Last Saturday, finally, I managed to bring workaholic Japanese coworkers to Niagara Falls. Many of them were impressed and spent a long time on watching the falls near by. It was too cold for some others and they spent more time in a souvenir shop, which is OK. But our experience was ruined by an extreme workaholic; everyone was rushed into going home by him. Why? Because he was going to work on the following Sunday and forced some others to work with him. Yesterday, our Canadian contractors invited us to snow tubing. The extremist joined us because he thought it was his “duty”. After snow tubing, the Canadians invited us to drink, but, again, the extremist tried to force other Japanese to refuse. But those Canadians knew he would do it, and managed to bring everyone to a bar. Great job!
Probably there are different types of workaholics. Some of them are afraid of losing their job and work hard to remain in the organization. Some others cannot find any (other) joy and working is the only thing they can spend time on. Some others feel they are always forced to work by something without knowing what “something” is. I assume that the extremist is a combination of the latter two cases, but not really sure. There must be another type of workaholics; they simply “love” their job. I even want to find a job that I would love so much that I could be a workaholic.
Some of the “victims” of the extremist do not have much time in Canada. I hope I will have some chances to secretly let them experience Canadian customs. Someday, they will call me “Schindlaer”.