Is that eczema?
No, it's just a bad habit I inherited from my dad. The downsides are that my fingers look like crap and they often bleed, either spontaneously or because of ripped skin. However, it does have it's upsides. I've developed a bunch of dead skin which acts as a protective layer for my fingers, as well as desensitizing my fingers to pain. As a result, I have a higher heat and pain tolerance than most in my fingers (note: not necessarily my entire hand). My fingers are also highly immune to bad stuff due to the fact that the nearly always have cuts/open areas.
Of course, being desensitized against pain isn't always a good thing; when I'm working with aluminum with rough edges, I tend to handle it a bit to firmly, and will later find a ton of tiny paper-thin cut marks on my fingertips. :/
