“Oh, really!” would be my first reaction to someone saying that! And that certainly doesn’t mean that I am filled with awe at how busy the person is. That would be a sarcastic remark that actually expresses utter disbelief at the claim of being busy.

“I am so busy, I have been leaving office cross midnight.” I hear some people say with a sigh as they drop their lower jaw half loose. Now let’s just analyze that for a moment. This person is working cross midnight, seemingly on a regular basis. Well then, on a general note, I tend to think that he/she:
1) Must be either having an incredible amount of energy to be working such late hours regularly, or,
2) Is possibly just staying late and not being too busy during the day to be tired enough to feel the need to leave for home sooner, or,
3) Is really working hard and yet working late hours, and hence, is going to mess up with his/her health and fall sick one of these days.

I don’t have super natural energy levels and I have not worked with people who do, so I wouldn’t be able to comment on the first possibility. Next, I have observed those who hardly do any productive work during the day and start warming up to begin some work only as it is almost end of official working hours, and then staying late hours to, for example, try and prove that they are hardworking, or to obtain overtime pay. Thirdly, I have certainly observed people falling sick because of working long hours on a daily basis, I myself having had been one of them – I have done a case study for this on myself and the conclusion is unchallengeable.

I might appear to be a little preemptive in my above statements, but that is because I am not considering the other, finer, special cases of people who work late and claim to be busy. After years of observing people working in professional environments, including myself, I have made some general conclusions regarding staying late at work. I am quoting some of the main ones here, and would like to hear your opinions regarding these conclusions so that we could have a healthy discussion.

• If you stay late in office, it doesn’t mean you are busy.
• If you do not stay late in office, it does not mean you are not busy. It could just mean that you know to maintain a healthy balance between life and work.
• If you are busy, it doesn’t mean you need to stay late. You can do more than an average person who is working 14 hrs a day, if you just work efficiently during office hours alone and then have a good night’s sleep and get back to work fully re-charged the next day, resuming work at peak levels of energy.
• If you work late regularly, your productivity levels are likely to drop, and you might land up actually doing lesser work that those who leave office on time.
• Many of those who work late spend half of the next day fixing the mistakes they committed when working late the previous day. Think about that one for a while!
• If you do not stay late everyday even though others from your team do, you boss may tell you that you are not a team player or you are not hard-working. In that case, remember that the boss may not be ignorant of the earlier statements; he may just be trying to exploit you through what I call “professional blackmail”.
• If you are a manager, your team members may be staying late everyday to show you that they are working hard for you. Do not trust that, as they are most likely not demonstrating much productive during the day.
• Most of those who work beyond office hours do so from fear of losing their job (which I do not underestimate the value of), or due to the tempting overtime pay, or to impress their boss to secure a promotion and/or a pay hike, or simply because they cannot think of anything else to do with their life after office hours.

Finally, I would like to stress that bragging about working late is just a way of covering up for one’s inability to strike balance between the vital areas of life. Let me wind up by saying that it needs conviction, courage, self-respect and a vision, in order to be able to stand up for your right to a balanced lifestyle. I would like to wish everyone these qualities and much success that would result from being able to put them into practice.