by Rose Calder

Created on: November 06, 2008

Over the course of my working life, I've learned that there are different ways of coping with one's job. Working for a living is generally unpleasant for most of us, so we each have our methods of dealing with the concept that we might just be doing this until we reach the mandatory retirement age. Some of us deal with this by trying our best to get out of work as much as humanly possible, such as by rearranging the schedule as soon as it's posted by swapping/handing off shifts until you practially have a week or two of vacation. Other of us go to the other extreme by plunging headlong into their work until it's difficult to say exactly where the job ends and the person begins. This is a tiny group (thank goodness,) but it's safe to say that there's always one in every office; that person who has become completely and utterly institutionalized by their job.

Now don't get me wrong; there's nothing wrong with enjoying what you do for a living. Having a job that you enjoy and enriches your life is something to be treasured, since there are many out there who would probably prefer to drink a shot of bleach and chase it with broken glass instead of going to work. Nor is there anything wrong with a healthy sense of ambition, either. After all, one of this country's greatest promises is that anyone can rise above their beginnings. But there is a fine line between being driven and being obsessed, and while I can't tell you exactly where that boundary is, I can say that you'll know you've crossed when people start looking at you funny and dropping hints about you possibly needing a vacation like size-14 steel-toed boots.

If you don't have people to talk to outside of work (red flag, by the way,) try some free-association. If the first thing that pops into your head when I say 'you' is your official job title, you're institutionalized.

When I say 'institutionalized', I mean you've officially gotten to the point where you cannot function without the context of your profession. If you didn't have your job, you wouldn't know what to do with yourself. You've probably lost all your friends, because you're too busy picking up shifts or you have bored them to death with your constant prattling on about work and corporate policy. Likewise, you're probably single, since you somehow managed to marry your work, with your job taking on the role of a jealous, demanding spouse. You've still got family, but unless they live in town they probably never see you unless they happen to stop

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