Job Junkies.

• Author: Campbell, Carolyn
• Position: Workaholics - Brief Article

Breaking the work addiction

Salt Lake entrepreneur Tia Korologos was once a workaholic. She worked 12 to 14 hours daily as a nurse and also ran her own business, ESI Management, a conference and project management firm. Taking work home was routine.

She often scheduled business meetings with clients after work at 4:30 or 5 p.m. "In a bizarre way, my work enhanced my social life because I got to know the clients well and many became my friends."

Today, she doesn't know how she did it all, but says it wasn't all bad. "I was tired -- but I also got a charge out of it and my work was fun and exciting." Korologos also believes her demanding regimen was necessary in the beginning. "I think being a workaholic is a trait belonging to just about anyone who starts his own business. If they're not a take-charge person who's willing to put in the extra hours and move quickly, maybe they won't reach the level of success they hope for."

Yet in hindsight, she's glad she eased up once she felt comfortable with her level of success. Now president at ESI, she says, "Once I became confident in my business, I learned that I didn't have to accept every contract that came along. It got easier to let go and realize if I didn't get a task done today, it could be done tomorrow."

She also schedules extra time into her workday, and maps out personal time in order to achieve balance.

Scott Carpenter would prefer not to describe himself as a workaholic, yet concedes he works a lot. "I think being a workaholic has a compulsion to it -- I do it because it's fun," he claims. A partner in Salt Lake City's Parsons Behle & Latimer law firm, his specialty is transactions such as securities, mergers and acquisitions. He's currently helping to bring a nine-country telecommunications system to South America. This often requires flying to Venezuela at midnight, being on call 24 hours, and working until 10 p.m.

"The worst thing is to come home at night and realize I haven't seen my 7-year-old son awake for two days," he says. He says he's five pounds heavier than he'd like to be, but otherwise healthy. "My exercise is working like mad in the yard about one weekend a month."

Are Korologos and Carpenter workaholics? Workaholics are people who tend to take charge, become keyed up and anxious before important events, move quickly and energetically, play to win, and set high goals to achieve, says Brian Stern, a San Francisco, Calif. business consultant.

"However, there are plenty of...