# Taking Control of One's Workaholic Tendencies - The IT Anonymous Edition

DevFeed: [Taking Control of One's Workaholic Tendencies - The IT Anonymous Edition](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/taking-control-of-one-s-workaholic-tendencies-the-it-anonymous-edition-28340.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<http://fuzzyblog.io/blog/startup/2020/04/20/taking-control-of-one-s-workaholic-tendencie.html>)

Author: Fuzzygroup

Published: 2020-04-20T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Scott Johnson](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/scott-johnson.md>)

Topics: [Agile](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/agile.md>), [Requirements](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/requirements.md>), [Amazon Web Services](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/aws.md>), [Slack](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/slack.md>), [zoom](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/zoom.md>)

Tags: [agile](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agile.md>), [aws](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/aws.md>), [jira](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/jira.md>), [messages](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/messages.md>), [requirements](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/requirements.md>), [retrospective](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/retrospective.md>), [services](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/services.md>), [startup](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/startup.md>), [team](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/team.md>), [technology](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/technology.md>), [work](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/work.md>), [zoom](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/zoom.md>)

## AI overview

A personal, humorous account of workaholic behavior during an MVP delivery, including severe sleep deprivation, pressure from a manager, shifting Jira epics and requirements, and poorly timed meetings about AWS services and handoff.

## Source excerpt

Please start by picturing a support group similar to Alcoholics Anonymous; Let's call it IT Anonymous: A dingy room in a church somewhere A coffee pot Cookies or donuts Chairs in a semi circle A place for people to stand and address the group We all know the drill - we've seen this scene a thousand times in movies or TV. And then you see me stand and address the group: Hi. I'm Scott. and the group responds with a chorus of: Hi Scott! and then begins the confession: "I ... have a problem. I need help!" and then: "Tell us more" I respond with: "I work in technology and I'm a workaholic. Last week I, the throes of getting an MVP out the door, with a boss that has been asking me daily Is It Done Yet? / Got Anything for me to See?, I got it done by all the Gods and Goddesses but I slept less than 8 hours out of the final 72 - I delivered. And yes I was late but by 2 days. But, at the end of our Weekly Agile Retrospective, I got to demo working code to our team. This occurred at 2:55 pm on Friday at which point I was close to falling over tired. And the reward for all this was to be scheduled into a 7 person Zoom meeting at 4:00 pm on a Friday to discuss AWS Services we use and AWS Key Handoff. This was NOT an important thing that had to be done after successfully completing my goals. And then, in a show of personal stupidity on my part, I noticed my boss was online Saturday night at midnight my time. And, in an effort to be a dutiful corporate solider, I, yes I'm a moron, asked him What epic should I start on on Monday morning?. My boss is three hours time offset from myself so this actually made some sense. And I had, per his direction created epics for all the outstanding tasks that I was aware of. I put them into Jira as I struggled mightily to get this MVP done. And, rather than being told to complete one of my existing Epics, a new Epic was named on the spot and a series of requirements were delivered to me via slack messages. And then there was the fateful question: