the.com/workaholism
Overworking can be a compulsive way of coping with anxiety, not just dedication.
means A compulsive need to work excessively, driven less by financial necessity than by anxiety, identity, or habit.
from Built in 1968 by psychologist Wayne Oates, who grafted the suffix of 'alcoholism' onto 'work' to describe his own compulsive overworking. The '-holic/-holism' suffix itself is a reanalysis of 'alcoholism' — splitting it as if 'alco-' were the root and '-holism' the addiction-suffix, when really the word is just 'alcohol' plus '-ism.' That false split proved wildly productive, spawning 'shopaholic,' 'chocoholic,' and this one.
- origin
- Coined 1971 by psychologist Wayne Oates
- disguise
- Looks like ambition, files like anxiety
- irony
- Often raises output less than it raises hours
- tell
- Vacation feels worse than the deadline did