Work life balance – good. Working with no balance – bad | Technovia

Work life balance – good. Working with no balance – bad | Technovia:


If working hard means never having time for your family, you are in the wrong job, or you don’t deserve to have your family.

Amen.

I ran down that particular rabbit hole for Apple — made a commitment to a project I really believed in, with the support of Laurie, although if we’d known just how far that rabbit hole I was going to fall, I doubt either of us would have been so enthusiastic (well, I might have, but I shouldn’t have been…).

And as I’ve noted before, when I hauled myself out of the rabbit hole and pointed out the tens of millions of dollars a year that project was tossing at Apple’s bottom line, I was told if I found something interesting on the job listings, I could apply for it and we’d all see…

I’m not saying that to piss on Apple — but to point out that unless you happen to be in one of those positions (founder stock of a startup, for instance) where if it all works you can get a really nice payoff — you won’t. Apple never promised me anything I didn’t get, and I actually got things that weren’t part of the original agreements — the only thing I didn’t get was the Tracy Kidder reward: winning the game means you get to play the game again.

But when you sit back and think about the hours you put in, and the physical and emotional and relationship costs that kind of “work uber alles” mentality brings on, this is one of those places where you ought to think long and hard about what you’re doing, because the reality is, you’re donating a good chunk of your life to a company that is very unlikely to make that investment pay

I don’t regret what I did — but I”m a lot more interested in life balance now, and I think one of the big problems in silicon valley and the tech industry today is that so many companies do build projects and schedules around an assumption of the people involved giving up their life for the project — and increasingly, they don’t make it worth your time to do it, but they still presume your willingness to jump down that rabbit hole for them (because we do). And for them, that’s great — and after, they can outsource it to india or bulgaria and lay you off.

Hey, nothing personal, just business.

So my suggestion is simple: make sure you know what the payout is before you jump into that rabbit hole. you’ll never get that life back if you hand it over to the company. Is it worth it? only you can answer. And it should be your decision, not your manager’s. Is it?

what’s your life worth, anyway? I found out mine was worth a lot more than what a company was willing to pay to rent it from me. That’s a lesson that is much better learned before you jump down the rabbit hole — if you can.

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