Great article. More people need to stand up to their bosses when long hours are requested day in and day out. I had a chat with my boss just the other day after I was forced to work all weekend. I told him, if it happens again, I'm leaving for a different company. He apologized profusely and gave me an extra 2 days vacation to make up for it.<p>This is silicon valley. You are an engineer earning a top 5% salary in one of the richest countries in your 20s. You can do whatever you want, the ball is in your hands--not your employers. I get 10 emails a week from recruiters and founders trying to get me to come work for them. Don't put up with the 60-80 hour a week bullshit. This is 2013, it costs approximately 20-30k to live a good life with all the success of the last 2000 years of productivity. There is no reason at all to work all the time. Work a normal 40-50 hours a week, save at least half your paycheck and enjoy the rest of your life. If you simply do that, you'll have complete autonomy over your life at age 35 and will only have to work if you choose to. Otherwise you could choose to work 0 hours a week, spend all the time you want with your family, and hack at open source projects, travel, read, exercise, or generally do whatever you want.<p>We have the power, not the employers.
When I entered university I was assigned to an alumni who would be my mentor: the IT director of a large French car maker. We really met only once, but he told me one thing that has sticked to this day (paraphrased):<p>"To live a healthy and happy life you need to balance three aspects: work, family and personal. People will tell you you need to balance work and family. But you have to recognize that sometimes you will need to spend time as you please: do not feel ashamed for it."<p>Life is not just work and family, and nobody should be a slave of either.
When I was 22 or so, my wife asked me what my biggest fear was. At the time, aside from concerns around her health and safety, it was "that nobody will know who I was after I die".<p>Time and perspective change our priorities.<p>It is possible to become great person without ever having a successful IPO. Without ever having a product in the first place. And certainly without giving up most of your life in the likely-to-fail attempt to become 'great' (ie, known and a financial success), at the opportunity cost of <i>living</i> your life.<p>Because lets face it - our success rate is pretty dismally low. Most of us - no matter how smart, no matter how driven - won't achieve "greatness" in the sense alluded to here. We will be neither the next Jobs nor the next Gates nor the next Zuckerburg.<p>We will write code. We will make products that may or may not make a difference in people's lives. We will earn salaries that are unreasonably out of proportion to what we actually do (take it while it lasts!).<p>Most of the people who will remember us are in this closed community of startups. And once we stop producing, most of them will forget us. Some of us will go on to something more - but not most.<p>Except for a select few of us, nobody will look back at you in 50 years and say "wow, this dude... this dude was an awesome coder/businessman/marketer/designer".<p>But your kid might look back at you in 50 years and say "he was an awesome dad". Your community might remember you for the assistance you gave. And many, many more might remember you for the difference you made in their lives through your interactions with them.<p>There's nothing wrong with trying for the 'greatness' discussed in the original post. But never lose sight of the fact that this kind of success is only one path. And, frankly, you have your whole life to get there -- the long path taken by <i>most</i> of the people who are successful in that way.<p>TL;DR:<p>There is greatness in things other than the work you do and the money you make.
Not the biggest Jack Welch fan, but I think his quote on work life balance is most accurate:<p>"There's no such thing as work-life balance, there are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences."<p>You don't need to rationalize spending more time with your family and less at work or vice-versa, just be honest about the consequences of it.<p>I worked a ton before I had a family, 7 days a week, always online. Now that I have scaled back I do accomplish less work, and I am 100% ok with that. My choice is more time with my wife and kids, and slightly less money (and alot less chance of a big $$ windfall), but I couldn't be happier.
Most people who work like dogs don't attain greatness.<p>My thesis advisor chose work over family. He left his lover and hardly ever saw his son until his son was forced to move in with him at the age of 14. (At which point you've really missed the chance to bond with him)<p>Back in grad school he was often the only professor working on Sunday -- I worked Sundays most of the time but I usually took Saturdays completely off. I still go by the physics sometime on the weekend and his door is the only one open with the lights on.<p>He got a tenured professorship and a defined benefit pension but his work as a physicist has been solidly average (like the average physicist)<p>A lot of hard work cost him his family and won him some kind of security which is hard to find today, but he definitely didn't achieve greatness.
Nelson Mandela had a great quote on this topic in the context of his relationship or lack thereof with his children.<p>I don't remember it verbatim but it was basically: You (my children) all taken care of you have what you need to live, I am working to make sure that the same is true for all the other South African children.<p>That really hit home for me because instead of looking at spending more time with my family, I looked at using my time wisely toward massive structural goals which would have positive outcomes on the world population.
This reminded me of Heinlein's quote.<p>A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man</a>
Isaacson's book on Jobs mentions a few times that several people close to Jobs saw in him a hole that he tried to fill by succeeding through his work. Jobs himself speculates that he may have become more prone to cancer by running Apple and Pixar.<p>I realize all of that is speculative, but, damn, there <i>has</i> to be a point at which almost all of us would step back and say it isn't worth it. Why bust your ass, endanger your health, and stress yourself out so you can make someone else a load of cash?<p>(Also notice that many people who insist on the need for ridiculous hours often get something out of it: management, VCs, etc.)
