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by AquinasCoder
3203 days ago
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The article doesn't claim this is endemic to only startups, and in my experience work life balance among small, medium, and large companies is equally threatened. Even the term "work-life" balance seems to assume an artificial divide between the two. When work is a facet of a rich life, those extra long hours, the grueling commute, the vacillations of the newest management fad are just not worth it. Not to mention that those with families are severely disadvantaged in a workplace that values hours at the office rather than productive hours. I am curious to find out how this becomes a culture and whether this is reversible? Does this toxic overstepping begin at companies who once valued a predictable balance between work and life or was there a mistake made in company culture from the beginning? Can a company effectively counter this tendency? However you might answer these questions, it seems clear that throwing new studies out showing that overwork is counter-productive is not changing this trend. It goes back to the age-old idea, knowledge doesn't make you good, just more knowledgable. |
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I can be highly productive in certain scenarios, and in others I can really drag on where others would be much faster than me. It's stuff like, I'm really good at code that involves math, I'm not so good at operations. Completely different, unrelated subject areas, but one is viewed as "harder" than the other, so if I can do one, I'm expected to be able to do the other. I often end up get a reputation for being a high-performer, because the stuff I'm good at often gets done during the initial proof-of-concept, and then start getting the screws tightened down on me from management in a really angry way as it appears I start slacking off when we hit the later-stages of a project that involve deployment management and other things that I'm just not very good at.
And it's other stupid shit, like, "if he's a whiz at JavaScript, he must be great at CSS and terrible at embedded systems." No, in this example, I'm the opposite.
Of course, it never occurs to them that maybe expecting everyone to do everything is not the right way to do things. I think, in sum total, I'm probably more skilled in a broader area of subjects than most people, but I'm not anywhere near skilled enough across every necessary subject for a full project to be able to pull one off on my own.
I don't want to focus on just one thing. I do think I provide a unique value by being very versatile. It should be used as a way to smooth over bumps in the project schedule while management rebalances staff or highers more people. I don't mind jumping from 3D graphics into web and database development, or whatever. I've always believed that all work is worth doing and none "beneath" me.
But too often, once I reveal I'm more capable than the original position to which I was hired, I'm expected to do everything, all at the same time. And that's when things get out of hand. It has at least always appeared like the people who keep their heads down and their mouths shut during meetings and don't volunteer anything beyond their job description have a much better time of their jobs.