This was an interesting read. Oddly, 'workism' in the US has some serious regional differences in my experience. I live in the Midwest and frequently travel to San Francisco (and to a lesser extent large cities in the North East) working with a variety of clients.
In the Midwest, people view what they do for money as a job/career. If they're sick, they use a sick day. They take every day of PTO given to them. There's definitely more of sense of "working for the weekend" or talking about after work activities. Work tends to stop when people physically leave the office.
In San Francisco, everything is about growth and performance optimization. If they're sick, they're working remotely and "available on all channels." They have unlimited PTO but take 6 days a year, where they're still responding to Slacks with chatbot-like speed. After work is networking events, meet ups for presentations on best practices, then a meditation sesh (with the help of an app, of course) to get re-energized to crush some work before bed.
I'm obviously generalizing, but the difference is very real IMHO. My friends in San Francisco are more likely to change the world, but my friends in the Midwest do seem happier.