The Grumpstump

Yesterday was a long day. There have been a lot of those lately. Not long days in the sense ‘Oh Man this is so awful, when can I leave…‘ but long days in the sense of ‘Wow I’ve already been at work for 12 hours… what happened to lunch?’

I’m a salaried employee. That means my company is required to pay me exactly $0 more for any extra time I work. There is a bonus structure, but while the bonuses are usually exceptionally nice, the metrics used to measure it are somewhere between opaque and black-box.

So why do it? Why work so much more and make so much less than some of my peers who entered corporate juggernauts like Boeing, Chevron, BP and began to climb the corporate ladder?

1. I like working. Sitting around and not doing anything really drives me nuts. When I think about all the time I spent in College laying around (which, admittedly, wasn’t a ton, but was more than I do now) and I think about all of the opportunities I see to make money that I simply don’t have time to pursue now, I get a little sad.
2. I control my work environment. While I work long hours, I do have the autonomy to create , sell, manage, and audit as much work as I want. This high amount of latitude has taught me a boatload about business in just a few years.
3. The Debt Monster is hanging out. I really have a hard time laying around with the debt hanging over my head that I currently have. (Reminder to self: do another Net Worth Update)

Things that are beginning to worry me about the amount of work I do:

1. Burnout- Am I going to run down to the point that nothing is fun anymore? I’m definately a ways off but I can begin to feel it fraying at the edges.
2. No Time - I currently have new contacts, perscriptions, and dry cleaning that have all been ready to be picked up for this whole week and I literally haven’t had the time during normal business hours to pick them up. All are within 2 miles of my office.
3. Slow Progress - A lot of the online adventures I’m working on to pull in a couple of bucks are starting to show better and better progress in every metric but one : $$ earned. I really enjoy these and view them as a pseudo-hobby, but they are racking up my workload to around 18 hours a day with not a lot of noticeable reward.

What do you guys and gals think? When is too much work Too Much?
Some Great Related Reading
6 Rules to Work Less and Get More Accomplished by Lifehack.org
Avoiding burnout means understanding it first by Slow Leadership