How to Avoid Workaholism and Get More
Analysts of recruitment agencies say one after another this year: Russians liked working hard so much that they are massively looking for options for second and third earnings. Industriousness, probably, passed into the stage of malicious workaholism. The jokes are sad, of course, — it is obvious that instead of personal life and hobbies, Russians are forced to earn extra money by a more expensive life. But how to do this optimally and to what extent can you load yourself without risk to health? MK understood this.
In 2023, Russians were looking for part-time jobs (part-time jobs) at least as often as full-time jobs, according to experts from one of the recruiting services. Thus, according to a recent survey, 33% of Russians were looking for a part-time job, and most of them are women. Moreover, part-time employment was most often of interest to people aged 55–64: this option was chosen by 40% of respondents at this age. A little less often (38%), this format was of interest to young people aged 18–24.
At first glance, it seems that everything is clear, simple and logical: well, (pre-)pensioners, well, students, well, women in decree … — in a word, categories that are just right to be interested in part-time jobs — everything is in order. However, in reality, everything is much more interesting: today almost everyone is looking for part-time jobs.
“In the 1st half of 2023, the total number of vacancies increased by 175% compared to the same period last year. In conditions of increased demand in the labor market, employers seek to redistribute labor resources and optimize staff working hours for maximum business efficiency. The key to this is part-time job offers, the share of which is constantly growing. At the same time, this format of work may be of interest to Russians who would like to earn extra money. According to our research, every second Russian has worked part-time over the past year,” comments Dmitry Puchkov, an hiring expert.
If you throw it into a social network on a page with a more or less heterogeneous audience — such that not 30 classmates with the same starts and careers, but more interesting — a simple question: «How much money do you need for a comfortable life?» (and ask for a brief explanation), it will be terribly exciting to study the results. Because people will name the numbers with a huge spread. It turns out that for someone 300 thousand per person is barely enough, and for someone even 50 is the ultimate dream. And most importantly, everyone will reasonably explain why he needs exactly so much, listing all his expenses — all young children, elderly parents and non-working wives on decrees, mortgages and rented housing, gasoline and taxi costs, paid education and medicine, fitness clubs and travel…
However, this is normal — all people are different, and the needs are also different. Another thing is interesting: almost everyone in such a discussion admits that they don’t have enough of a single salary from a single job — and they have to turn around.
The simplest scenario is to spin inside your profession. This is the path that many photographers, copywriters, journalists, designers, consultants, and in general all those who are commonly called the “creative class” follow. Role model — Truffaldino from Bergamo, known as a servant of two masters. However, there may be significantly more gentlemen.
— I realized that full-fledged hiring with the presence in the office is not suitable for me. I have a good idea of the labor market and I know that a full-time specialist with my qualifications costs a maximum of 90-100 thousand rubles, — admits 35-year-old advertising specialist Alexander Tolokov. — If you compare it with the mythical average salaries in Russia, then this is normal money, I don’t argue, but for me personally, with my expenses and lifestyle, this is not enough. Strictly speaking, today it is only a thousand dollars! A little. But I can get two such salaries, working for two customers at the same time. This is the option that suits me. Therefore, my option is remote work and self-employment. I have been living in this rhythm for three years now, I am satisfied.
A professional who has chosen this option for himself may be more correctly called a freelancer. Although the meaning of this word today is so vague that it is better to abandon it. There is another option — a combination of «classic» work for hire with additional projects for additional money. People who chose this option explain their decision simply: a fixed salary, albeit a small one, is a kind of guarantee of stability that will help out even if all the customers suddenly “fall off”. Plus, there is a work book in the personnel department, for many it is still important.
