Reason one:These driven people like to set the benchmarks for the rest of us, which consist mainly of: (a) working until 11 pm and then apologising for going home; (b) not even having a presenteeism cardigan; (c) asking to be excluded from the EEC 48-hour work directive — and do they really have to stay at home on Christmas Day?

Reason two:High-status workaholics like to impress us with their BlackBerries and claim, with martyred look, that there’s never a second when clients can’t contact them. Lower-status workaholics dream about the 618 e-mails that will be waiting for them next morning and try not to get too excited.

Reason three:They’re the inspiration for, and authors of, those essential management tomes our boss thinks we should have read, from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Who Haven’t Read Their Children a Bedtime Story in Over a Decade to Feel the Fear of Holidays and Have One Anyway.

Reason four:They like to make the rest of us feel guilty because we still hanker after a: (a) minimal lunch; (b) social life; (c) sex life. We’re doing everything we can to keep them a secret, honest.

Reason five:We try not to giggle when the workaholic organisation tells us to be even more “focussed” and “work smarter” as it obviously hasn’t done a lot for them. Look, if God had wanted us to hang around horrible office furniture late at night, He would have given us a nicer range of Snack Pots.