
Work versus Life. Greatness versus Family - johnjlocke
http://blog.pieratt.com/post/64881538909/work-versus-life-greatness-versus-family
======
pyrrhotech
Great article. More people need to stand up to their bosses when long hours
are requested day in and day out. I had a chat with my boss just the other day
after I was forced to work all weekend. I told him, if it happens again, I'm
leaving for a different company. He apologized profusely and gave me an extra
2 days vacation to make up for it.

This is silicon valley. You are an engineer earning a top 5% salary in one of
the richest countries in your 20s. You can do whatever you want, the ball is
in your hands--not your employers. I get 10 emails a week from recruiters and
founders trying to get me to come work for them. Don't put up with the 60-80
hour a week bullshit. This is 2013, it costs approximately 20-30k to live a
good life with all the success of the last 2000 years of productivity. There
is no reason at all to work all the time. Work a normal 40-50 hours a week,
save at least half your paycheck and enjoy the rest of your life. If you
simply do that, you'll have complete autonomy over your life at age 35 and
will only have to work if you choose to. Otherwise you could choose to work 0
hours a week, spend all the time you want with your family, and hack at open
source projects, travel, read, exercise, or generally do whatever you want.

We have the power, not the employers.

~~~
RussianCow
It actually makes me uneasy that 40-50 hours is considered "normal". I know
40+ hours a week is very typical for any fulltime job, but that's SO much
time. Between that and driving, cooking, sleeping, doing housework, etc, we
have practically no free time (or at least I don't). I also don't feel that
I'm any more productive after about 30-35 hours a week; anything over that and
I may get burned out, which negates any benefit from the extra time.

Maybe I'm alone, but I doubt it.

~~~
pyrrhotech
I agree, I'd actually much prefer 30 or 35 to 40-50, but our society isn't set
up well for that. There are tons of employers who will pay you market rate for
normal effort --- normal being defined as 40-50 hours/week of diligent work.

What you can do tho is put up with the 40-50 hours a week for a decade and
then have the rest of your life to decide what you want to do with each hour
of your day and not worry about how much society thinks you should dedicate to
working.

~~~
georgemcbay
There are many employers who will pay you market rate for 40-50 hours of
presence, half of it spent frittering away time on the Internet. But
essentially none who will pay you nearly as much for a true solid 20-25 hours
of real effort without all the "looking busy" time wasting.

~~~
RussianCow
Yeah... I really wish it were the other way around, because I hate wasting all
those hours, knowing that nothing good came out of that time.

------
Xixi
When I entered university I was assigned to an alumni who would be my mentor:
the IT director of a large French car maker. We really met only once, but he
told me one thing that has sticked to this day (paraphrased):

"To live a healthy and happy life you need to balance three aspects: work,
family and personal. People will tell you you need to balance work and family.
But you have to recognize that sometimes you will need to spend time as you
please: do not feel ashamed for it."

Life is not just work and family, and nobody should be a slave of either.

~~~
Jgrubb
"Life is not just work and family, and nobody should be a slave of either."

I might have this tattooed on me somewhere. Thank you.

------
GrinningFool
When I was 22 or so, my wife asked me what my biggest fear was. At the time,
aside from concerns around her health and safety, it was "that nobody will
know who I was after I die".

Time and perspective change our priorities.

It is possible to become great person without ever having a successful IPO.
Without ever having a product in the first place. And certainly without giving
up most of your life in the likely-to-fail attempt to become 'great' (ie,
known and a financial success), at the opportunity cost of _living_ your life.

Because lets face it - our success rate is pretty dismally low. Most of us -
no matter how smart, no matter how driven - won't achieve "greatness" in the
sense alluded to here. We will be neither the next Jobs nor the next Gates nor
the next Zuckerburg.

We will write code. We will make products that may or may not make a
difference in people's lives. We will earn salaries that are unreasonably out
of proportion to what we actually do (take it while it lasts!).

Most of the people who will remember us are in this closed community of
startups. And once we stop producing, most of them will forget us. Some of us
will go on to something more - but not most.

Except for a select few of us, nobody will look back at you in 50 years and
say "wow, this dude... this dude was an awesome
coder/businessman/marketer/designer".

But your kid might look back at you in 50 years and say "he was an awesome
dad". Your community might remember you for the assistance you gave. And many,
many more might remember you for the difference you made in their lives
through your interactions with them.

There's nothing wrong with trying for the 'greatness' discussed in the
original post. But never lose sight of the fact that this kind of success is
only one path. And, frankly, you have your whole life to get there -- the long
path taken by _most_ of the people who are successful in that way.

TL;DR:

There is greatness in things other than the work you do and the money you
make.

