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Startup work-life balance

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Re: Startup work-life balance

#41

Post by mapgrep »

hippo33 wrote: post #38
mapgrep wrote: post #35

Wait, why is Elon Musk being used as example of someone who doesn't need vacations? We don't know what his personal life is like, in comparison to all we know about his professional life. There is no data. Digging into his personal life is widely considered off limits. Reporting is not done on it. If I were, for example, to assert that Musk has had two divorces in 2.5 years and that this may in fact reflect that his…

He was referenced, because of another article (see link in my post) on work-life balance.

You referenced and tried to refute the article, but how do you know Musk is happy? How do you know he has found his personal balance? From what little I know about his personal life -- and it may be unrepresentative, again -- you can argue his personal life is on the rocks. He might also be perfectly happy. But what's the evidence? I don't see any evidence his story supports you point at all.

Re: Startup work-life balance

#44

Post by mberning »

trhtrsh wrote: post #31
mberning wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absoutely. I was similar to the author all the through college. Then I got a job, which was a brutal entry level programmer job. It killed what little social life I had at that point. But the upside was that I was pretty good at it and started making some decent money. Over time I was able to use my professional capital to switch to a company with much healthier expectations. I was able to go out and explore the worl…

Sounds like you had a bad job, not a bad time programming/sciencing.

Yeah, I did.

The point I was trying to make is that the lifestyle I led through college in some ways fed in to my willingness to do the same thing professionally. I never knew any better.

If things had gone differently, I could still be killing myself on a daily basis. And for what? The possibility of making a few more bucks?

Re: Startup work-life balance

#45

Post by freshhawk »

hippo33 wrote: post #37
freshhawk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Balance has a reasonably well defined meaning. You can argue that balance isn't necessary for everyone or that the "balanced life" dogma is wrong. That's an interesting conversation. Better than trying to redefine balanced to mean "either balanced or the opposite, whatever you feel like", that seems rather silly.

What you need to make your life feel balanced is different from your peers. If you need to take more time off, then do it. But if you only need 1 week of vacation like Elon Musk, then that's his balance. That's the point -- let's not create one standard set of rules for what balance is because people operate differently.

What? No.

A balanced life means you split your life among all different areas of life. That's what that phrase means.

Elon Musk has rejected the idea that work/life balance is necessary and that's just fine. That's how he feels happiest. It seems to be working pretty damn well for him.

I'm not saying there's any kind of standard set of rules, I'm saying that if you reject the dogma of balance then say so, don't try and redefine what it means because people are dogmatic about "balance = good, not balanced = bad"

Re: Startup work-life balance

#46

Post by codegeek »

aeturnum wrote: post #18
codegeek wrote: post #9

Not sure if I agree with the author here. Yes it is true that if u love what u do, it doesn't feel like a burden and might have a feeling of balance there. But even then, I want my personal life which means being able to spend time doing other things and not just work. The author talks about his teenage days when he would rather do math and not watch x files. That's fine. But what about ppl who have kids and want to…

I think you're missing the point of work life balance. People do not want a good "work life balance" because it's the "right thing to do." They're seeking to optimize their productivity and happiness. They don't want to wake up one day and have no friends, but they also don't want to wake up and have done too little. The author's point is that there is no canonical answer. If your friend works 12 hour days (as I'm su…

"there is no canonical answer"

Agreed. But I got the feeling that the author was also advocating a zero sum game here for work life balance

Re: Startup work-life balance

#47

Post by hoka »

trhtrsh wrote: post #22
crazygringo wrote: post #10

I used to program all the time in high school. I thought I was happy. Then I went to college, met all sorts of people, had lots of experiences, and realized how narrow my life, and concept of happiness was. So when I hear people talk about how much they love their work, that's their own balance... I can't help but wonder if they just haven't learned how great the other parts of life are. And how much a wider range of…

I used to go out all the time in college. I got puked on by all sorts of people, had lots of frustrating experiences, adn realized how peer-driven my life, and concept of happiness was. So when I hear people talk about how much they love their friends, that's their own balance... I can't help but wonder if they just haven't learned how to take care of themselves without external validation. And how working to accompl…

I get the contrarian perspective, and partially agree with it. I think in both cases, however, you have to frequently make sure your reasons are ones you can live with.

Many people are concerned with how they appear to their friends and behave differently in the college/young professional scene you allude to. It's easy to fool yourself into thinking what you're working on is so important to YOU and that you don't need external validation. In some cases though, we assume we're already validated because WE know that our work is important. You're still relying on validation possibly; you're just getting it from made up people instead of real ones.

But as long as you truly believe in your work and aren't doing it to keep your head above everyone, props to you :-). I struggle to objectively examine where I'm at in my life at times and I think it's something we all need to do more of.

Re: Startup work-life balance

#48

Post by fr84 »

trhtrsh wrote: post #30
ogama wrote: post #11

Her high school life sounds sad. If she really had a fulfilling social life in high school she wouldn't feel the need to tell us all how great it was that she didn't go to parties. It reminds me of people who are constantly broadcasting to everyone how happy they are. Chances are, they're not.

Poe'd? If you had a fulfilling life, you wouldn't feel the need to accuse other people of being secretly unhappy.

The person simply sounds defensive, trying to convince themselves that not having fun was fun. So the reply made a good point.

Re: Startup work-life balance

#49

Post by prawks »

hippo33 wrote: post #20
jusben1369 wrote: post #8

It feels like the author picked the 8 hour work day. I don't see that as part of the overall discussion on balance. The main point of balance is that you are a more complete human being when you participate in a wider range of activities. Even if that just means you're a better developer because you stepped away for an hour or a week and got a new perspective. Just because you're not miserable only doing primarily on…

Balance is what YOU as an individual need to be balanced. You are projecting your opinion on everyone else that you need to do other things to be happier. That is what makes YOU happy. So go do it! But, it doesn't mean that everyone will be happier doing that. The point of this post is that everyone needs balance and needs to do what they think will make them feel balanced. And rather than adhering to dogma of others…

In case people still don't get it, it's your life that you balance. No one but you can tell you what that means.

Re: Startup work-life balance

#50

Post by hippo33 »

mapgrep wrote: post #41
hippo33 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was referenced, because of another article (see link in my post) on work-life balance.

You referenced and tried to refute the article, but how do you know Musk is happy? How do you know he has found his personal balance? From what little I know about his personal life -- and it may be unrepresentative, again -- you can argue his personal life is on the rocks. He might also be perfectly happy. But what's the evidence? I don't see any evidence his story supports you point at all.

You're right -- we don't know. My interpretation of the article was that the AUTHOR seemed to imply that that was unbalanced, and my point in bringing it up was that it didn't seem right for the author to critique what is a balanced/not-balanced life, since it's different for everyone.
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