Acad

“Dad, you said that you will take me to watch that cartoon movie!” said a seven-year-old girl. Her father agreed to take her to watch the movie two weeks ago, however too many job so he had to stay in office even at the weekend. Just like the father more and more employees now suffer from overwork. Increasingly harsh competition and requirements of high quality of life have resulted in a growth in the number of people work long hours. This essay will initially give a definition to “workaholism”. Then argue that what caused increasing number of people turn to be a workaholic and how this phenomenon makes a decline in the quality of life which includes physical and psychological health and family life.

So what is workaholism? Different authors have their personal views to define the workaholism. People may not know that Oates gave the earliest definition of workaholism. According to Bonebright et al (2004, P469), the word “workaholism” firstly defined by Oates as “addiction to work, the compulsion or the uncontrollable need to work incessantly” about twenty five years ago. Workaholism makes employee reluctant to disengage from work and have a trend to work or think about work anytime and anywhere and these people are used to be called workaholics. With the spread of this phenomenon, more and more people add to the study. Employees who work a long hours for getting a sense of accomplishment were called “enthusiastic workaholic” by Spence and Robbins in 1992 and those who named as “nonenthusiastic workaholic” is to work for high salary or have to work by pressure (Bonebright et al, 2000, P470). And Hamilton and Denniss (2005, P12) describe the former “workaphile” and “workaholic” for the latter.

Before the in-depth discussion of the negative effect of overwork, it is necessary to focus on the cause of this phenomenon. Which lead people to be workaholics is they simply want to make their life environment better. They desire luxury house, brand car and wish all...