~~~
return0
Am I the only one who finds this line of thinking defeatist?

~~~
pjmorris
I'm curious about this reaction. I read the OP as saying 'everything you do
matters, not just what shows up on the product or financial radar'. What's
your read?

------
swinnipeg
Not the biggest Jack Welch fan, but I think his quote on work life balance is
most accurate:

"There's no such thing as work-life balance, there are work-life choices, and
you make them, and they have consequences."

You don't need to rationalize spending more time with your family and less at
work or vice-versa, just be honest about the consequences of it.

I worked a ton before I had a family, 7 days a week, always online. Now that I
have scaled back I do accomplish less work, and I am 100% ok with that. My
choice is more time with my wife and kids, and slightly less money (and alot
less chance of a big $$ windfall), but I couldn't be happier.

------
PaulHoule
Most people who work like dogs don't attain greatness.

My thesis advisor chose work over family. He left his lover and hardly ever
saw his son until his son was forced to move in with him at the age of 14. (At
which point you've really missed the chance to bond with him)

Back in grad school he was often the only professor working on Sunday -- I
worked Sundays most of the time but I usually took Saturdays completely off. I
still go by the physics sometime on the weekend and his door is the only one
open with the lights on.

He got a tenured professorship and a defined benefit pension but his work as a
physicist has been solidly average (like the average physicist)

A lot of hard work cost him his family and won him some kind of security which
is hard to find today, but he definitely didn't achieve greatness.

~~~
harvestmoon
Most people who don't work like dogs don't attain greatness either.

I'd even guess that people who work harder are more likely to attain
greatness.

------
AndrewKemendo
Nelson Mandela had a great quote on this topic in the context of his
relationship or lack thereof with his children.

I don't remember it verbatim but it was basically: You (my children) all taken
care of you have what you need to live, I am working to make sure that the
same is true for all the other South African children.

That really hit home for me because instead of looking at spending more time
with my family, I looked at using my time wisely toward massive structural
goals which would have positive outcomes on the world population.

~~~
hoka
It's somewhat shortsighted, however. What if, by showing compassion to your
family / children, you inspired them to benefit the world? If you inspire
three of your children to do what you would have done yourself, you
potentially get 3x the output of world-saviness.

Slightly trolly, I know, but just being devil's advocate.

~~~
rubyclown
>> Slightly trolly

No. You are a FULL BLOWN "Concern Troll."

------
mattgreenrocks
Isaacson's book on Jobs mentions a few times that several people close to Jobs
saw in him a hole that he tried to fill by succeeding through his work. Jobs
himself speculates that he may have become more prone to cancer by running
Apple and Pixar.

I realize all of that is speculative, but, damn, there _has_ to be a point at
which almost all of us would step back and say it isn't worth it. Why bust
your ass, endanger your health, and stress yourself out so you can make
someone else a load of cash?

(Also notice that many people who insist on the need for ridiculous hours
often get something out of it: management, VCs, etc.)

~~~
mcone
> Why bust your ass, endanger your health, and stress yourself out so you can
> make someone else a load of cash?

One aspect that is often overlooked is that Jobs was an adoptee. My partner is
also adopted, and I can tell you that she will struggle with deep rooted fears
and self-confidence issues for life. She is also a workaholic. This is not a
conscious decision she makes but rather a learned method for dealing with, and
perhaps ignoring, her pain.

It's easy to look at things objectively as a third-party observer. My personal
opinion is that Jobs did not have a choice in the matter. Work was his coping
mechanism to deal with his pain.

Larry Ellison is also adopted, and I find it interesting that he was close
friends with Steve Jobs. The two are quite similar in many ways.

------
general_failure
This reminded me of Heinlein's quote.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a
hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a
wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act
alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a
computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization
is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man)

~~~
6d0debc071
"Jack of all trades, master of none."

