

How GitHub Works: Creativity is Important - mcos
http://zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works-creativity/

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Amokrane
Does a teetotaler still have a chance to be working for GitHub? (given he is
great by the way). By reading your posts, I feel like it is a non negotiable
requirement and that it's basically impossible to be awesome without drinking.

Other than that, keep it on. I really enjoy reading your posts!

~~~
thurn
I've actually worried before about not drinking being a social handicap at
today's hip tech startups. It certainly makes bonding with the rest of your
team more difficult if their primary social venue is the bar.

~~~
thematt
I would be honest with them but if you're that concerned about "fitting
in"...just order a soda. If somebody asks, tell them you prefer mixed drinks
and that it's a rum and coke. Nobody will know the difference.

~~~
rubergly
An environment which requires constantly lying to fit in dosen't sound like
one anyone should want to be a part of.

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famousactress
So.. All of the flexibility and asynchronous working styles, and no enforced
hours.. but still no remote hiring? I'm really confused about why we don't see
more companies supporting remote working.

~~~
holman
We actually have employees all over the world- Europe, Australia, the US
(naturally). And we'd certainly consider hiring globally, but there's some
great technologists in SF and we'd just prefer it if you lived/moved out here.
Nothing wrong with having preferences. ;)

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pwaring
"We bleed friendship and work together, so it’s hard to tell when we’re
discussing work and when we’re chatting over beers"

Isn't that potentially a bad idea from a work/life balance point of view? I
like to know at the end of the week that I'm free to do my own thing - feeling
compelled to go out drinking with co-workers and talking about work-related
subjects would stop me relaxing, and would be bad for my productivity in the
long run.

~~~
JonLim
If they're anything like the web dev shop I work in, absolutely not. We're
free to grab drinks after work and we're free to go home, there's never any
pressure to join.

I assume GitHub is all that and a bag of cookies - you can join and chat and
build relationships with people, but under no circumstances is a gun held to
your head.

Chances are, if you work there and you enjoy the environment, you'd WANT to go
out for drinks with them!

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snitko
I was reading it and thinking that I was like that. I used to think "meh,
measuring work in hours". It felt especially disgusting when your employer did
it. But then I discovered a tiny widget called "Timer" and it really made me
think carefully of how I waste my time and helped me to keep track of my
productivity. You just sit, start the timer and get to work, no excuses. My
impression now is that it would actually be useful, not harmful, to track
employees time carefully - and use it not as a final judgement, but rather as
another source of data for analyzing efficiency.

After I read this article I started thinking about effectively tracking time.
I realized the best approach would be to do it seamlessly, so that I wouldn't
have to actually start/stop the timer and write down task names. And so I
googled this app which seems to be doing exactly this (for the teams too):
<http://app.chrometa.com> I think it would probably show a very interesting
data, especially in a team of developers, which would lead to some adjustments
in how people work. Too bad I'm on Ubuntu 90% of my time now, I'd probably try
it.

~~~
cpfohl
What you're saying is true if 'wasting time' was actually a problem. How
often, though, in the course of reading a random news post or checking Twitter
for the 478th time that day, do you realize the reason your program segfaults,
or figure out to solution to making your application more modular and
flexible?

While not an ideal use of your time, developers rarely stop thinking about the
problems they're working on.

Now excuse me, I think I have an idea I need to go try out! ;)

~~~
snitko
I agree, that's why I suggest to not use time tracking as a final metric. I
argue though, that such stats would show some interesting and not very obvious
tendencies.

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mattlong
You can tell a lot about someone (or some company) by the beer they drink.
What do you have on tap right now?

~~~
jwingy
I hear Guinness is great on tap if temperature controlled properly. Like night
and day from the bottle to the tap. Unfortunately I've only had the bottled
version (and I find it ehhh).

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skeletonjelly
It's GitHub week on HN!

