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I think many young people in tech learn this lesson the hard way. They get excited with all the free food, laundry services, and events that tech jobs offer. Th

I think many young people in tech learn this lesson the hard way. They get excited with all the free food, laundry services, and events that tech jobs offer. They end up spending all of their waking hours at work and work becomes an identity. Then one day something changes and they realize they spent the last N years of their life at work, not building real lasting relationships, pursuing hobbies, dating, etc. It truly is a cautionary tale and startups and big companies alike want their employees to drink the Kool Aid. Personally, I love all the perks tech jobs offer but work-life balance always comes first.

Waterluvian 7y ago
I learned this a few years into my career and made major changes to adjust it. I've never felt happier and more fulfilled than this last year where my job is a sideshow and my focus and best hours of the day are spent with my family.
- shshhdhs 7y ago
  That’s great to hear! What changes did you make?
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    Found a job where I can work from home. Developed a healthy but firm relationship with my employer that I shall not be available outside office hours. Hacked away at slack to permanently disable notifications and never show the blue distraction dot. Developed an expectation among the team about my responsiveness via slack or email. Unlearned from my previous job: installing any work related software on my phone. Adopted a financial lifestyle that prevents me from being a wage slave. This is the most important part, I think. It means all of the above can never be eroded because I'm not afraid to quit/be fired. This means I can stand by my philosophy.
    - malingo 7y ago
      Glad to hear I'm not the only one who hacks out the blue distraction dot. Every time slack upgrades itself it comes back and I remove it posthaste.
      - jeofken 7y ago
        Please feel free to publish it as a Firefox extension. I’ll pledge to donate $10 (via SEPA or cryptocurrency) if it’s not out yet, in honour of putting your money where your mouth is
    - cubano 7y ago
      I'm 53yo and worked in tech (as corporate wage slave, consultant, 1099, and self-employed remote) for 30 years now, and I do believe you have found the true path to how to handle working in tech. I consider myself lucky that during my formative years in tech in the 90's, I was also playing guitar in a semi-professional band touring Florida during the year. I feel that due to these experiences, I was always able to see what many of my colleagues couldn't. That tying your emotional, social, and financial happiness to your tech job is a dangerous place to be.
- chapium 7y ago
  How do you cope with spending the majority of your time being a "sideshow"?
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    Majority of my time?
neilv 7y ago
Shortchanging non-work life for several years is not specific to "tech". The ~30yo dating pool in Boston was a wealth of people who'd been focused on grad school, med school/residency, and making partner in a law firm. Many people consider career focus a good investment, in those fields. (Though many manage to do both, and some others try but fail to do both.)
- watwut 7y ago
  The difference is that in tech you have a choice and in medicine you don't.
  - pixelrevision 7y ago
    Medicine also tends to have more clear career tracks. Tech will run you into the ground and discard you if you are not careful and creative about where you go and how you go about it.
yuy910616 7y ago
I think a lot of people learn this the hard way, yes. But I kinda don't see what is wrong with this. Having work life balance is somewhat of a luxury, and it's a luxury to be able to say "money doesn't make me happy". It's a luxury to come to that conclusion. How do you arrive at that conclusion without going through the ringer first?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- j2kun 7y ago
  > Having work life balance is somewhat of a luxury, Tell that to the history of labor unions
  - unreal37 7y ago
    Talented and ambitious people would hate being in a labor union. It's a place where doing more than what is expected is actively shunned, and knowing how little work you can do is the optimization.
    - task_queue 7y ago
      > Talented and ambitious people would hate being in a labor union Doubt it. Mentorship and apprenticeship opportunities are abound. Unions provide a floor for negotiations from which you can up-negotiate. If your categorization was true, actors would never have breakout opportunities despite their union representation. Reality disagrees with your assertion and any movie star ever acts as evidence contrary to your claim.
      - thereisnospork 7y ago
        Movie stars are in a guild, not a union. Much like doctors. Unions have personally screwed me out of hundreds of dollars of month in payment for pensions I'll never see because they've forced me into inappropriate position titles to the benefit of legacy members.
lupire 7y ago
This sad story is common but usually happens to people who weren't going to build a life anyway, who'd be home on the computer in their free time instead of getting paid to do something profitable with it.
- robertAngst 7y ago
  And its these people who stick around too. Saves the company plenty of money giving them 3-5% yearly raises.
burtonator 7y ago
It's a cult and they deliberately want to make it a cult. This is one of the reasons they provide free food, corporate vacations, team building exercises, etc. They want you completely dedicated.
- tracer4201 7y ago
  As someone who’s worked at multiple big tech companies, I don’t think this was true, at least not on the teams I worked on. I probably averaged 50 hour weeks. I also earned enough to max out retirement accounts and make substantial investments in my post-tax accounts. I had enough to where I could start taking bigger risks. I had two vacations per year while building wealth. I also got married during this time. I read comments like this and I wonder if someone had a bad experience or if it’s just resentment. To be clear, I think there’s massive room to improve gender pay gaps, diversity, etc. That being said, I don’t think these companies are as nefarious as you make it sound. It depends on your situation. I never had to travel, unlike the author of the medium post. I didn’t face sexual harassment, although I’m also a female. I do know these things do happen, just as they would at many non tech companies.
  - akersten 7y ago
    > I probably averaged 50 hour weeks. I also earned enough to max out retirement accounts and make substantial investments in my post-tax accounts. I had enough to where I could start taking bigger risks. I'm in a similar situation, and feel sad that a "bigger risk" for me - and probably a lot of employees in tech - is putting my foot down and working only 40 hours a week. Without having money saved, I'd have a much weaker hand in sticking up for myself.
    - tracer4201 7y ago
      Do you really need to? Or do you think you need to? I left my first company after college only after 3 years, despite the pay being great. I moved to a tech company, which longer term ended up being absolutely the right decision. At the time, I only left because I felt burned out. In retrospect, I worked nights and weekend, pulling in closer to 60 hours, but it was never expected of me. If anything, I set that expectation, and it wasn’t fair to my colleagues who couldn’t work more than 40 hours a week because they had a spouse, kids, or other responsibilities that I didn’t have outside of work. If you do feel like you have no other way, my suggestion would be to find a different team or different org at your company if possible. Otherwise, time to move on elsewhere. Keep your skills sharp - changing jobs is stressful and can suck, but never end up in a position where you absolutely rely on the job you have now. Build your nest egg early. This is especially true if you’re young. I only wish I had someone give me this advice but my parents both worked their entire lives, and I saw them both work sometimes two jobs at a time. I didn’t know better having grown up in a home where that was the norm (they didn’t have a choice because they were trying to support 3 children, pay rent, car payment, etc).
paulddraper 7y ago
Perhaps overly impersonal, but I think of it as an investment profile: you need diversity. Invest in your education, invest in your career, invest in your family, invest in your friends, invest in your hobbies, invest in your health. Not all of those are sure to succeed, but if one fails or you realize is overvalued, you've still got a lot left.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  I have two comments. You want you career path to follow; what you can learn, what you can do, what you know, who you know. Every job should pay you in, experience, money and connections. If a employer is short changing you or blocking you on any of those, LEAVE.
brightball 7y ago
I really think that just spreading more awareness of this goes a long way. I worked crazy hours my first few years too but it wasn’t company pressure, it was me wanting to prove myself. I didn’t change til I literally worked myself into a hospital. I do wonder if knowing more about how often this stuff happens would have made me more aware of the pattern I was falling into.
duxup 7y ago
I can't blame them. It is the first big real world thing many of them do, their first real career job, and possibility the most important thing to them they've done to date... it's so easy to get wrapped up in that when a company steps in to fill in all the possible gaps in life. If you don't know what else you'd fill your life with, it's easy to fill it completely with the first big deal that comes along.
Aeolun 7y ago
I don’t think that’s necessarily bad though. Learn all these things when you are 23~ish

