what do overworked and overweight have in common?

What do you think your boss is expecting to hear when he/she asks you whether you feel overworked?

It set me thinking about what it means to be overworked. As usual, the logical mind tookover to refine the problem statement. Personally, I feel that the determinant for overworked is the same as that of overweight. One doesn't need to ask a person whether he is overweight. We work up a chart, look for a height, and the corresponding weight, then anything more than the weight listed for that height is overweight.

At work, there are similar charts, you look at the person's 'height' in terms of salary grade, and the 'weight' in terms of the amount and type of work, you will know who is overworked and who is not. Because ultimately, as the boss, you come up with this chart as a ruler to measure your staff.

Just as how some people feel fat and keep telling people that they are fat when they are not, because the scales don't lie. Similarly, people who feel overworked and keep telling people that they are overworked could be not overworked if a scale is used. The weight-height chart is also not something cast in stone, people adjust and adapt for their own use, so I don't see why salary grade-work load charts can't work the same way. Just to give an example, the 'height' can be seen as the salary amount, and the 'weight' as the cost (total contract cost + internal manpower cost + overheads) of the projects.