See the test on the second page of this story to check if you or people you know are workaholics
KEY POINTS:
An Auckland telephone technician is taking a stand against workaholism - with his own life as his prime exhibit.
Ian Prince, a project manager for Alcatel-Lucent, worked 60 to 70 hours a week until the age of 36, when he suffered a breakdown.
His marriage "unravelled" and he realised: "I was destroying myself."
He is not unusual. In last year's Census, 188,000 people, or 10 per cent of all New Zealanders in paid work, worked for at least 60 hours a week, and 23 per cent worked for at least 50 hours - more than in any of 17 other developed countries except Japan in a 2004 survey.
Anne-Marie, a New Zealand contact person for Workaholics Anonymous, says Kiwis have "a strong tendency to workaholism".
"People came to colonise this country and I think they hit the ground running. I know my stepfather was Dutch and he was forever trying to prove that he was okay and was achieving. So I think in this country we have got quite a case of it," she says.
She sees the country's annual summer shutdown as "an opportunity to reflect on your life".
"Are you living the life that you want to be living, or are you living an insanely busy life?" she asks.
Mr Prince, 47, cut back his hours after his breakdown and managed to save his marriage. He now gives talks to other managers through Celebrity Speakers about how to get a better balance in their lives.
He traces his own workaholism to his childhood reaction against his parents, who "made decisions over buying beer rather than shoes for the children".
"At the age of 10, I remember looking at my parents and my friends' parents and saying, 'I don't want to end up like my parents'."
He got a paper run and a milk run and at 13 started working in a dairy in his home town, Napier. When he got a fulltime job as a Telecom linesman, he kept two part-time jobs as well. He bought his first house at 21.
"With such poor self-esteem and rejection by my family, I became a perfectionist," he says.
"I wanted to be the best. I wanted to hear those words saying, 'Oh, you've done a fantastic job'. So when someone said I did a good job I worked harder to get that. The treadmill was going faster and faster and I just couldn't get off."
He moved into management in Telecom, laying off 840 people and shifting to Auckland to centralise a lot of the company's operations.
"During that period my marriage unravelled as well. We didn't split up, but we had to work through a lot of issues," he says.
Then suddenly one morning he woke up in a hot sweat after a largely sleepless night.
"I woke up and looked at the ceiling and said, 'I just can't do this any more'."
Eventually he pulled out of it with the help of his "health team" - a doctor, a psychologist, a pastor and a key personal friend.
His life still sounds slightly manic. He works three days a week running teams at three sites in Auckland and two days a week at two other sites in Wellington. But he now sets boundaries so his teams know not to ring him outside work time. He works only 40 to 45 hours.
When he starts getting stressed, he takes time out to swim. And he saves time by techniques such as writing minutes on his laptop during a meeting rather than taking notes home to write up at night. He also makes time to "look after those key relationships".
"My wife and I always have a date on a Friday night," he says. "Sometimes it's just sitting at home watching a video. Sometimes it's going out for a meal or catching up with friends."
Workaholics Anonymous, which holds weekly meetings in Wellington and Christchurch, believes workaholics are addicted to adrenalin and need to force themselves to stop being busy and make time to relax.
Its website offers tips for slowing down such as doing only one thing at a time, allowing more time than you need for each task, and not taking on anything new unless you stop doing something else.
But psychologist Dr Lynley McMillan, who surveyed 421 employees and their partners for her doctoral thesis at Waikato University, found that those with "workaholic" symptoms, such as finding it hard to stop work and thinking about work outside work hours, did not meet key tests for an addiction.
Unlike alcoholics or drug addicts, the workers' ratings of themselves on measures of workaholism closely matched their partners' assessments of them, and both they and their partners reported relationships that were just as good as those of workers without any "workaholic" symptoms.
Dr McMillan concluded relationships could thrive as long as both partners had "matching working styles".
ARE YOU A WORKAHOLIC?
1. Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else?
2. Are there times when you can charge through your work and other times when you can't get anything done?
3. Do you take work with you to bed? On weekends? On holidays?
4. Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most?
5. Do you work more than 40 hours a week?
6. Do you turn your hobbies into moneymaking ventures?
7. Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts?
8. Have your family or friends given up expecting you on time?
9. Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won't otherwise get done?
10. Do you underestimate how long a project will take and then rush to complete it?
11. Do you believe it's okay to work long hours if you love what you're doing?
12. Do you get impatient with people who have other priorities besides work?
13. Are you afraid that if you don't work hard you will lose your job or be a failure?
14. Is the future a constant worry for you even when things are going very well?
15. Do you do things energetically and competitively, including play?
16. Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else?
17. Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships?
18. Do you think about your work while driving, falling asleep or when others are talking?
19. Do you work or read during meals?
20. Do you believe more money will solve the other problems in your life?
* If you answered "yes" to at least three questions, there's a chance you're a workaholic or becoming one.
Source: www.workaholics-anonymous.org
