Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

It is like a democracy, but differs in that you need every single team leader onboard to get anything done vs say 51% of the "vote".

> but people that have experienced being embedded with Really Care workers are going to be appalled at the relative effectiveness.

Unless you've experienced the Really Care type of team and situation, it's difficult to understand.

I don't mean any disrespect to the Just A Job people. There is nothing wrong with keeping your head down, getting your work done, and checking it at the door when you sign off at 5PM Monday through Friday. Frankly, that's the correct approach for most people.

However, there really are situations and teams where people won't stop until they can get the outcome as close to their vision as possible.

In my experience, this is far more likely to happen at small startups where members have reasonable equity to work with, as well as significant career upside for accomplishing the big tasks. Large companies like Google are so big that finding upside or even a niche to influence can seem impossible. Combine that with guaranteed high income and the motivation to do work that goes above and beyond gives way to a motivation to be associated with the right projects at the right time, regardless of your contribution.

When I look back, the happiest time of my career was when I was embedded among people who Really Care, trying to accomplish a goal that was likely to fail, working well over 40 hours a week (my choice), and not getting paid much. I've since moved to much higher compensation at bigger companies, but I'm often tempted to give it up to get back to a situation that sparks that kind of motivation and happiness again.

As someone who originally worked 3 years of retail, I can relate to this feeling. To be clear, I don't (and did not) advocate for working on weekends or any crap like that but I had that feeling of looking over my shoulder in fear for quite a long time.

As a bit of context, retail has slow creep to it where it can slowly consume your life if you're not careful. Everything is always understaffed so "Can you please just work another day" starts out as a feel good "I want to help" but quickly turns into an implicit expectation. If you start turning it down, nothing happens but socially, you feel like you're letting the team down.

A lot of it comes from the feeling of "We're the underdogs", even if it's intra-store such as the storemen (people who work in the loading bays) being understaffed and feeling like the underdogs compared to the grocery/longlife department.

Anyway, when I started out in tech, I was arguably pretty paranoid and couldn't understand why everyone seemed so nice (in comparison). What do you mean there's a gym? How can you just wander upstairs to the vending machine or to go for a nap without restrictions? I never outright asked these things and I understood it on a business and social level but I could never overcome the feeling that I'd get caught out one day and held up as letting everyone down in some way.

I suppose it helps to point out that at the bottom end, a night shift worker had doused themselves in petrol only to not have it in them to follow through. My manager (23 at the time as was I) told me the story in the morning, he ended his recount by chuckling and saying "I guess he couldn't even do that right".

While my current employer is more traditional (read: corporate) to some extent, I sort of wish I had taken more advantage of those opportunities, even if I didn't understand them. I'm sure having a nap every so often would probably help. I can confirm that, as someone who is simply an average developer, that not taking breaks doesn't really seem to be very effective, haha.

Beats me if this comment is insightgul in anyway but I guess something something work life balance is good?

One last thing: Something I found fascinating recently is that Dave Cutler (the NT kernel architect) always took his holidays religiously. That surprised me given my false assumption is that someone who churns out that much work (and is considered a craftsman) must surely be going all out. Personally I hate the idea of hustle culture but it's hard not to be affected by it.

If anyone can speak to the philosophy behind people who also religiously take holidays, I mean, on one hand it's clearly obvious that rest is good but I feel like it'd be helpful to read more about it anyway as someone who has struggled greatly actually relaxing :)

I find that people who make this comparison are usually highly un-empathetic, and are not as decent in their hearts as they their own self-image suggests.

#1: Words matter. I used to think they didn't either. "It's just words". But they matter. That "slur" that you absentmindedly threw out as a joke or a throwaway line in a non-serious context? Someone had that used against them in the past in a threatening, hurtful, aggressive manner. It's not a joke to them. So why should they be forced to endure reliving a past trauma just because you didn't bother updating your slang since the 90's?

#2: When you get down deep enough, you find a lot of time these folks have worse things going on in their hearts than they let on. Even in this example. "So long as your pronouns are correct" makes me think this person thinks preferred pronouns are a ridiculous waste of time, and are irrelevant. Just what I can infer from their analogy.

Which makes me think that this person is not an ally or a supporter of trans/non-binary folks, and his problems go far deeper than just using the "wrong words".

I think people who Really Care are as much a product of the environment as they are responsible for creating the environment. I Really Care about what I work on, and I try very hard to make it the best option out there, giving it a huge portion of my creative energy and not just keeping my head down and turning a crank, but I also recognize that in the end, it's also just a job.