Return to Author Return to Main PageThis article will explore fourteen common signs your employment is interfering with your life. We have all heard of the phrase ‘Work life Balance’ which is suggesting we all allocate time for work separate to the time from our social lifestyle so the both don’t interfere with each other. With the advent of technology, workplace interference is a common issue we all have to tackle on a daily basis. However by initiating and maintaining proper boundaries, we can prevent or at least minimise the amount of interference employment has upon our social life. To be able to do thi,s first we need to recognise some of the common signs employment is intruding into our social lives. Their are just so many ways employment has the ability to interfere with our social life, however we must always try and remember work is work and should never be used to fill in the gaps to our personal life. Failing to do so will invariably open the gates to never ending work commitments ‘needing to be done now’ during our social life.
Some of the more common sign are as follows:
Health is one of the most common symptoms seen to deteriorate when employment increasingly interferes with ones personal life. Illness such as mental health I.e anxiety, depression, stress, migraine, headaches, nausea, stomach complaints, frustration can all exacerbate prior episodes or worsen a current or newly emerging mental heath conditions. Another often overlooked condition is weight gain which may occur due to lessening physical activity because too much time sitting in the office or even increased eating as a means of coping with stress occurs.
Ongoing workplace interference in relationships tend to gradually consume more oxygen and eventually starves the relationship of the required attention every relationship needs. The movie “The Devil Wears Prada” was a great depiction how work can consume and destroy relationships. Thus the urge to answer or complete tasks out of work hours will eventually override your intimate times and intimate moments. Needless to say, too much workplace interference tends to act as a third person in the relationship. An example could be at your sons 5th birthdays and you decide to take the time to answer the phone for buisness. While the son may not know what has happened, the reality is the blowing of the candles celebration was missed and that moment will never be experienced again. Another example could be bringing work home which causes you to become distracted from adequately interacting in the relationship with your partner. Eventually the partner is likely to resent all the social time out of the office being taken with work phone calls, emails, text messages etc. Partners who see their partner always working eventually feel undervalued and feel like the partners job is more important than the partner. This causes ongoing resentment leading to conflict and eventually separation.
When your life is just work and you find yourself having no other healthy means of escape, the chances are your job is interfering with your life. A healthy work/life balance ensures you have time for work and enough time for you to go to social events, time to have intimate relationships and time to do additional activities such sport, hobbies and the like. The person who permits ongoing work interference in their personal life may at some some stage look back on their life and resent the fact their life has no other value other than work.
Social events contain the word ‘social’ for a reason, namely your expected to be present and actively participate in socialising and talking with people. Some jobs I.e interstate truck driving, mining, professional etc require the individual to be away from the home life leaving large gaps of personal interaction with partners, children and families. Thus the longer period of time this occurs, ongoing pressures and loneliness tend to increase and the likely hood of communication failures occurring where one will eventually see how much personal interaction and bonding has been sacrificed to work. Friends and relationships will over time fade away as the greater work demands overshadow interaction.
At times of relentless workplace pressures some may turn to alleviating the negative emotions with substances IE drinking Alcohol, illicit substances or even gambling. The addiction may start as a ‘one off‘, and to the unsuspecting person more regular use may ensue as the person identifies the of substances coincides with relaxation, escapism, a desire to sleep and forget etc. Unfortunately the regular use of any substance or gambling often leads to dependencies which itself causes other issues in the persons life be it may financial, relationships, legal and may even contribute to the loss of employment.
Sometimes people stay in types of career paths due to the recognition alone, thus the concept of an employment identity may also interfere in our personal lives at times. The barrister who is more domineering, speaks precisely, fast paced work ethos may carry these attributes into the personal side of life which may complicated interaction with friendships and relationships. Even in the face of knowing a career path is affecting our relationships, sometimes the allure and attractiveness of our career identity may superimpose a relationship needs for recognition alone.
Lets face it, we all need work but at what expense. By far nothing could be worse than having children and failing to watch their development and helping them traverse life milestones. Sadly all too often a person may become completely absorbed in their work and will not notice the day to day advances of their children. Thus eventually their will come a time when that person will sit back and realised just how much of their children development they had missed. By that time it will be all to late as we have yet to be able turn back time. So get home on time, don't work excessive hours and switch all those devices off and spend quality time with your children.
You once remembered a time when you would paint, play soccer, perhaps you even socialised more with your friends. But now that you have that job you always wanted it now takes up so much of your time and now you can‘t do all of the other activities you once loved before. All those extra little hobbies and lifes interests and interaction all serve to enrich our lives and to break up the normal routine to make life more exciting. Simply putting all these extra activities aside on the shelf to just focus on work will create a life which is bland, less interesting and when the day comes you no longer have that job what else will you have? Nothing.. So it is important to make the time to have a balanced lifestyle.
With all the well touted benefits to business technology brings, one major down fall is allowing such devices to intrude into your own personal space. Simply turning off the mobile phone, not checking emails and other social media will prevent the ongoing juggling for cognitive attention.
