You Know You’re a Workaholic When…
Gary and I were sitting on the couch in the upstairs theater room tonight watching Television. To be more specific, I was working, and Gary was playing computer games. The TV was merely providing background noise and an occasional distraction from work.
Suddenly, Gary picks up the remote and puts the program on pause. With the noise muted, we could clearly hear the nearby Tornado sirens blaring. He switched the programming to a local news channel to learn that we were in the direct path of a wall cloud containing two rotations that could touch down at any minute.
“That’s really interesting, but I need to keep working.” I thought.
According to the newscasters, the most dangerous part of the storm would reach our house in approximately ten minutes.
“Whew, I can work for ten more minutes and then deal with it if necessary.”
The edge of the storm begins to hit our house. Gary goes outside to get a better view of what’s coming towards us.
I hear thunder, rain, and eventually hail from my upstairs position. Undeterred, I keep working…seriously, I have so much to do right now that I just couldn’t take a break, not even for a storm. I jokingly tell Gary that I’ll keep working until a tornado rips apart my wireless router and I lose my Internet connection.
The storm intensifies. We lose our TV coverage — that’s the lousy thing about having satellite, it goes out every time it rains hard.
It’s now nearing the time when the rotating storm cells should be passing over our house. Gary calls the dogs downstairs. I keep working.
“Should I go downstairs?” I yell to Gary.
He responds in the affirmative. I grab my laptop and sit in the downstairs hallway near the room where we would take cover if something happened. I continue working. Maybe I wasn’t joking about stopping work only when a tornado disconnected my Internet after all.
Gary goes to check on the storm conditions again.
I keep working.
Not even the threat of a tornado could keep me away from those important projects.
“My name is Laura, and yes, I am a workaholic.”
This sounds kind of counter to the whole slow movement thing.
I have to agree with John. I think that the storm may have been the perfect opportunity to take a break and slow down.
LOL.. You’ve come along ways since the days of our youth when we had the fun experience of sitting in closets and bathrooms waiting for the danger to pass.
Jami and John: I know! I think the slow movement thing is just a fantasy in my mind. I’m repeating the late night work experience again tonight — minus the tornado. UGH!!!
LeEllen: Haha…yeah, I actually thought about that last night. Too bad we didn’t have laptops back then…it would’ve kept us from being so bored.