Therefore, proudly quitting the office and going on a free flight for «limitless» earnings is a bad idea, it is better to combine (and in good months » left» income can be two to three times the official salary). And most importantly (and this is true, by the way, for all part-time jobs) — no one forces the second job to be made similar to the first. Remember, the best rest is a change of type of work? Well…
— Immediately after graduation, I got a job as a banker. Financier. There is nothing to complain about, I have a good salary, and they raised it regularly for me. Three years ago, I grew up to the idea that it was time to take out a mortgage: I managed to accumulate a “safety cushion” and stable incomes, 32-year-old Nadezhda Sergeeva tells her story. — Everything is fine, I bought an apartment, started paying off the mortgage and realized that I no longer have enough to maintain the usual standard of living. Do you know how it happens? The salary seems to be good, but as soon as the mortgage payment is cut off from it, it ceases to seem good. Of course, it would be possible to cut costs, but I do not like this option. I began to think: how can I earn more? At first I thought about new projects in the bank, and then I decided to look in a completely different direction: I am fond of Tarot. No, no, not a gypsy fortune-teller, it's rather akin to psychology. In general, I started offering paid consultations. Promoted through social networks, I was interested. And got hooked! I don’t earn much, of course, but I get 25-30 thousand a month. Just enough for entertainment.
Monetizing a hobby is a scenario that many financial advisors offer. Such an offer is usually aimed at creative people — those who love to sew, weave beaded jewelry, or, for example, deal with Tarot cards.
There are also more extravagant decisions, when two professions, as if not related to each other, are layered one on top of the other. 46-year-old Alena Farizova shared her story with MK, who managed to turn from a hairdresser into an oncologist, but still continues to work as a hairdresser.
— I learned to be a hairdresser at the age of 17, then I didn’t have much other ideas either. I worked quite well, I liked it, I made good money — well, as far as possible. But at the age of 33, I realized that I wanted to move on, and I decided to become a doctor. Everyone laughed: they say, where at your age, don't play the fool! But I did. At the paid department, of course, so she continued to work at the hairdresser in the evenings, and studied during the day. So I studied for 6 years. Now I work in a hospital. Of course, a lot of time is needed, and a lot was also needed to study at the honey. But I need money: my parents are old, they live far away, I help them and raise my son alone. Therefore, once or twice a month I still work at the hairdresser's. I have regular clients, some of them are waiting on purpose when they can make an appointment with me. I go out on Saturdays from 9 am to 10 pm — I manage to earn about 30 thousand. So what if I'm a doctor now? The crown does not fall, the money is needed.
There are also drawbacks to the “hobby monetization” model (we are not discussing general overload yet — there will be a moment for this below; for now, only about business issues). Many of the people interviewed by MK, who turned their hobbies into part-time jobs, admit that doing what they love when it becomes work and acquires a “customer-contractor” relationship turned out to be much more difficult than doing the same as a hobby.
“I am an amateur photographer with twenty years of experience and I once thought that photography would become my main business,” says 40-year-old Petersburger Elizaveta Chizhova. — I learned everything about photo banks, stocks, made myself a business card site, since I am an SMM specialist in my main specialty and I can do all this. However, until now, artistic, portrait photography, which I dreamed of, does not bring serious money — only as an addition to advertising projects. Analyzing this, I understand that a photographer who counts on earning money must sell himself, promote himself — and this does not work for me.
According to the interlocutor of MK, in order to earn money in creative fields, a person needs to become a “walking advertisement of himself” — in particular, to be actively present on social networks, not to be shy about talking about himself everywhere and offering services. And most importantly, nowadays photography (with the exception of a few dozen famous photographers, as a rule, no longer young) is a clear buyer's market. but that’s exactly what people like,” says the photographer. — It is worth offering something non-standard — people do not take it. Although it would have been a promoted name, they would probably have taken it.
However, these are the problems of the creative intelligentsia, practically bohemians. People of other specialties and troubles are different. For example, in one of the districts of the Yaroslavl region, a team of builders (who know how to do everything from concrete to roofing) is successfully working, fully staffed by officers from the local fire department. The reason for the part-time jobs is the same: you can’t get away with the earnings of a regional firefighter, and people have chosen to stay in their small homeland, give birth to children here and build solid houses. So, what you know how to do — that's how you earn extra money.
