Does this mean I'm a Slacker?

I find it interesting (enlightening maybe) that my work work is not something I go out of my way to put extra hours in to. Granted I work late and come in early when I have to meet deadlines, but that is about it. In this regard, I suppose I am a bit of a slacker. See 52 Books in 52 Weeks Doing Nothing post.

On the other hand, if I am working on a home renovation project, or trying out a new recipe or I get a freelance project, I find myself working like crazy to get this type of work accomplished. In this sense, I am far from being a slacker.

Case in point: 

Monday I worked all day at my day job (as a graphic designer for a product development firm). Then came home, made a pot of gumbo and proceeded to paint my newly dry-walled laundry room until 10 pm.

Yesterday I came home from work and received a message from a friend regarding a freelance project that she needed help with asap. I proceeded to work until 2 am to get that project done. This is definitely not a slacker attitude... A negative side effect of staying up until 2 am is that I was in no shape to get up and run with my dog this morning. We both suffered from that :(

Where do you find yourself slacking and what things drive you to work hard?

52 Books in 52 Weeks: Book 8

Doing Nothing by Tom Lutz is essentially the history of the slacker. From Benjamin Franklin and Thoreau to communes, beatniks, the punk movement and George W. Bush – I found this history to be quite interesting. While I expected to see references to Office Space and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I was surprised by the amount of references to authors, music and movies that I had not considered before. It turns out that our culture is heavily defined by slackers.

There is definitely a dichotomy of working too much vs. working too little and lots of misunderstandings in between. I think it boils down to contentment. We are unhappy when we work too much and we get bored when we feel like we have nothing to do...

This book also points out that often those who would be labeled slackers are actually quite busy, while those who are seen as workaholics may be good at pretending to look busy.

Narrowing down to just 5 quotes proved difficult as there were a lot of good ones...

"(The movie) Office Space is more than a comedy. It is an anthem for the down-trodden cube-borgs everywhere, who have had the life and soul stomped out of them by an uncaring corporate entity." – eFilmCritic.com

We all feel overworked, underpaid and under appreciated, but we all occasionally fear we are imposters, freeloaders, bums.

Doing nothing, purposely meaningless work, unsullied play, meaningless movement – in a culture obsessed with purpose, pragmatism and productivity, to do nothing is not a neutral act. To conspicuously do nothing is to assert and insist upon a counterculture identity. (Referring to the skate boarding culture of the 1970s).

"The twentysomethings were a marketer's worst nightmare. They could very well be the demographic from hell." – Marketing News (Referring to Generation X)

"GenXers' willingness to walk away from an unsatisfactory employment relationship luanched the staffing crisis that plagues employers today and has allowed them to become the most entrepreneurial generation in history." - Bruce Tulgar