Could You Be A Workaholic?
By
David Leonhardt
If you need to put on
boots and grab a lap-top computer to relieve yourself at night, you
might be a redneck workaholic. It never crossed my mind that there
could be such a thing as a redneck workaholic, until I read a column
on "Are you a workaholic?"
"Did you read this?" I asked my wife. "Are you a workaholic? It
looks just like those you-might-be-a-redneck jokes."
My wife studied the page. "Maybe it was written by a redneck
alcoholic." She suggested.
"Workaholic, not alcoholic."
"How do you know the writer is not an alcoholic?" she demanded.
"I don't. But the column is about workaholics, and it reads just
like a series of redneck jokes."
"Well, maybe it was written by a redneck workaholic, then." She
suggested.
"No way. There is no such a thing."
"Why not?" she wanted to know.
"Because workaholics sit late in front of computer screens and
steroid-laced in-boxes, wearing $500 suits and $550 haircuts. Folks
out here wear $19.95 jeans and occasionally wash their hair."
"But many of them do spend late hours in front of their computers,"
my wife pointed out.
"Like who?"
"Like you."
"Oh, yeah…"
"Being a workaholic is not just about computers and offices and
taking out a mortgage for a haircut," she added. "Look at Buster."
"Buster?"
"Sure, every time he's set to retire, he goes and buys another
machine," she pointed out. "One year it was a backhoe. Another it
was a dump truck."
"Wow, he must be desperate this year."
"Why?" my wife asked.
"Because this year he bought a whole combine…"
"Ooh, that does sound desperate."
"…plus a farm to use it on!"
"See?" my wife smiled. "You don't have to live in the city to be a
workaholic. There can be such a thing as a workaholic redneck.
"That's a pity. Being a workaholic means missing out on a lot of
life."
"That's true, but it's not just city folk who miss their kids
growing up or are too busy working to help their wives clean the
dishes."
I took the hint and picked up a drying cloth. "You mean that anyone
can get caught up in work, and lose sight of what's really
important? Even farmers, moat diggers and the guy who sorts through
the trash at the dump looking for the tastiest morsels to throw to
the gulls?"
"I suppose so," she answered with that what-have-you-been-smoking
look on her face. "Why not try to see if workaholic redneck jokes
work?"
"Well, if you look forward to Christmas this year, because you might
take the afternoon off from tilling the land, you might be a
workaholic redneck."
"That's the spirit," she encouraged.
I tried another, "If you're drinking your morning coffee from a
dirty mason jar from yesterday, you might be a workaholic redneck."
"Very good," she praised.
"If you stick family pictures to your backhoe window to remind you
what they look like, you might be a workaholic redneck."
"Why not try one more, just to make sure?" my wife suggested.
"OK, if you bring your work with you to your son's baseball game,
you might be a workaholic redneck."
"Uh, OK…" she began.
"And if nobody complains about the smell, you might live in a town
full of workaholic rednecks!"
"You got it!" she shouted.
I realized that I had spent way too much time talking about
workaholic redneck jokes. There was only one thing I could do to
compensate.
I tossed aside the drying cloth, grabbed my lap-top computer and
rushed to the outhouse to catch up on a few hundred urgent emails.
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