With three kids I am excited to go home and spend time with my family anyway. I am trying to stay focused on my work when I am in the office.
Overall I agree with Mike. Well written post.
Nerf guns don't matter
51–57 of 57 posts
Re: Nerf guns don't matter
#52Nerf guns matter to me! (I type this while sipping on a free can of Diet Coke)
When HQ came into the office and firing off nerf arrows (no gun required) at all of us and turned Dev and Support into a mini-nerf-warzone, it was one of the best things that happened to us. Of course, it was a Friday and we lost tons of productivity, but after all the hard work we'd been doing... we needed it. Sure, a few people got hit hard in the head and some people took a couple arrows to the mouth -- but it was WORTH IT.
:)
I still remember when the support manager was hired. I remember asking the hiring manager if he'd asked her if she was ok with UFO's in the office. Her: "UFO's?" (quizzical look) Me: "Yeah, uh" (ball nearly misses me) (in the distance), "INCOMING!... Did I get [inafield]" She catches the ball, laughs. Me: "No, you just about hit the new hire, she'll fit right in." [laughter]
Re: Nerf guns don't matter
#53I think the levels of emotional intelligence matter. Some people have an imbalance of IQ to EQ and they don't want anything to do with anyone, just write good code. That's fair, but seeing others socialize and bond doesn't register much like a marketing guy looking at a map reduce function and not understanding. Another thing that is difficult for lower EQ folks is the ability to see things from another point of view…
How do you build teamwork with both low eq and high eq employees? Seems to me that it's hard to have a team with people on both extremes since they'll continuously argue about what is important.
Re: Nerf guns don't matter
#54I totally agree with OP. My work sometimes has happy hours, and despite them being obviously optional I feel pressured to go to at least half of them so that I'm not judged. Sure you can say the events and outings are optional but what happens to people who routinely don't go. They become less close with coworkers and this could hurt them career wise. I have no interest in eating lunch with my team every day. I see t…
Absolutely all of this. I don't want to work at a company that pretends it's a family. I don't want them to make me be friends. Work is a necessary evil in peoples lives. We all like to eat and have a place to live and this takes money, hence work, but it is still an evil. It takes the majority of your day and the majority of your life away from doing things you want to do and people you want to do them with. I would…
If you don't want to do your work nor like the people you work with, you should really switch jobs...
That said, I agree that companies should not try to creep in weekends and evenings. Having a life outside work is healthy and should be incentivized by every company.
But really, work is NOT a "necessary evil" for me...
Re: Nerf guns don't matter
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely all of this. I don't want to work at a company that pretends it's a family. I don't want them to make me be friends. Work is a necessary evil in peoples lives. We all like to eat and have a place to live and this takes money, hence work, but it is still an evil. It takes the majority of your day and the majority of your life away from doing things you want to do and people you want to do them with. I would…
If you don't want to do your work nor like the people you work with, you should really switch jobs... That said, I agree that companies should not try to creep in weekends and evenings. Having a life outside work is healthy and should be incentivized by every company. But really, work is NOT a "necessary evil" for me...
> If you don't want to do your work nor like the people you work with, you should really switch jobs
Which is not what I said. Work is what you have to do to enable you to do what yo want to do, but in that process it takes time (a lot of time) away from being able to do what you want to do. No one likes every part of their job, but you have to do those parts along with what you do like because it is part of you job, it is the work you have to do. No job lets you do everything you want to do in life. Co-workers are a random group of people that have been brought together on some common goal (the job). If everyone conducts themselves like adults you will probably be able to get along with them, but you will not like every last one of them.
> work is NOT a "necessary evil" for me
Really? What happens if you don't go to work anymore? What happens if you wake up and say, "You know what, I would like to spend the next month with my wife traveling around [insert area of the world here]?" What happens if you wake up and say "you know what, I don't really feel like working on X (your job) for a bit, I want to try this neat new thing that has nothing to do with it?"
Welcome to the necessary evil. Work is what you have to do, it takes away from all the other things you want to do.
Re: Nerf guns don't matter
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, did I come across to strong? I definitely didn't mean for it to seem like flamebait. :/
It did not to me. It might have seemed so when I was in my 20s, though.
I've been outted -_-
Seriously, though- I agree with the last few paragraphs, but I think there's a "to me" that's missing throughout this article. Anyone working somewhere solely for the ping pong (outside of professional table tennis players I guess...) is probably making a mistake. But a break doesn't have to be a distraction.
When I'm deep in a dev problem, sometimes I need to take a break to digest a problem. At my last job, I didn't have a place to do that. Sitting quietly in the break room was considered strange, and I shouldn't have to make-believe I'm programming to take some time to understand an issue.
The office we're in now has a common area where I can talk to someone, sit quietly, play a casual game of ping pong- and then get back to work. I recognize many people don't want to mix work and play, but shouldn't they recognize it's okay if I do?
Re: Nerf guns don't matter
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't want to do your work nor like the people you work with, you should really switch jobs... That said, I agree that companies should not try to creep in weekends and evenings. Having a life outside work is healthy and should be incentivized by every company. But really, work is NOT a "necessary evil" for me...
> If you don't want to do your work nor like the people you work with, you should really switch jobs Which is not what I said. Work is what you have to do to enable you to do what yo want to do, but in that process it takes time (a lot of time) away from being able to do what you want to do. No one likes every part of their job, but you have to do those parts along with what you do like because it is part of you job,…
> What happens if you don't go to work anymore?
I freak out and have to urgently find another thing to work on. Like, URGENTLY.
> What happens if you wake up and say, "You know what, I would like to spend the next month with my wife traveling around [insert area of the world here]?"
Work doesn't disallow that - I can simply work and travel at the same time, as I've done for a couple of years already (with my wife - and dog)
ps.: I'm not a workaholic by a very, very far distance. I just LIKE what I do and think it adds a lot of meaning to my existence (plus money of course) - I'd say it's a "necessary good" ;-)