Isn’t it a drag when you take work home?

The Diary, with its background in journalism, has long appreciated that what one gets up to during a day’s work affects one’s day-to-day life outside the office.

For example, it is very difficult to orchestrate a successful spot of wooing over a glass of wine after work when you’ve polished off the three bottles under your desk during the afternoon and, as a result, are unsure of where you are, how you got there, and why you have an uncontrollable urge to sing “Froggy went a-courting and he did ride” every few minutes.

Another recent example of this phenomenon comes from Apple Transcription.

The company was hired by ad agency WCRS, which was working on a new campaign for anti-smoking brand NiQuitin, to type up video diaries chronicling smokers’ attempts to wean themselves off the dreaded weed.

The impact of the work was such that a bevvy of Apple workers themselves decided to quit.

“I think being continually bombarded by people who were so positive about the benefits of giving up smoking must have had some deep-seated psychological effect,” says Apple Transcription’s Debra Mitchell, all in one breath.