Confessions of a Workaholic

Let me tell you a story about (no prizes for guessing this one, the title is a give-away!) a self-confessed “Workaholic”. So our workaholic stays miles away from her parents, who mean the world to her. It breaks her heart not to be with them often, but she loves her job (or so she thinks, when in fact it’s not love but an obsession). So one long weekend, she decides to go home to be with her family. She was up early that morning for her work and she was working all throughout the day, attending phone calls, answering e-mails, doing inspections, travelling, just like any other day at work, but she still made sure that she reached the railway station an hour in advance to board the train that would take her home. Being the perfectionist that she is, she just could not stand the thought of being late for a train, worse still, missing it. So there she was, checking the display board, though she knew the exact platform on which the train always comes (perfectionists are always in need of reassurance!). She reached the platform for the train. A train was there at the platform to her surprise, as that train should have ideally left by then. Since it wasn’t her train, she just ignored it and found herself a nice bench, kept her luggage aside and sat on the bench absorbing the sights and the sounds of the railway station.

She was going home after a very long time, more than a month had passed since she last went home. What would anyone be feeling at that time – happiness, anticipation, excitement, pretty much all the emotions that one normally associates with going home, right? However our protagonist is different (or outright stupid?). She is lost in thoughts. No, it wasn’t about her parents back home who were eagerly waiting for their daughter to come home. She was lost in thoughts about her day at work – the things that were not in place at work, how she could bring about a difference, what had to be done to make things better, the way she wanted it. She glanced at her watch, there was almost an hour left for her train to arrive. She thought, why not get some work done during this one hour and opened her laptop. As it usually happens with her when she opens her laptop for work, she got drawn into the world of work created by Microsoft Office – MS Outlook and Excel luring her away from the hustle and bustle of the railway station to the world of emails, excels and data. She could see people around her – passengers and tea/coffee vendors, she could hear their noises and the announcements on the railway PAS, but she was neither observing nor listening. All she could think of, was her work. She had turned that bench on the platform into a mini workstation for herself. She remained absorbed in her work, her phone and laptop, when suddenly she got a call on her phone.
 

It was her mother who was on the phone. Suddenly the virtual workplace gave way to a very silent platform, she could see that the train on the platform was gone, the hustle and bustle of passengers and vendors was not there anymore and there were no announcements on the PAS either. She answered the phone, her mother was enquiring if she boarded the train and whether the train was on time. She looked at her watch, it was half an hour past the scheduled departure time of the train. She had totally lost track of time, more than an hour had passed since she had arrived at the station. She answered that the train hadn’t arrived yet and she was still waiting for it. However, she realized that something was not right, she got up from the bench and looked around; the platform was isolated. She told her mother that she would go to the enquiry and find out. She disconnected the call, closed her laptop, put it back in her bag and walked to the enquiry. All the while, she could sense that something was terribly wrong, she hurried past and first looked at the display boards. No, the name of her train was not being displayed. The first shock. She went to the enquiry, asked the officer about the status of her train. He said that it arrived right on time and left the station thirty minutes ago. The second shock, and this one hurt her real bad. She said that it was not possible, as she had been waiting in that platform for more than an hour and the train had not passed by. The officer was also quite baffled, he checked with another officer, who told him that today the train arrived at a different platform and it was announced several times over the PAS that the train was arriving on the other platform. She just could not believe her ears. She had missed the train, even after having reached the station an hour in advance, even after being on the correct platform (at least as per the display board!). Her phone was ringing, it was her mother who was calling, she didn’t know what to tell her, her parents had been waiting for her to come home and it would break their hearts to know that she had missed the train and would not be coming home, all because she couldn’t give work a break even for an hour. Her eyes were welling up and her voice was choking as she answered the call and told her mother that she had missed the train. She could sense the disappointment in her mother’s voice and she just couldn’t bear it. When the call was over, she looked at her phone, her official WhatsApp group was abuzz, new mail notifications kept coming, but none of that made sense to her anymore. For the first time in her life, she realized that maybe she made a great worker at the workplace, but she sure was a failure as a daughter. The tears that she had been holding back for long found their vent, she cried her heart out that day.

 

So, that’s the story of the workaholic who missed a train, because of her dedication to work? No, because she was so obsessed with her work that she could not even take note of what was happening around her. It serves as a good lesson for (a) how not to miss a train and (b) how not drawing boundaries between work and personal life can get one in deep trouble. Well, what do you feel for the protagonist – do you feel sorry for her or do you feel that she was outright stupid, well you can definitely let me know in your comments, because the protagonist happens to be me. Yes, I will probably go down in history as the first person to have missed a train even after having reached the station an hour in advance! It is not something I am proud of and there is a very high chance that I am probably the only one to have accomplished such a feat.  

