I was working at a well known tech company in Oregon. I had moved into my car to save money and get out of the rent trap and after about 4 months of car living the pandemic hit. Everything shutdown and I had no resources and a friend/coworker offered to let me move in with him. We worked at the same company as software engineers but we lived completely different lifestyles.
The man is an extreme diehard workaholic.
He works 8am to 5pm. However, he starts work an hour early around 7am and works until about 11pm.
We work from our computers but he never leaves the office. He is 6’3 and weighs about 145lbs. Only takes short breaks to come out of his room to use the bathroom and MAYBE make something to eat. At its worst he admitted that he literally waits until he’s about to soil himself before he gets up from the computer.
When the company releases raises or promotion cycles he hangs on their every word and has constant anxiety attacks. In the 18 months I lived with him he was in and out of therapy and had three mental breakdowns which resulted in him breaking dishes, screaming and crying in a puddle on the floor.
I left the company and work for a much better one but in the end the company was making some blatantly terrible and greedy decisions that only benefit upper management and as someone who worships their job title and gives their entire life to the company they work for he just flat out didn’t know what to do during this time.
I tried to show him how to exercise and have hobbies outside of work but he would always lose interest and everything would just fall to the wayside and he’d be right back to it. After his last break down he said he was going to change and set alarms to put a hard stop at 6pm to leave work. He begged me to help him enforce this but after a week or two he was right back to getting pissed at anyone and anything that distracted him from his job.
I understand the anxiety. I was raised by someone who would freak out on me if I missed a day of school or work. It didn’t matter the reason. Work always came before anything else. In my parents eyes, work was the most defining and best purpose a person could find in their life. I, of course, disagree with this philosophy and after watching my dad destroy his family by putting his job first, I learned at a young age that work should be A PART of life. Not ones entire life. My old roommate was not so lucky to develop these instincts. I could not help him no matter what I tried. It was horrible seeing that a company, even a progressive day modern tech company, will take absolutely everything if you give it to them. Companies need to set boundaries with themselves and enforce good work habits. People like my past roommate just don’t know any better and it’s killing them.
Cherish your lives people. Don’t work yourself to death. We are all here for a purpose and it’s not to work ourselves into oblivion.
P.S. I worked for this company for 5 years. It took them 4 minutes to completely cut me out of all the systems after I said I was leaving. 5 years of full-time work equals 4 minutes to get cut out. I can only imagine what this would do to someone like my old roommate.