One of the greatest challenges nowadays is to overcome what is known as fear of missing out (FOMO). (FOMO) can be equated with the ongoing desire to check social media, emails, text messages and the like to get the newest updated information. I personally don't buy into the (FOMO), instead I rationalise the fear is actually just a desire of knowing, be it may out of curiosity, wanting to know the latest information regarding traumatic world events etc. Psychologically speaking, people who are geared towards always checking their phone have not realised the similarities between checking phones and other devices to a compulsive disorder or an addiction. This is because for some the agitation within the person which ensues when trying not to check the device increases the urge intensity in a similar manner to the increasing irritation of an itch which is generally only relieved once scratch. In terms of electronic devices, the urge is relived when the device messages are reviewed. While it is true device programs, games, social media etc are designed to keep you focused on checking those devices, it never the less creates an ongoing pattern of reinforced behvaiours. Why is this so important? It is important because that ongoing desire to check is likely to connect with work related information and depending on the contents of the message you may then start diverting your attention ruminating about work instead of enjoying the outside work hours.
Traditionally, before the era of the mobile phone if an employer wanted to contact you out of hours, they would have to call when your home or visit you. If your not home, there was simply no distraction with your outing. Unfortunately as with all things technology, these new devices permit ongoing intrusion into your personal life at any time. Just merely receiving a text message is enough to divert ones attention from relaxing to immediately thinking about work. The best way to avoid having work contact you through your electronic devices is to stipulate to the employer not to contact you out of hours. Failing that, you could always do what I have done. I purchased a second mobile phone and provided this to my employer instead of my own personal number. Now at the end of the work day, I switch this second phone off and my life outside of work is not interfered with.
Constantly thinking about work will distract you from enjoying other aspects of your life. Constantly thinking of work at home or at social events is a good indicator that you are to involved with the job and the very fact your thinking about work prevents you from freeing your self up to relax and enjoy other aspects of life including your relationship.
Their will always be times we have issues in the workplace, and when arriving home it is quite natural seek the comfort of a partner if work has upset us. While the very nature of relationships is to support their partner, we do not want to create a situation where our home environment finds itself to be the ongoing therapy debriefing tool whereby we only talk about problems about the work place which ends up overshadowing the relationship. The ongoing discussion of issues may affect relationship intimacy, while the partner listening to the issues may also find their stress levels increase because they see their partner in distress.
Ever been in the position where you frequently get to work much earlier than your original paid time or continue to work till late hours? Perhaps instead you have been called a ‘Workaholic’. Working excessive hours routinely may signify potential unresolved issues within your life. So where does this fit in? It fits in because all the time in the work place removes the ability to address the real issues in your life because there is quite simply no time to address such issues.
Not everyone can work locally or just 5 minutes away, however work time travel is very important when we think of just how much time is removed form our social life, families etc when traveling for work. Thus if I am traveling 60 minutes to get to work, there is still another 60 minutes to return, thus 2 hours away from our social life. But what happens to those who travel greater distances, even fly to different locations for work routinely. It should be of no surprise to hear even within the mining sector in Australia the term ‘Fly In, Fly Out’ means the workers would fly into the area for there work for a nominated period of time and once finished the employment period would return home. These types of jobs tend to attract better wages for the sacrifice of being away from friends, family, relationships, children and other social supports. However when a relationship breaks up due to ongoing separation strain, one tends to later reflect the sacrifice was greater than first thought. Mental health and suicide are other factors which impact our life because of the social support is so distant.
Whats worse than having a manager calling you out of hours when you don't want? A work colleague who just doesn't let up talking about work when you want to relax because your not working. I have personally been down this track before, and it is where I had formulated the ‘second phone policy’. Getting along with coworkers is important for a happy workplace and in some circumstances we will make friendships out of these coworkers. We may even at times exchange numbers or go out with co workers out of the workplace. All is well and good if the friendship is respectful and non intrusive on both sides. However some work colleagues may take additional advantage of that mobile number and start phoning you out of hours when your busy with something else. The routine calling out of hours may turn to discussions about issues in the work place which does nothing to relax your mind away from work, In fact it is quite the opposite. Talking about work all the time just brings your mind back to the work place and you may start to think about the issues when really you should be just relaxing. The frequency of the coworker calling may also intrude in important times of your own relationship, studies etc. The best policy I had found is to draw the boundary immediately by letting the co worker know your not interested in talking about work when your not working. Maintaining this boundary is important and will most likely take more effort on your behalf to keep moving the topic away from the workplace once your coworker starts talking about work. It is only natural to talk about work in newly formed friendships with coworkers because this is the most common connection in the friendship. However if the boundary is not set or maintained not to talk about work, you may possibly find yourself at the end of the phone for long hours of the night on frequent occasion talking about the issues in the workplace with very little relaxation and before you know it your already back into the workplace.
This article explored the 14 commonly observed signs where employment tends to intrude into our personal life which causes an imbalance leading us to do more work and less leisure activities. The interesting thing to note here is the repercussions of work intruding into our personal life are not realised until further down the track. We always hear of the ‘work life balance‘ expression and how it is difficult to maintain especially with the ongoing temptations to work more, achieve more, do more. The unfortunate thing is by not maintaining that life balance you are inadvertently sacrificing your other aspects of your life that would normally enrich, motivate and relax you.
Until next time...
Darren Hamburger
Page Last update:10/08/2018
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