I have always taken a lot of pride in being a “Daddy’s girl”. He is to me the epitome of hard work, honesty, dedication and utmost sincerity to work. I imbibed almost all his characteristics including his dedication to work. From the time I started working, I remember I had been extremely attached to work, however off-late, I feel like I maybe overdoing it, a little bit (or a lot?). I feel like I maybe crossing that fine line that separates dedication from obsession. The first real shock had been the train incident. It was an incident that made me feel that, while I was doing my duty as an officer, I may have forgotten my duties and responsibilities as a daughter. Even while going home to meet my parents (after a long time), all I could think of was work and not about how I can make the most of my time at home with my parents. The second shock came just a few weeks later. I was in an ATM to withdraw some money, I had entered the PIN and the amount to withdraw and was waiting for the cash to come out of the machine, when my phone rang. It was a call from office. I was talking on the phone while I was inside the ATM, I took the receipt and my card and walked out of the ATM, all the while I was still on the call. I got into my car and disconnected the call and drove off. After driving for a distance, I realized that something was wrong. I stopped the car and checked my wallet. The card was there, the receipt was there, but there was no cash. I had collected the card and the receipt from the ATM, but I had not taken the money. I couldn’t wait for a U-turn, hence I parked my car and ran back to the ATM, but there was no money there. I had lost the money. The second shock! I will probably be the first and the only one to have accomplished this feat too! It took me a while to recover from this second shock, but I took a vow that day, that I will never use my phone while I am in an ATM. Several days passed, before I got the third shock. I wanted to go to the railway station one day and I decided to take an auto. I got into the auto and when the driver asked me where I wanted to go, I said “Trichy Area Office”, which by the way is the name of my office. The driver was shocked, so was I. “Railway station please, I am sorry”, I said and sat there thinking what was happening to me.
 

I have always wondered why some people are the way I am, why is it that some people are attached to work to the point that it becomes an obsession for them, but I have not been able to find any convincing answer to that. Guess, some people are hard-wired like that and they just cannot change it. Such people get lot of accolades at work for their hard-work and dedication, but there are colleagues who just cannot stand the sight of them. It’s no wonder that such people are almost always isolated at work. Most often, they are isolated by their friends and family too, as they are mostly unable to take time out of work for them. They have to deal with isolation outside of work also! They find solace in work and hence immerse themselves even more deeply in work. But it’s only when someday, like me, they miss a train, they will realize, that they are missing out on a lot of things in life.

It took me a missed train to realize that there is more to life than just my job. Yes, my job was an integral part of my life, something that made me proud about myself, something that gave me great joy. But the joy and satisfaction that I got from  my job would all be meaningless if I couldn’t share that joy with the ones who mattered the most in my life, the ones who loved me and cared for me, even when I hardly knew what a job meant. It would be meaningless, if I could not take time out to pursue my other interests in life like writing, travelling and music or I couldn’t take time out to read a book or watch a movie, things that made me happy.  Yes, I loved my job very much, but it could never complete me. My family, my friends, my passions, they were all necessary to complete me. I would be upset, but I would never cry over a bad appraisal, but I did cry over a missed train and at the thought of not been able to be home with my family. A reprimand from my boss would hurt, but not as much as the slightest change of tone in my parent’s voice when they disapprove of something that I did. No amount of appreciation or accolades at work would parallel the “We are proud of you” from my parents. No appraisal or pay hike can beat the happiness that I get when my Mother tells me that I am the best. As an officer, I get to make a difference in the lives of many people of my country on a daily basis and it gives me immense pride and satisfaction, but I get an almost similar satisfaction when what I write makes someone feel better, makes someone smile or makes someone think. I love making power point presentations as much as I love watching movies. Learning something new at work excites me as much as travelling to a place that I have never been to. I knew that I had to draw a line between my work and my personal life, but where do I begin? It was a very difficult task.
 

After much thought, I have now come to terms with the fact that work will always be a part of my life, a priority which will get my undivided attention and devotion when I am at it, but I have also made up my mind that, I will never let work keep me away from the other things that matter to me like my family, my friends and my passions. As they say, “You only live once”. The train of life comes just once, and if you miss it, you miss out on a very beautiful journey. The beauty of the journey is in the people who you share the ride with. The joy of having reached the destination is only when you know that the very people are still with you when you arrive. So here is to all those are working away on their laptops and mobiles, who are too busy running the rat-race of life – Pause, take a break, call up your parents or teachers or that old friend of yours, whom you haven’t spoken to in a while, go watch that new movie starring your favourite actor, renew that old passion that you had back in college, or go backpacking, do all that you want to do “NOW, RIGHT NOW”, before it is too late, before you realize that you’ve missed the train!

P.S: Thanks to Premium Tatkal, I made it home one day after the day I missed the train; off course the long weekend became a short weekend by then, but I still made it up to my parents. In life however, there are no "Pemium Tatkals" that can save us, so, all I want to tell all workaholics out there is, "Don't miss that train!" :-)