
On Heroku and 2012 - rdegges
http://kennethreitz.org/on-heroku-and-2012.html
======
jpadvo
> Life's not a race, but there's no speed limit either.

I love this. I've been learning recently that one of my chief sources of
stress is feeling pinched for time. Mainly from feeling like I'm not getting
as much done as I need to (I'm a cofounder of a bootstrapped startup). But
what I've discovered is that if I relax, and enjoy the feeling of progress as
it happens, I can be much more excited about work. And a much happier person.

And, somewhat ironically, extra motivation kicks in and I'm pretty sure I wind
up getting more done.

That one line from Kenneth sums up the entire glorious contradiction in a way
that makes sense.

~~~
unimpressive
Reminded me of this story:

<https://sivers.org/kimo>

~~~
jpadvo
Thank you -- I haven't read that story in a long time, and it is a great
reminder.

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atomical
I don't think unlimited vacation is a good thing because it really isn't
unlimited and just keeps the employee guessing as to what is appropriate.

~~~
bjornsteffanson
I absolutely agree. My last and current employer both offer unlimited
vacation. For whatever psychological reason, I find myself taking less
vacation than I did when I was _earning_ it at my McJob for the rate of 6.33
hours every month.

If you are such an employer, please consider setting a realistic expectation
of what is an appropriate amount of time-off. If there really is no limit,
then please consider more intensive training with regard to your company's
culture .

~~~
shykes
We had a similar debate at dotCloud when the team discussed the appropriate
amount of vacation. Unlimited was very tempting, but in the end we decided
against it because 1) it's ambiguous and offers little guarantees, 2) it makes
a lot of people suspicious ("Like AT&T unlimited?") and 3) it doesn't force
people to take vacation.

Number 3 was the worst. Passionate people will burn themselves out if you
don't setup some sort of "vacation monitoring". We liked the idea of making
that explicit: lots of vacation, and rules that force you to use them
regularly.

In the end we went for 2+1 weeks on the first year, and 3+2 weeks after that.

~~~
famousactress
Does 3+2 mean "3 required, optionally take 2 additional"?

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shykes
Sorry, forgot to explain. 3+2 means "3 weeks accrued over the year and usable
anytime, 2 weeks of company-wide break (specifically the weeks of thanksgiving
and christmas)". The decision to do a company-wide break probably deserves a
thread of its own. The short version is that it works great.

~~~
LordIllidan
What about support?

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shykes
Good question, there are special arrangements for support and 24/7 on-call
rotation (eg. if you have to work during the company break you get vacation
days). It's also very easy to trade on-call days with colleagues, and other
ad-hoc arrangements.

I'm not 100% certain this would work in a bigger company where people think of
it as "just a job". But in a small team where everybody is passionate and
eager to make it successful, it works great.

~~~
LordIllidan
Thanks for the answer - I thought it would be something like this. Taking 2
weeks off during the holiday period is a great thing to do!

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gbog
> Don't spend a single moment in life doing something you don't want to do.

This advice or its cousins are found in many places around here and, well, I
have a bad feeling about it. Is it not the epitome of egoism?

Is it possible to share a house with friends, or a spouse, or your kids,
without ever "doing something you don't want to do"?

And in professional life, if you are a janitor, do you "want" to clean this
toilets again? If you are a coder, you will do your share of boring work
because you are in a team, right? And if you are a Big Boss, do you really
want to fire this poor guy who is no fit here, will be no fit in no company
you can think of, and has had already his content of shit on the head?

Even a painter, or a writer, or a comics guy like Mr Oatmeal have to do
sometimes some things they do not "want" to do, professionally

The only people who really can avoid doing anything they do not want to do for
a long period of time are the movie superstars and kids of some people of
power. I do not think they represent a suitable ideal of life, and I do not
think they are more happy than more normal poeple, quite the opposite in fact.

Then there are a few short-lived exceptions, a little slice of a life that is
mostly free from hassles of any sort. I experienced this state during a few
months myself: I got fired from a boring job, so I had the nice French
wellfare and got 70% income for nothing. I also broke with my gf. At that time
nobody counted in my life, I could and I did take risks, like getting involved
in knife fight. I remember the only thing I did that I did not want to do was
to take the train and join my parents to meet my grand-parents. for some
important occasion. I actually had to wake up early and shave... But that's
not real life, that's a short and egoistic period of my life. It has been
somewhat useful in build my experience, but I'd not say I was happy. And most
important is I would not make a general advice out of it. Only very few people
in the world are lucky enough to find themselves with no professional or
familial bounds and enough money to live free-wheeling for some month.

Or maybe the split is on another line: If young Americans can claim to never
do what they do not want to do, maybe it is because they use autosuggestion,
also known as The Coué method* , to make themselves "want" to do what they
really just "have" to do. Using autosuggestion, I could proactively "want" to
clean my toddler's diapers, or smile candidly and listen to this friend's
spouse, while at the same time, deep in my heart, knowing she is really the
boringest person in the world and I'd rather lick the streets than listen to
her blabla (but I really like this friend, would not like to lose him...)

So yes, with autosuggestion, it is possible to force oneself to love to do
what we hate to do, and it is most likely what many people do. But then, you'd
have to balance carefully, because it is cheating, it is lying to oneself, and
pushed too far it can become a poison, I guess.

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Cou%C3%A9#The_Cou.C3...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Cou%C3%A9#The_Cou.C3.A9_method)