This is something that I wrestle with on a regular basis. I am not a top engineer... I am not even an engineer at all. I work in support and want to move over to programming. Reading the writing on the wall... programming is the future, if you want to make a good life for yourself from working in technology.<p>That said, I have a little girl about to hit 2 years old and a wife of almost 5 years. And I'm going to hit 40 in about 2 weeks. I don't learn as quickly and easily I learned when I was much younger.<p>I know it takes some serious chops and time investment to learn to code. I guess that I just have to trust that I'll get "there" eventually... a little bit at a time.<p>While I want to continually improve and make a good life for my family... it would be a total travesty to do it at their expense.<p>btw, the struggle I refer to is the fact that for turning 40 soon... I don't feel old. I just feel like I should have accomplished more with my life, by this time. Know what I mean?<p>Edited: punctuation
"If a boss is feeling insecure about how their company is performing, then leaning on their employees for more hours is one of the few ways that they can feel like they’re turning the cogs towards success."<p>A very important point and very well stated. If I knew of any internet slang signifying a virtual standing ovation I would put it here.<p>It frequently also comes with pushing an atmosphere of artificial urgency and high interest technical debt (save an hour today and cost the company weeks in a few months) because all are based on panicked short term thinking.
Director James Cameron: "Anybody can be a father or a husband. There are only five people in the world who can do what I do, and I'm going for that."<p>He said this to his then-wife :-)
I wouldn't chase 'greatness' anymore than I would chase 'happiness'. I like the sentiment of the piece though even though his equating study with career in the Adams quote annoyed me.
From the recent Penn Jillette AMA on reddit:<p>"I'm very very careful with my time. I try to do nothing that someone else could do. So, I write, I perform and I spend time with my family."<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1opzae/penn_jillette_here_ask_me_anything/ccue825" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1opzae/penn_jillette_h...</a><p>This doesn't answer the dichotomy of work vs. family, but puts it in a different context. What is the most effective way to spend your time?<p>The president's daughter scrapes her knee, but there's also a school shooting? I think Obama's gonna be giving a speech, and Michelle's on neosporin duty.<p>(West Wing spoiler alert 2003) The president's daughter is kidnapped? Well, I hope John Goodman is available, it's about to get Season 4 cliffhanger in here. Someone else can be president. Right now it's not the most effective use of Martin Sheen's time.
I can not believe no one has posted this yet, so here it goes<p>“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air.<p>You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.<p>Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. Give the required time to your family, friends and have proper rest. Value has a value only if its value is valued.”<p>- Bryan Dyson – Former CEO of Coca Cola
> historically Great Person could have been great while also being dedicated and present for their family<p>Don't forget that those people had the wife or some others raising their children, something that was generally not considered men's work.
I think one of the key things is that work life and family life in the internet age need not be so separate. Household businesses can thrive and work together to accomplish great things, with unconventional organizational structures (or entirely informal ones).<p>When LedgerSMB forked I remember working late hours in a hotel room with my wife and son (I had a contract for my business that took me out of town, and we all decided it would only work if we all went), and having sessions with Chris Murtagh who would be typing with one hand, and cradling his infant son in the other. Almost every work break would be spent with my family, except for lunch that year (and only that year). Almost every hour not spent with my family would be spent working. Work and family formed the warp and weft of my life.<p>Fast forward five years, and what's happened is that these have become even more integrated. I schedule my work around family time, and my family time around work. In emergencies I may have to rebalance. But these are all deeply integrated.<p>In the distant past, this was actually the norm, so it is not that I can do something today that none of the great men in the past could do, but rather that I can return to the solutions which have worked. To some extent the internet enables this, but it isn't really enabling something new. It is rather re-enabling something very old.<p>Interestingly I don't think double entry accounting was invented by monks sitting in monasteries, but by the collaboration of merchants (whose families were effectively helping run the businesses). Many of the great things we take for granted today were actually built in such a way.
I could not agree with this more. In my case, the very product I'm working on is all about kids and family. It seems ironic when giving all I can to make the product succeed is taking away from enjoying time with my wife, and kids while they are young.<p>Sometimes it seems like we can only pick two:
- family
- startup
- health<p>I know the balance can be achieved, but is it balance we are looking for? I have a fear of being mediocre at both. But, we can do better than this. I can do better.
Reminds me of Clayton Christensen's book How Will You Measure Your Life? which deals with questions of dividing time between work and family. It isn't long and I'm glad I read it (though I wouldn't call it a page turner). One of the points he makes is that your family life is like any other investment, and you need to actively invest in it to be able to get a good return later in life.
A little off topic, but I find it hilarious when he declares that he will succeed where great men have failed ... because he has hipchat.<p>How is hipchat better than IRC or Jabber? Don't these protocols do the same thing for free (as in freedom and pizza).
I read that people on their deathbeds, when asked about their regrets, wished they hadn't spent so much time worrying, and had spent more time with their families.
john adams clearly had already made his money when he said that.<p>I believe his son did his own studying of 'politics and war' just as his father did.. just as we do and, unfortunately or otherwise, just as our sons will.