Waterluvian 7y ago

I learned this a few years into my career and made major changes to adjust it. I've never felt happier and more fulfilled than this last year where my job is a sideshow and my focus and best hours of the day are spent with my family.

shshhdhs 7y ago
That’s great to hear! What changes did you make?
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Found a job where I can work from home. Developed a healthy but firm relationship with my employer that I shall not be available outside office hours. Hacked away at slack to permanently disable notifications and never show the blue distraction dot. Developed an expectation among the team about my responsiveness via slack or email. Unlearned from my previous job: installing any work related software on my phone. Adopted a financial lifestyle that prevents me from being a wage slave. This is the most important part, I think. It means all of the above can never be eroded because I'm not afraid to quit/be fired. This means I can stand by my philosophy.
  - malingo 7y ago
    Glad to hear I'm not the only one who hacks out the blue distraction dot. Every time slack upgrades itself it comes back and I remove it posthaste.
    - jeofken 7y ago
      Please feel free to publish it as a Firefox extension. I’ll pledge to donate $10 (via SEPA or cryptocurrency) if it’s not out yet, in honour of putting your money where your mouth is
  - cubano 7y ago
    I'm 53yo and worked in tech (as corporate wage slave, consultant, 1099, and self-employed remote) for 30 years now, and I do believe you have found the true path to how to handle working in tech. I consider myself lucky that during my formative years in tech in the 90's, I was also playing guitar in a semi-professional band touring Florida during the year. I feel that due to these experiences, I was always able to see what many of my colleagues couldn't. That tying your emotional, social, and financial happiness to your tech job is a dangerous place to be.
chapium 7y ago
How do you cope with spending the majority of your time being a "sideshow"?
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Majority of my time?

neilv 7y ago

Shortchanging non-work life for several years is not specific to "tech". The ~30yo dating pool in Boston was a wealth of people who'd been focused on grad school, med school/residency, and making partner in a law firm. Many people consider career focus a good investment, in those fields. (Though many manage to do both, and some others try but fail to do both.)

watwut 7y ago
The difference is that in tech you have a choice and in medicine you don't.
- pixelrevision 7y ago
  Medicine also tends to have more clear career tracks. Tech will run you into the ground and discard you if you are not careful and creative about where you go and how you go about it.

