Not Much Workload...........?

A comment from my boss on last Friday made me think.

I was sitting in my chair, working on my system. That day I had to grab some data directly from the internet, and put it in the project database. Now there was something wrong with the internet line and it was very slow. I had to wait for 1 minute to open a normal html page. Sometimes, even more... As my work fully depended on the net, I had nothing to do but watch the progress of the web-page loading on my screen. To remove the boredom, I had plugged in my earphones, listening to soft, instrumentsl music. At that time, my boss passed behind me. He saw me ..sitting idle in the chair, hands away from the keyboard and mouse, simply staring on the monitor, with earphones in my ears. In a juvial tone, he said to one of my colleagues, "Looks like Prashant does not have much workload..." I looked back at him ( I could hear what he said even with earphones plugged in ), and smiled. I protested too, in a friendly manner, and he walked away, smiling.

Then I started thinking about it. I have enough work. Just because I don't frown, complain to anybody, scratch my head, does that mean I have les work load than others? Or do I take it as a compliment, that inspite of the workload, I still remain cool & comfortable, not showing any kind of stress. ( On an average, I spend 11 hours in the office daily, for 5 days, and few more hours on Saturdays, for which we do not get any extra compensation).

Should I not listen to music when the work is dragging & the network is down? Should I complain to everybody regarding the workload that I have inspite of knowing that they work for same time duration in the week? Should I pretend to be stressed out even though I am not? Or should I continue... my way.....till they realise....