It was August 31, 1935 when the Soviet miner Aleksej Grigoriyevich Stakhanov set the record for the greatest quantity of coal extracted in one working day, lifting 102 tons in 5 hours and 45 minutes and being proclaimed “Hero of Socialist Labor”. From that day his name became a synonym to indicate someone who works for a long time with perseverance and commitment, a person who shows an extraordinary (or exaggerated) attachment to work, with uncommon zeal, up to the negative nuance of someone who does it excessively and obsessively, to the detriment of health, rest and private life.
The word workaholic, the forms are less common Stakhanovite or workaholicstill indicates an extreme personal dedication to work today and hides an important part of the history of the end of the twentieth century. In this era the Soviet Union gave enormous prominence to Stakhanov’s working methods, so much so that in his honor August 31 was proclaimed “Coal Miner’s Day” and in 1978 the Ukrainian city of Kadievka was renamed “Stakhanov”.
Aleksei’s innovative method was based on cooperation between workers, a fundamental principle of industrial mass production. Its success was such that the Soviet Union extended this revolutionary method to other sectors e Joseph Stalin he approved the application of special privileges and higher salaries to all members of the nascent one Workaholic movementwhich aimed to increase productivity through rationalization of work.
On November 14, 1935, the first general conference of the Stakhanovists was held, an occasion in which Stakhanov’s supporters exposed their working methods by providing details on the best production results obtainable through the rationalization of work. At the outbreak of Second World WarStakhanovism had already spread to all branches of the mechanical and machinery manufacturing industry, such as car engines, metallurgy, chemical industries and power plants.
This story had such an important impact that the word entered our dictionary, although today it has acquired different shades of meaning. While the world of work has changed radically, not only in a blue-collar or manual context, the term workaholic is often used with negative meaning, more than a praise, to indicate those who work too much. Also complicit different perception of the meaning of modern workin some situations, those who stay in the office late, respond to emails even on weekends, or live as if free time were time taken away from work are criticized; the English would define it workaholisma portmanteau derived from the union of work and alcoholism, a real addiction and intoxication from constant work.
The term workaholic, therefore, has undergone a transformation semantic transformation which has changed from industrial praise into a neutral or real description social criticism