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I prefer Jack of all Trades, Master of many.

~~~
freshhawk
I prefer Master of All Things Known to Humanity!

But, as the aphorism points out, there's a gap between reality and your
preference. We all have the same number of hours in a day and mastery is
relative.

~~~
einhverfr
But specialization comes with heavy costs too, which is why cross-training was
so trendy in automotive manufacturing for a while.

If folks specialize they often lose the ability to coordinate their actions
with eachother.

The way I look at it is that human beings are as bound by the CAP Theorem as
computers are, except that humans are fundamentally unable to achieve full
consistency. All specialization and generalization needs to be done with that
in mind, namely that all knowledge is incredibly local.

------
akulbe
This is something that I wrestle with on a regular basis. I am not a top
engineer... I am not even an engineer at all. I work in support and want to
move over to programming. Reading the writing on the wall... programming is
the future, if you want to make a good life for yourself from working in
technology.

That said, I have a little girl about to hit 2 years old and a wife of almost
5 years. And I'm going to hit 40 in about 2 weeks. I don't learn as quickly
and easily I learned when I was much younger.

I know it takes some serious chops and time investment to learn to code. I
guess that I just have to trust that I'll get "there" eventually... a little
bit at a time.

While I want to continually improve and make a good life for my family... it
would be a total travesty to do it at their expense.

btw, the struggle I refer to is the fact that for turning 40 soon... I don't
feel old. I just feel like I should have accomplished more with my life, by
this time. Know what I mean?

Edited: punctuation

~~~
einhverfr
Go for it. Start small. Bite off just a little at a time.

Understand that age is neither good nor bad. There is a lot of ageism in the
industry, so one thing you should be prepared to do is strike out on your own
if you need to (either part-time as moonlighting or otherwise).

------
freshhawk
"If a boss is feeling insecure about how their company is performing, then
leaning on their employees for more hours is one of the few ways that they can
feel like they’re turning the cogs towards success."

A very important point and very well stated. If I knew of any internet slang
signifying a virtual standing ovation I would put it here.

It frequently also comes with pushing an atmosphere of artificial urgency and
high interest technical debt (save an hour today and cost the company weeks in
a few months) because all are based on panicked short term thinking.

~~~
tslathrow
Mostly disagree. My banking years (age 21-23) were really rough (100+ hour
workweeks), but it definitely meant we learned much faster and earned
significantly more over the long run.

I tend to lose interest if I'm not actively competing against my peers.

Now I just enjoy my job way too much to consider scaling back the hours.

------
paulrademacher
Director James Cameron: "Anybody can be a father or a husband. There are only
five people in the world who can do what I do, and I'm going for that."

He said this to his then-wife :-)

------
brnstz
From the recent Penn Jillette AMA on reddit:

"I'm very very careful with my time. I try to do nothing that someone else
could do. So, I write, I perform and I spend time with my family."

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1opzae/penn_jillette_h...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1opzae/penn_jillette_here_ask_me_anything/ccue825)

This doesn't answer the dichotomy of work vs. family, but puts it in a
different context. What is the most effective way to spend your time?

The president's daughter scrapes her knee, but there's also a school shooting?
I think Obama's gonna be giving a speech, and Michelle's on neosporin duty.

(West Wing spoiler alert 2003) The president's daughter is kidnapped? Well, I
hope John Goodman is available, it's about to get Season 4 cliffhanger in
here. Someone else can be president. Right now it's not the most effective use
of Martin Sheen's time.

~~~
judk
When the Twin Towers fell, President Bush finished reading the book he was
reading to a classroom of kids.

The West Wing President Bartlett stepped down because it would be a national
security threat to have the President subject to ransom demands.

