A friend recently shocked everyone by quitting his high-flying job to embark on a fresh start in another industry.
Another friend is thinking of a career switch. He puts in very high-tempo 15-hour days in the office and still has to take documents home to read. He's sick of the frenetic pace.
Next month, a colleague will be giving up her job to work just three days a week. Her son has turned one and she wants to be there to see him grow.
Yet another colleague is planning for the day his son enters Primary 1. Either he or his wife would want to retire then, to be around to guide the boy. As she earns more than he does, he might be the one to call it quits.
Unless you are a student, retiree or housewife, so much of a person's life centres on that concept called work - where to work, what sort of work, are you happy at work, should you work?
The workplace has long become more than just a place you check into five days a week to fulfil some form of labour for which you are paid at the end of the month.
A colleague put it aptly: Work is a creche for adults, providing structure, stimulation and sustenance.
Here is also where you find friendship, companionship and love even, and you can be guaranteed it's among like-minded people. After all, you are similar enough to seek a job in the same area of interest.
So many of my friends found their mates either at the office or through work.
Who needs dating agencies when you can lock eyes and check the other person out across the conference table? Who needs speed dating when there are as many potential dates to consider as there are cubicles (of single people, of course) in the office?
When I was on leave recently, the first week stretched gloriously ahead. I felt free from the endless e-mail, irritating phone calls and petty politics that are, of course, also a part of the modern workplace.
Time was mine to fritter away as I hung out with my family and friends, went shopping and had long lunches without having to check my watch to see if my lunch hour was over.
There were no schedules to follow, no bosses to avoid or report to, and no subordinates to nanny.
Then, as always happens when I'm on long leave, the longing set in.
I started to miss my colleagues; I missed dressing up each morning and setting off for work looking and feeling 'professional'; I missed being needed; I missed the sense of having a purpose in my life; I missed the bustle of the office; I missed the lunches, the shared food, the jokes and the gossip, the community of the workplace; I actually missed my cubicle life.
People are investing such long hours at work that we can't help but measure our self-worth by what happens there. So much of how good we feel about ourselves hinges on how well our careers are going.
It is the reason promotion and bonus season in the office is so dreaded. It has the ability to make us giddy with happiness or downright depressed. Rightly or wrongly, we define ourselves by the promotional increments and bonuses we get, or don't.
I've a friend who knows this only too well. Six months ago, he decided to quit his job because he felt he wasn't being recognised for the long hours and hard work he was putting in.
It felt good, the first two months. He slept in, played computer games and did some serious clubbing. He deserved a break.
But when he finally decided it was time to get another job, it wasn't easy. The economy had gone south by then. Month after month went by without a job offer, and desperation has since set in.
The inability to find a job takes a toll on a person's mental and physical health, and it is a far worse toll than the one you suffer when you have a job and are overworked.
Besides self-esteem, much of the pain one has to bear when jobless has to do with the more mundane issue of money.
The colleague who is planning to work part-time has this cautionary tale.
She recently withdrew $1,000 before setting off for a designer sale. As $1,000 is the daily withdrawal limit for ATMs, she asked her husband if he would need to take out cash that day too.
'When he found out what I was planning to use the money for, his eyes popped and I quickly reassured him: 'Of course I'm not going to spend everything. It's just in case,' ' she said.
After he recovered, he told her, half-jokingly: 'It's okay. Anyway, you're still working now.'
While she knows he wasn't really serious, it hit her then that she'd have to start watching her spending very carefully after she loses her full-time benefits. 'No more impulse buys accompanied by the comforting thought that I darn well deserve this treat after slogging so hard,' she said wistfully.
'I think it's the financial independence that I'm going to miss the most.'
I've been in the workforce since I graduated in 1985, working in the same company doing the same job. That's 23 years.
Save for annual three-week vacation stretches and the occasional long weekend holiday, I have never not worked.
I'm not complaining. In fact I think I'm lucky.
Even before I started work and, in those days when it was not usual for teenagers to take on internships or part-time jobs, I really wanted to work. I did modelling jobs which made me a princely sum of $3,500.
I love working, and I especially love the freedom that comes with earning my own keep.
I was thrilled to pay my first income tax because it was proof of my independence and proof that I had the ability to look after myself. While I no longer look at my tax assessment letter with any fondness, I still regard it with some pride.
And I love working within an office structure. I like the hierarchy and I like the predictability of a regular work day. The dependable income, paid health care, vacations and training don't hurt either.
I know I will never get rich being an office drone but it doesn't matter.
Perhaps it has to do with how my father had his own business which he operated from home, occasionally with the help of a secretary.
I always felt being a one-man show was a dreadfully hard and lonely way to make a living. The cyclical ups and downs of entrepreneurship are not for me, even if chances of striking it big are bigger than if you were a mere employee.
I'm not a workaholic but I veer towards the view that one should live to work rather than work to live.
Maybe it's because I have no family of my own and few interests outside of work. I do also realise that it can be a problem if work forms the entire ecosystem of my happiness.
But what I've also learnt is that while people - both inside the office and outside - can let you down and will do so, solid hard work can't and won't.
There's nothing more satisfying than rolling up your sleeves, putting in an honest day's work and seeing the results.
There are those who point out that no one in his right mind would say on his death bed that he wished he had spent more time at the office.
I disagree for, to me, the office is where so much of what matters in life emanates.
Call me a fool, perhaps. But at least I'm a fool who likes hard work.
This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Jun 29, 2008.
