People find a lot of acceptance through work. I didn't always get this and I've been in that "lol all these 'working' people are so dumb" camp before, but there's nothing wrong with it. Just like Repug seeks acceptance through his writing or tonguegina seeks acceptance through his knowledge of movies and television, other people seek acceptance by adding value to the world by working for a company or government.
People trying to demonstrate their worth by talking about how much they work is no more or less ridiculous than you trying to demonstrate your worth by posting short stories you've written. The idealist in me likes to think that if you want them to accept your short stories as something that makes you an awesome person, you have to accept whatever work it is that they do as the same. Which, of course, is really fucking hard when they're talking about shit you don't care about.
