or, why I hate the term
"work-life balance"
& what this means at npm
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Buzzfeed on Uber's culture
"impossible workloads, around-the-clock emergencies,
fear of management, a total erosion of work-life balance,
and a pattern of public humiliation at the hands of
higher-ups"
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this article made me angry
maybe even A N G E R Y
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ceej anger boxes checked
— 12 hour days ✔
— 7 day a week ✔
— abuse from management ✔
— constant emergencies ✔
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the research is clear:
this isn't just inhumane
it's also stupid
the opening
"There's a bottom-line reason most industries gave up
crunch mode over 75 years ago: It's the single most
expensive way there is to get the work done."
"More than a century of studies show that long-term
useful worker output is maximized near a five-day, 40-
hour workweek. Productivity drops immediately upon
starting overtime and continues to drop until, at
approximately eight 60-hour weeks, the total work done
is the same as what would have been done in eight 40-
hour weeks."
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5-day 40-hour work weeks
were chosen for peak efficiency
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tech is not a magical exception
you are not a magical exception
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programmers seem best
around 35 hrs/week
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you might think you're helping
guilt might push you into overwork
but you're not doing your best work
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deny human biology
at your peril
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note a lurking fact:
brief bursts can be effective!
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it's just that we turn bursts
into crunches into death marches
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the fact that "death march" exists as
a term of art in project management
is pre!y horrifying
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Uber is an extreme example
but this is common behavior in tech
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jwz rants: watch a VC
use my name to sell a con
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jwz slept under his desk
in 1994 to ship Netscape
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managers demanding burnout
are a!empting to exploit you
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I reject the premise
burnout results in neither
speed nor excellence
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you don't run marathon distances
at Usain Bolt sprint speeds
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sprinting is sometimes right!
for npm right now, it's wrong
npm is a marathon
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humans are npm's biggest investment
far more than servers & bandwidth
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we need each other at our best
our most creative, our most skillful
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and that means we need each other
rested, refreshed, recreated
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our mission:
take npm to the stars
on a budget
we can't afford Uber-level
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you bring to npm
your previous experiences
including this crunch or else habit
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my experience taught me
to bring something else to npm
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npm's values unite
kindness and pragmatism
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talk of values is all very well;
how is this shown in our behavior?
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let's talk about vacations
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why have fixed vacation days?
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"unlimited vacation"
means "untracked vacation"
which o!en means
pressure not to take vacation
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my usual joke is that your vacation
is a mandatory minimum
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use all your vacation
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let's talk about sleep
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if there's a Bateson's pyramid
of human needs,
sleep is the base
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ceej story time:
how 2am decisions made
the Danger SAN disaster worse
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management needed to appear
to be engaged & involved
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never make decisions
on that li!le sleep
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you can do mechanical, habitual things
while sleep-deprived
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don't try complex cognitive tasks
while sleep-deprived
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this lesson affects how we
designed npm's operations
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npm does not need you to
appear to do lots of work
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npm does need you to
accomplish good work
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let's talk about balance
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ceej story time:
the General Magic
2am company meeting
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the meeting felt normal
narrator voice: it was not
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deeply imbalanced
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why do I hate the phrase
"work-life balance"?
I reject the premise
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our work & our lives affect each other
we're whole human beings
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our work ma!ers to us
we want it to be fulfilling
emotionally & intellectually
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we need to do our work well
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we still want to do good work
and make awesome things
but we want to do this effectively
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what balance means is individual
and will vary over your lifetime
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a weekend spent hacking is
sometimes refreshing
sometimes exhausting
only you know which
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if npm demands a weekend from you
it will be in a dire emergency
and the 3Cs will be there too
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then I'll run a retro to figure out
how to avoid emergencies like that
so it never happens again
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selfish goal:
help npm win
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altruistic goal:
be kind to our colleagues
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these two goals align when we
balance work & life
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the winning strategy is
the kind strategy
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I can't stop you overworking
you're all adults
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all I can do is explain
why it's not effective
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if you need to burst, burst
please rest a!er you burst
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be with your loved ones
pursue your hobbies
take vacations
get plenty of sleep
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npm should be a place where you can
do the best work of your career thus far
and take npm to the stars