“The authorities know, of course,” says Andrei, one of the members of the brigade. — So what? We had a long and short conversation: if we don’t like it, we are going to Moscow, because there is no money here. And they have nothing to do, so they agreed. The only condition is that we don’t go to the Sabbath in uniform and don’t advertise ourselves. But still unofficially, of course, everyone knows. Clients too: we tell them that we can’t now, we have a shift …
Andrey and his colleagues can earn extra money on a fireman's schedule — day after day. Since firefighters in rural areas are not an ambulance, fires, fortunately, do not happen continuously … On working days, on duty, one manages to recuperate.
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And yet there is a threshold beyond which part-time jobs become dangerous — especially those that are similar to the main job. “Sunday Manager Syndrome – Have you heard of this? — says psychologist Ana Brook. “The bottom line is that a person gets so used to some kind of external employment that, when he is alone with himself, he stumbles upon noogenic frustration, that is, he feels meaninglessness. He collides with himself, and instead of meaning, he has nothing, after which he fills himself with a bunch of other things and employment, so as not to experience this again. approved workaholism is, in psychiatric terms, manic. Not in the sense, of course, of Chikatilo or Pichushkin, not to be remembered by night, but in the sense of the opposite of depression.
“The more a person performs enthusiastically, productively, effectively, the more he is considered successful,” Ana Brook describes. — Ideal — this is the same person who works 25 hours a day, and besides this, «in sports», and yes, even excellent students. Then how to work, as it was once rightly said, you need not 25 hours a day, but your head. By overburdening yourself with additional employment, a person increases the amount of his work, instead of trying to sell himself at a higher price in the market, without spending crazy hours on labor.
However, it is easy to say “sell yourself more expensively”: reorganizing for this, the psychologist admits, is really difficult and requires a lot of effort. It also carries risks and is therefore scary. But it's almost inevitable…
— «Ambush» is that the conservative approach — «I will do what I can, but more» — does not work, — says Ana Bruk. — Money is still not enough, a person begins to do even more. Neglecting rest, their activities, an active lifestyle. As a result, all other contexts “hang” in a person due to overload — personal life, friendship, sports — and then the work itself begins to cause fatigue, because there is too much of it. Burnout is inevitable. If this activity is also unloved, then they “sailed”. Then psychosomatic reactions begin — and a person cannot physically work. He comes to a forced change in his schedule, and maybe in the type of activity. It happens that after an illness he cannot and does not want to return.
Of course, there are risks in change, but they are under control, says the psychologist. But it makes more sense. First of all, you need to understand where the limit of “filling up” with work is. “When a person no longer has enough resources for hobbies and maintaining physical condition — everything is busy with work — this is not a good symptom,” says the interlocutor of MK.
It is useless, the expert believes, to try to «pump» your body with the goal, like Napoleon, to sleep 4 hours a day — this is unlikely to work, and it is quite dangerous for health. But you can clearly define the minimum income for survival (for a while) — and limit yourself to it, trying to restore strength and reschedule the future.
“We are making a plan that can be qualitatively changed,” advises Ana Bruk. — For example, a person works piecework and is afraid to raise prices — but completely in vain, it is quite possible that he will be “buyed” and much more expensive. But to try, you have to take some risk. When you have a little free time, you can collect information impartially, find time to stop and think. But for this, we repeat, time and resources are needed. And when you have an internal panic, it’s hard for you to find this time, it’s easier to throw yourself more work. Difficult — but necessary.
This approach looks counterintuitive, but has a good chance of working, says the psychologist. If a specific person can be «stopped» by a fatalistic approach — they say, the Lord will manage everything, somehow we will live — it can also be used. The main thing is to get rid of hypercontrol that pretends to be rational.
…That's only when on one side of the scale there is the opinion of psychologists (and philosophers, too, and spiritual authorities), and on the other — a mortgage or renting an apartment, the need to provide children with rest at sea (otherwise what kind of father or mother are you after that) and other rough, but visible matters — psychologists and others like them have a hard time in this dispute. And the inner voice that advises: just take more work home is much easier. And, therefore, those who drive themselves into workaholism are unlikely to be fewer in the future.