yuy910616 7y ago

I think a lot of people learn this the hard way, yes. But I kinda don't see what is wrong with this. Having work life balance is somewhat of a luxury, and it's a luxury to be able to say "money doesn't make me happy". It's a luxury to come to that conclusion. How do you arrive at that conclusion without going through the ringer first?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
j2kun 7y ago
> Having work life balance is somewhat of a luxury, Tell that to the history of labor unions
- unreal37 7y ago
  Talented and ambitious people would hate being in a labor union. It's a place where doing more than what is expected is actively shunned, and knowing how little work you can do is the optimization.
  - task_queue 7y ago
    > Talented and ambitious people would hate being in a labor union Doubt it. Mentorship and apprenticeship opportunities are abound. Unions provide a floor for negotiations from which you can up-negotiate. If your categorization was true, actors would never have breakout opportunities despite their union representation. Reality disagrees with your assertion and any movie star ever acts as evidence contrary to your claim.
    - thereisnospork 7y ago
      Movie stars are in a guild, not a union. Much like doctors. Unions have personally screwed me out of hundreds of dollars of month in payment for pensions I'll never see because they've forced me into inappropriate position titles to the benefit of legacy members.

lupire 7y ago

This sad story is common but usually happens to people who weren't going to build a life anyway, who'd be home on the computer in their free time instead of getting paid to do something profitable with it.

robertAngst 7y ago
And its these people who stick around too. Saves the company plenty of money giving them 3-5% yearly raises.

burtonator 7y ago

It's a cult and they deliberately want to make it a cult. This is one of the reasons they provide free food, corporate vacations, team building exercises, etc. They want you completely dedicated.

tracer4201 7y ago
As someone who’s worked at multiple big tech companies, I don’t think this was true, at least not on the teams I worked on. I probably averaged 50 hour weeks. I also earned enough to max out retirement accounts and make substantial investments in my post-tax accounts. I had enough to where I could start taking bigger risks. I had two vacations per year while building wealth. I also got married during this time. I read comments like this and I wonder if someone had a bad experience or if it’s just resentment. To be clear, I think there’s massive room to improve gender pay gaps, diversity, etc. That being said, I don’t think these companies are as nefarious as you make it sound. It depends on your situation. I never had to travel, unlike the author of the medium post. I didn’t face sexual harassment, although I’m also a female. I do know these things do happen, just as they would at many non tech companies.
- akersten 7y ago
  > I probably averaged 50 hour weeks. I also earned enough to max out retirement accounts and make substantial investments in my post-tax accounts. I had enough to where I could start taking bigger risks. I'm in a similar situation, and feel sad that a "bigger risk" for me - and probably a lot of employees in tech - is putting my foot down and working only 40 hours a week. Without having money saved, I'd have a much weaker hand in sticking up for myself.
  - tracer4201 7y ago
    Do you really need to? Or do you think you need to? I left my first company after college only after 3 years, despite the pay being great. I moved to a tech company, which longer term ended up being absolutely the right decision. At the time, I only left because I felt burned out. In retrospect, I worked nights and weekend, pulling in closer to 60 hours, but it was never expected of me. If anything, I set that expectation, and it wasn’t fair to my colleagues who couldn’t work more than 40 hours a week because they had a spouse, kids, or other responsibilities that I didn’t have outside of work. If you do feel like you have no other way, my suggestion would be to find a different team or different org at your company if possible. Otherwise, time to move on elsewhere. Keep your skills sharp - changing jobs is stressful and can suck, but never end up in a position where you absolutely rely on the job you have now. Build your nest egg early. This is especially true if you’re young. I only wish I had someone give me this advice but my parents both worked their entire lives, and I saw them both work sometimes two jobs at a time. I didn’t know better having grown up in a home where that was the norm (they didn’t have a choice because they were trying to support 3 children, pay rent, car payment, etc).

paulddraper 7y ago

Perhaps overly impersonal, but I think of it as an investment profile: you need diversity. Invest in your education, invest in your career, invest in your family, invest in your friends, invest in your hobbies, invest in your health. Not all of those are sure to succeed, but if one fails or you realize is overvalued, you've still got a lot left.

Gibbon1 7y ago
I have two comments. You want you career path to follow; what you can learn, what you can do, what you know, who you know. Every job should pay you in, experience, money and connections. If a employer is short changing you or blocking you on any of those, LEAVE.

brightball 7y ago

I really think that just spreading more awareness of this goes a long way. I worked crazy hours my first few years too but it wasn’t company pressure, it was me wanting to prove myself. I didn’t change til I literally worked myself into a hospital. I do wonder if knowing more about how often this stuff happens would have made me more aware of the pattern I was falling into.

duxup 7y ago

I can't blame them. It is the first big real world thing many of them do, their first real career job, and possibility the most important thing to them they've done to date... it's so easy to get wrapped up in that when a company steps in to fill in all the possible gaps in life. If you don't know what else you'd fill your life with, it's easy to fill it completely with the first big deal that comes along.

Aeolun 7y ago

I don’t think that’s necessarily bad though. Learn all these things when you are 23~ish