Office Capers: Antisocial Workaholic

When you say you are my friend, at least take 2 minutes out of your busy schedule to call me at a time like this.

Who will believe me when I say I haven’t had even 30 seconds to grab a cup of tea? No one, least of all the person who said the above. Do you still want to be friends with a workaholic?

I’m not able to call my best friend when she’s in a crisis.
I haven’t managed to attend the wedding of ANY of my closest friends.
I wasn’t present at the birth of my nephew, niece or godson (the first baby born to a close friend). In fact it was weeks before I got down to visiting the baby and the not-so-new mama.
I pulled out a day’s leave for mum’s operation. But I haven’t been able to accompany her on the follow-up visits to the doctor.
I cut short phone calls to run off for a meeting or lunch or because I’m entering office. Or because I’m just too dead tired at the end of the day to speak.

People in my life have been complaining that I spend so little time with them. Mostly I suspect, they’ve just stopped caring. It worries me. I wonder is it worth it? I mean, its not even like I’m an extremely successful trailblazer. I’m an average working person in an average job, that’s all.

The easy answer is that no, of course not….nothing matters more than the people in one’s life. And yet, callously, cynically all I can say is that work is the only area of my life that has given me consistent rewards for the effort I put in. Relationships, people….all of those have been gambles. Either I’ve hit jackpot or I’ve bombed miserably. Even the jackpot…there’s no guarantee how long it will last before it turns into a ticking bomb.

But I am afraid I’m turning into an antisocial workaholic. Damn, it isn’t even that I love my work all that much. And yet, I feel good about myself at work, while the people I love make me feel like a failure. But seriously, that message I had this morning has washed out all the euphoria of my good work of the past month.