Customer Reviews

Working Ourselves To Death: The High Cost of Workaholism and the Rewards of Recovery

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Working Ourselves to Death changed my life. I now HAVE a life. Fassel sheds light on the consequences of overinvolvement in work and provides concrete advice on how to extract yourself from the kind of soul-killing obsession that work can become. If you can't leave the office behind, this book will show you the way out.

Fassel is taking on an issue that I believe is crucial in our society and I am pleased to see that, but I am disappointed in this book. She fails to get at the heart of some of the issues she raises because she is so mired in twelve-step jargon. Is it really impossible to cut back to a reasonable work load without calling on a "higher power" and going to meetings? And is the jargon of "disease" and "addiction" really applicable here? I also grew weary of the endless neologisms using the suffix "-aholic, with words like "care-aholic." This has really become overused.

I'd rather see a book that addresses the REAL issues--the unrealistic demands of companies and bosses, our society's obsession with "getting ahead" and consumption, our lack of adequate vacation time. Many other cultures have shorter work weeks, more vacation time and better family leave policies than ours, and they didn't have to go twelve-stepping to do it--they developed POLITICAL and social solutions to overwork instead. It seems we could do that here. Fassel's approach seems inadequate--and what good does it do for "work-aholics" to "make searching and fearless moral inventories of themselves" if our society's approach to the economy does not change?

I suffered from chronic overwork several years ago - routinely working 80-100 hours weekly. As I was searching for a way out, I found this book to be particularly helpful in focusing on the key issues and finding the choices that led to the much more balanced life that I now have. This entailed leaving my work and working in another area of my organization for a year and a half (working regular hours) before leaving that organization and area to start something new (answer the call to teach) in a different area of the country.

I highly recommend this book for those dealing with the consequences of overwork and desiring to search out their options for improving things where they are at, changing to something else or perhaps downsizing one's lifestyle by working part-time or early retirement.

What could be more important than what you do with your time?