When it comes to your career you go hard or go home.
But has it crossed your mind that all those hours of unpaid overtime would be better spent with your family, friends, your other half or simply relaxing alone?
Who looks back on their life and wishes they’d spent more time in the office?
Have a tea break for a minute. Here are 25 signs you’re working too hard.
1. You accidentally called your partner your boss’ name the other day. This wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been in the midst of lovemaking.
2. You transfer all your weekly shop into the work fridge because there’s no point taking it home.
3. You’ve given that familiar ache in your throat and stomach a name – Oliver Payne – because he’s become a constant companion.
4. Your work draws are crammed with plastic cutlery, serviettes and crockery, and a spare pair of pjs ‘just in case’.
5. You’ve had weird, recurring sex dreams involving all your colleagues, male and female, including Reg, the toothless 72-year-old caretaker.
6. Stress-related backne.
7. You know the middle names, crushes and snack preferences of all the office cleaners.
8. You bought cakes for your boss when she got engaged and went to leaving drinks for that girl in sales you don’t even like, but forgot your best friend’s birthday.
9. You haven’t noticed the fitty checking you out on your commute every day because you’re too busy replying to work emails.
10. You’ve given up watching House Of Cards and Game Of Thrones because it reminds you too much of the various interdepartmental feuds you’re involved with.
11. Just the idea of leaving your phone at home brings on a stress headache.
12. When your partner springs a surprise long weekend break on you your reaction is not pleasure but annoyance followed by worry about how you’ll square it with your boss.
13. You haven’t had a home-cooked meal since you last visited your Mum. A year ago.
14. You interrupt a date to make notes on your phone because something they said has given you a brilliant idea for a new project.
15. You’ve put on two stone because your adrenaline-fuelled body rejects anything that isn’t chocolate, fat or carbs.
16. You unintentionally annoy your colleagues by taking all of December off because you forget to book any holidays throughout the year.
17. Your ‘favourite’ contacts are your boss, your line manager and your desk buddies.
18. Your handbag is full of salt and ketchup sachets to season your daily MacDonald’s dinner which you each on the train home.
19. You know more about your colleagues’ love lives than your oldest mates’.
20. You delay loo breaks so much that your body gives up and just reabsorbs the water.
21. You wake up with a headache, think about work, then take a breath which feels like you’re lifting the entire cast of The Biggest Loser, before they slimmed down, with your chest.
22. The first thing you do on a Saturday morning is iron your shirts for next week.
23. Any location that doesn’t have Wifi is basically Mordor to you.
24. You keep your phone by your bed to catch the frequent ‘eureka’ moments about work projects you get at 3am.
25. You’ve given up looking for a partner because dating cuts too much into your (unpaid) overtime.