~~~
lmm
>When the Twin Towers fell, President Bush finished reading the book he was
reading to a classroom of kids.

Which is one of the few things I respect him for, and I never understood why
he got so much hate for it.

~~~
harvestmoon
I don't know. I think it's more of a panic response than the right response.

Imagine this: "Kids, as President of the United States, I'm responsible for a
lot of things. I just got a call that I have to take care of. I'm sorry. But I
promise I'll come back and finish reading this book to you some other time."

------
artsim
I can not believe no one has posted this yet, so here it goes

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air.
You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping
all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will
bounce back. But the other four balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit –
are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed,
marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You
must understand that and strive for it.

Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. Give the required time
to your family, friends and have proper rest. Value has a value only if its
value is valued.”

\- Bryan Dyson – Former CEO of Coca Cola

------
return0
> historically Great Person could have been great while also being dedicated
> and present for their family

Don't forget that those people had the wife or some others raising their
children, something that was generally not considered men's work.

~~~
einhverfr
Also don't forget that the role of the wife went _way_ beyond merely raising
children and taking care of the house and home.

------
smrtinsert
I wouldn't chase 'greatness' anymore than I would chase 'happiness'. I like
the sentiment of the piece though even though his equating study with career
in the Adams quote annoyed me.

------
einhverfr
I think one of the key things is that work life and family life in the
internet age need not be so separate. Household businesses can thrive and work
together to accomplish great things, with unconventional organizational
structures (or entirely informal ones).

When LedgerSMB forked I remember working late hours in a hotel room with my
wife and son (I had a contract for my business that took me out of town, and
we all decided it would only work if we all went), and having sessions with
Chris Murtagh who would be typing with one hand, and cradling his infant son
in the other. Almost every work break would be spent with my family, except
for lunch that year (and only that year). Almost every hour not spent with my
family would be spent working. Work and family formed the warp and weft of my
life.

Fast forward five years, and what's happened is that these have become even
more integrated. I schedule my work around family time, and my family time
around work. In emergencies I may have to rebalance. But these are all deeply
integrated.

In the distant past, this was actually the norm, so it is not that I can do
something today that none of the great men in the past could do, but rather
that I can return to the solutions which have worked. To some extent the
internet enables this, but it isn't really enabling something new. It is
rather re-enabling something very old.

Interestingly I don't think double entry accounting was invented by monks
sitting in monasteries, but by the collaboration of merchants (whose families
were effectively helping run the businesses). Many of the great things we take
for granted today were actually built in such a way.

------
jacksonlatka
I could not agree with this more. In my case, the very product I'm working on
is all about kids and family. It seems ironic when giving all I can to make
the product succeed is taking away from enjoying time with my wife, and kids
while they are young.

Sometimes it seems like we can only pick two: \- family \- startup \- health

I know the balance can be achieved, but is it balance we are looking for? I
have a fear of being mediocre at both. But, we can do better than this. I can
do better.

------
brannon
Reminds me of Clayton Christensen's book How Will You Measure Your Life? which
deals with questions of dividing time between work and family. It isn't long
and I'm glad I read it (though I wouldn't call it a page turner). One of the
points he makes is that your family life is like any other investment, and you
need to actively invest in it to be able to get a good return later in life.

------
kyleblarson
To a lot of people greatness IS having a family and/or a fun life that is not
defined by what you do to pay the bills.

------
normloman
A little off topic, but I find it hilarious when he declares that he will
succeed where great men have failed ... because he has hipchat.

How is hipchat better than IRC or Jabber? Don't these protocols do the same
thing for free (as in freedom and pizza).

------
jl6
I read that people on their deathbeds, when asked about their regrets, wished
they hadn't spent so much time worrying, and had spent more time with their
families.

------
cmollis
john adams clearly had already made his money when he said that.

I believe his son did his own studying of 'politics and war' just as his
father did.. just as we do and, unfortunately or otherwise, just as our sons
will.

------
mikekij
Can I upvote this like 30 times?

