How Google's Marissa Mayer Prevents Burnout

The paragraph

When Mayer suspects an employee might burn out, she asks them to find their rhythm. They've come back with, "I need to be home for Tuesday night dinners," or "I need to be on time for my daughter's soccer games."

really bothers me. If employee burnout is a regular thing inside your organization, that's a serious issue that needs solving. But to have to ask permission to spend time with your family is ridiculous.

If you're working 130 hours a week, something is seriously, seriously wrong.

Even assuming she was not commuting to work (sleeping at the office), that leaves 5.4 hours a day for eating, sleeping, shitting, showering, brushing your teeth etc. Nobody can do it for more than a week or two.

I wonder how many people are on the opposite side of the equation ... I worked 130 hours a week and lost everything.

Somehow, I think the fact she is who she is leave people with the perception that working that much is what it takes.

Not always.

I get the feeling that the article was more written with the mind of the early days of Google- where one employee working 130 hour weeks could save the company tens/hundreds of thousands, and she wanted it to work that well.

Google most definitely doesn't require those insane hours out of people today- hell, quite the opposite. Requesting to spend time with your family does seem ridiculous, but the thing is, if you're in a small startup that is trying to get somewhere fast? You knew what you were getting into, no one forced you into the job, and maybe you should have chosen something that allowed more family time without having to ask. That doesn't make the job bad or 'seriously wrong', it's just a different life situation.

Similarly, there are a lot of people who want to work that hard, for something they believe in or are passionate about, but they find themselves incapable. That's what the article is really for.