~~~
PieSquared
This advice comes up very often when people write about re-evaluating their
lives. (Also, this retort comes up very often when people read what those
people wrote. I don't disagree with your logic, per se...)

I think you're right, but the author probably did not mean the advice as
literally as you're reading it. You're interpreting the advice as a call for
_egoism_ [0]; selfishness to the point of being unwise. I think that when
people write this, they're actually writing a call for _hedonism_ [1].

Hedonism is different from egoism. Hedonism, the way I see it, is realizing
that our existence is ultimately meaningless, and that we should optimize for
our own happiness (and well-being) rather than any other metric; all metrics
are meaningless, so we might as well stick to what makes us happy. In
actionable terms, embracing hedonism means realizing that you should aim
towards doing things that make you happy, and that this aim should be your
guiding force (at every "single moment in life"). This doesn't mean that you
should be happy every single moment; it means you should be optimizing for
happiness every single moment. (To use your examples: a spouse knows that
compromising will make them happier overall; a janitor knows that although
his/her life aren't perfect, doing this is what will lead to his/her life
improving (hopefully) or at least keeping them happier.)

Anyway, that's the way I understand this type of advice, and I appreciate the
occasional reminders. (Also, I don't actually know much about philosophy, so I
might be misusing terminology here; if so, please correct me!)

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_egoism> (maybe?)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism>

~~~
gbog
Yes, read flatly this advice is borderline egoism, but it can be read in a
more useful way if some ideas are added.

You shall not want to do something that you would not want others to be
allowed to do. (Eg: you cannot want to kill people for fun in the streets.
That's a Kantian principle, IIRC)

You should better have a long-term perspective on what you want to do, and
why. If you are tooth ache, your primary self probably do not "want" to go to
dentist, but your reasonable self tells you that you have to do it, even
without any immediate wishes to go.

Even if you were Xi Jinping or Obama, you cannot control everything you wish
to control. The stoistic advice works here: you should do all you can to
prepare yourself a nice cruise (or life), but once on the boat, you can't help
if you are caught in a storm and should better shut up than complain.

An example is marriage+kids: you should probably jump carefully on this little
boat, but once in, better eat your hat than jump overboard at the first
annoyance.

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Steveism
As the saying goes, "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your
life."

It's great to read posts like this. Learning Python, or any modern language
for that matter, can lead to a lot more in life than just web apps and server
scripts. In this case it lead to 8 countries visited in a single year and
countless handshakes.

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luigi
Kenneth is awesome, in the true sense of the word.

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gromi60
"You won't remember names. Just ask."

Great advice. I often forget names and the stress and/or guilt is the worst
part.

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zachwill
Kenneth's a badass. The libraries he puts out are incredibly helpful.

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fyvush82
I don't follow this "I work for Heroku" stuff. He works for Salesforce, which
Heroku is a part of, no?

~~~
bgentry
Salesforce owns Heroku, and we leverage that relationship where it makes
sense. Other than that, Heroku operates independently of Salesforce, which is
how both sides want it to be.

We have our own office, we're keeping our brand, and we operate the business
as we see fit.

We're 2 years into the acquisition with no signs of that relationship changing
anytime soon.

~~~
bengl3rt
A better question is, why don't some of the reasons that it's so great to work
for Heroku symbiotically trickle up to the behemoth parent company?

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jason_adleberg
shoutout to OP for making django-skel

~~~
rdegges
Shout out: confirmed. >:)

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olasitarska
Wow, now I'm even more exciting to meet you Kenneth! ;)

