thinking about work at midnight is a thought. Feeling anxious about work at midnight is a feeling. And you know, if I had feelings about work all the time, I just might be a workaholic, n'est-ce pas? Oh, and thinking of ways to do one's job better is bad?!? Give me a break.

"We always talk about continuous improvement, but no one is really required to spend time thinking about that."
--If it is legitimate to talk about 'continuous improvement' (as every major corporation does), how would one actually do that without thinking about it? (He doesn't talk about thinking about it continuously, just spending any time at all thinking about it is apparently bad).

Finally, here are a few gems that are supposed to be indicators of workaholism:

1. Are there times when you can charge through your work and other times when you can't?
-- Isn't that called normal life?

2. Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts?
-- Shouldn't everyone? Exactly who else should take responsibility for my own efforts?

3. Do you do things energetically and competitively including play?
-- Wouldn't that be a good and healthy thing (at least energetically if not 'competitively')?

Mind you, I think workaholism is an important problem, and I think Americans probably work more hours than any other industrialized nation in the world with less time off, but this article is awful.