
Work-Life Balance In Tech - abreckle
https://www.comparably.com/blog/work-life-balance-in-tech/
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whack
There are really 2 very different ways of interpreting these results.

A) People who're happy with the balance, are being given a lot of free time.

B) People who're happy with the balance, have really low expectations, or
don't mind working all the time.

When I read about founders/CEOs being more satisfied than most others, the
only reasonable explanation I can think of, is that they don't mind working 16
hour days on a company that they have personally built and run.

When viewed through this lens, it's possible that the demographics with the
highest satisfaction rates, aren't actually being given a good work-life
balance... they are simply the ones who are "easiest to exploit."

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dbenhur
It does not need to be framed as exploitive. Work life balance isn't just
about time spent working vs not working -- it's about quality of life. If you
have a job where the things you do for work are things that genuinely engage
you and give you pleasure, things you would do even if not being paid too,
then "working" more hours isn't a lack of balance, it's you spending time
doing the things you find personally rewarding.

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ian_nulogy
I really wish they had included SREs and Operations as a category.

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smrtinsert
Or just work on the east coast. I commute 45 minutes total a week in VA. I
make dinner, take courses, work out, play video games, do personal
projects/art, and spend quality time with my family, it's great.

~~~
throwaway2016a
That's not necessarily true in Boston, New York city or Southern New
Hampshire.

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twbarber
Could you elaborate on Southern NH? Does this apply to Nashua / Manchester?
Been considering moving to that area.

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douche
I imagine it depends heavily on whether you actually work in Southern New
Hampshire, or you live there and commute to Boston. There isn't a huge tech
scene in Manchester/Nashua/Portsmouth, but there is a healthy number of jobs -
more in the 9-5 corporate or lifestylish vein, than in the nose-to-the-
grindstone startup type scene.

Lots of people do head down to the greater Boston area, though, and that
commute is pretty brutal.

~~~
foobarian
The trick to have a good time in Boston for me has been to live close to the
office. It's 40 minutes per day instead of 40 minutes per week but it's still
a far cry from what I hear some of my friends are doing in SV. And the housing
here is such that it's entirely within the realm of reasonable to find housing
that close.

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throwaway2016a
I feel like this survey being binary is a bit detrimental.

I am about 7/10 happy with my work life balance. I obviously want a 10 (and 10
isn't a unicorn, it exists somewhere) but as a whole I would say "yes."

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biztos
"On a scale of 1:10, with 10 being Completely Happy..." would have made much
more interesting data, but a more difficult infographic.

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throwaway2016a
Wow, I completely missed that and I looked for it.

I latched onto "We found that 81% of Senior Designers were satisfied with
their work/life balance while only 46% of Sales Managers felt the same." which
frames it as a yes/no in my opinion.

I'm glad it was 1-10

~~~
__derek__
I don't think you missed anything. I don't see an indication that they used a
scale, and the legends all say "% who responsed Yes".

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pilom
I'm curious about the reasons women (especially in Denver aparently) are so
unhappy with the balance. Is it due to women being more likely to have jobs
that are less balanced or something else?

~~~
ryanbrunner
There's pretty clear evidence that women value work-life balance and
flexibility in scheduling at a much higher amount than men. A large amount of
that can be attributed to cultural expectations of raising children.

When you have school-aged children, "work-life balance" for both men and wome
(but especially women) changes from "gee, it'd be great if I didn't work until
7 PM every night" to "I need to drop off my kids at 8:30, someone needs to
pick them up at 4, they have various practices, etc. during the evening and a
whole 2 months I need to account for in the summer"

