Humanity never expected the 21st century to look like this. The dream of balance between work and leisure went the same way as smoking compartments on trains – a nostalgic relic, yellowed by stress, pension anxiety, and unpaid overtime. When governments and corporations finally decided to declare the truth – that free time was dangerous to society – a new era was born. An era where workaholism became religion, law, and daily life. Welcome to Workaholics Anonymous, where the only right you have is the right to keep working.
⏰ When Free Time Became a Forbidden Act
It all started subtly. Staying a few extra hours at the office was first seen as loyalty, then as normality, and finally as a legal requirement. The Law of Mandatory 24/7 Productivity was passed without much protest, because who dared to object when the employer’s eyes stared at you through every surveillance camera? Anyone caught napping on the subway was fined. Those who dared to take vacations risked prison. Those who whispered the word “leisure” in a lunch line could be taken by the Productivity Police and disappear for weeks.
💼 Workaholics Anonymous – Self-Help for Those Who Want to Work More
In this new society, paradoxes thrived. Even when people worked around the clock, a deep sense of inadequacy still haunted them. That’s when Workaholics Anonymous was born – a global support group for those who still felt guilty for not working hard enough. The meetings took place at midnight in abandoned conference rooms, where exhausted souls gathered not to confess their addictions but to brag about them.
“Hi, my name is Laura, and I only worked 143 hours this week,” one would mutter in shame. The group gasped. A man in a wrinkled suit shouted: “You’re slacking, Laura! My average is 167!” Applause erupted, not because of compassion, but because competition was the only emotional currency left.
📈 The Productivity Police – Guardians of Eternal Labor
The Productivity Police were no ordinary force. Their uniforms were pinstripe suits, their weapons were briefcases, and their handcuffs were made of Excel spreadsheets. They patrolled parks to arrest anyone caught sitting on benches. They stormed into apartments at 3 AM to check if laptops were still glowing. They banned hammocks, outlawed rocking chairs, and taxed mattresses. Sleep itself became a suspicious activity. Doctors prescribed caffeine pills not for insomnia but for patriotism.
Rumors spread about an underground resistance known as “The Sleepers,” people who dared to close their eyes for more than four hours. But every time a sleeper cell was discovered, its members were forcefully re-employed at call centers, sentenced to infinite customer service loops.
🏭 The Factories of Human Batteries
Work was no longer something people did – it was something they were. Corporations built gigantic “Productivity Hives,” where workers lived in cubicles stacked like honeycombs. Meals consisted of nutrient paste flavored with printer ink. Entertainment meant attending mandatory seminars on time management.
Children were no longer born into families but into internships. Babies wore ties instead of bibs. Their first words weren’t “mom” or “dad,” but “deadline.” Teenagers skipped parties to attend overtime marathons. The phrase “childhood” was deleted from dictionaries and replaced with “early career stage.”
💤 Sleep as Treason
The last sanctuary of rebellion was sleep. But even this became weaponized. Sleep quotas were reduced to a mere 2 hours per day, monitored by smartwatch implants. Anyone caught dreaming longer was punished with “productivity shocks” – electrical pulses that jolted them awake and demanded they finish another PowerPoint deck.
Dreams themselves were criminalized. Dream Police interrogated suspects: “What did you dream about? A vacation? A beach? REST? Confess now!” Some people tried to cheat by dreaming about spreadsheets and quarterly growth, but even then suspicion lingered. If you weren’t grinding in your sleep, you weren’t loyal to society.
🧘♂️ Meditation as a Taxable Luxury
Wellness industries tried to adapt. Meditation apps rebranded as “Mental Optimization Sessions.” Yoga studios replaced mats with ergonomic office chairs. Breathing exercises became taxable because every exhale not dedicated to answering emails was seen as wasted carbon. Even silence had a price tag. Governments imposed a “Quiet Tax” – because if you were quiet, you weren’t selling, producing, or networking.
🔥 Burnout as a Promotion Strategy
Burnout, once seen as a medical condition, became a mark of honor. Those who collapsed at their desks were immediately promoted posthumously. Funerals were replaced with quarterly reviews, where grieving families received performance bonuses instead of flowers. Gravestones displayed not names, but KPIs. “Here lies Kevin, 12,403 emails sent, 98% response rate.”
There was no afterlife – only afterwork.
🧑⚖️ The Courts of Productivity
Justice itself was industrialized. Courts no longer debated guilt or innocence but productivity output. Defendants were judged not on morality but on their billable hours. The lazy were sentenced to lifetime subscriptions of LinkedIn Premium. The word “unemployment” was considered slander, punishable by exile to an “Idle Colony,” where people were forced to knit ties 18 hours a day as penance.
🌎 A Global Cult of Work
Religions merged into a single faith: The Church of Infinite Labor. Sermons were livestreamed from corner offices, where CEOs preached sacred spreadsheets. Instead of crosses, temples displayed giant clocks ticking toward quarterly deadlines. The faithful didn’t pray; they networked. Confession booths were replaced by open-plan offices, where every whisper was logged and monetized.
Holidays vanished, replaced by “Workdays of Gratitude,” where families gathered to send mass thank-you emails to corporate overlords. Children didn’t ask Santa for gifts; they asked HR for additional overtime shifts.
📡 The Surveillance of Free Will
Technology sealed the coffin. AI algorithms tracked every keystroke, every pause, every glance away from the screen. Eye-tracking software fined you if you looked out the window. Smart desks shocked you if your typing speed slowed below 90 words per minute. Even toilets had biometric scanners to ensure “efficient restroom breaks.”
Freedom became not a right but a bug. And every bug had to be patched.
🕵️♀️ Underground Leisure
But resistance never fully died. Secret groups of leisure-lovers met in abandoned shopping malls. They whispered stories of beaches, board games, and naps. They smuggled hammocks across borders, hid novels under piles of annual reports, and practiced illegal hobbies like knitting, painting, and gardening. Some even played backgammon – a game so forbidden it was equated with treason.
Their motto was simple: “We refuse to die at our desks.”
🧨 The Great Productivity Collapse
It couldn’t last forever. When every human became a worker and no one remained a dreamer, innovation dried up. The world was efficient, but empty. Products were manufactured without purpose. Services were offered without demand. The economy grew but people shrank. Finally, the system collapsed under its own weight – not because of laziness, but because no one remembered why they were working in the first place.
Out of the ashes rose a strange new slogan: “Do less. Live more.” For the first time in centuries, laughter returned. Hammocks were hung between skyscrapers. Parks filled with sleepers. Workaholics Anonymous was no longer a bragging circle but a true therapy group, where survivors confessed:
“Hi, my name is Laura, and I haven’t answered an email in three days.”
And the crowd, instead of gasping, applauded.
