[phsource]

I'm sad to see all the hate this article's getting in the comments, but also can't say I expected anything else.

Most of the hate I'm seeing here is focused around work-life balance, but even the author acknowledges that "I don’t think people should cry or feel like impostors or skip their vacations regularly." There's so much more here! Kudos to Brie too for really putting herself out there like this.

Taking apart what the article mentions, the fulfillment she felt at work came from:

- A sense of shared mission: of the mission statement, "it was a little abstract, but we believed in it enough to recite it with pride"

- Being pushed to do better: "My work was meticulously but warmly critiqued by my peers and leaders alike, and my work got better and better because of it"

- A community and culture: "It felt like magic, but there was deep thought, care, and intention behind everything. I had a tingly feeling that I was part of an organization that had cracked something about creating a great culture"

Forget work -- think about a side project, a hobby, a sport -- anything that you've applied yourself to. Does it feel good to hold yourself to a high standard, in the company of other peers who are into the same things?

That sounds like something we can all get behind!

Stripe may not have been perfect, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

[borroka]

> "it was a little abstract, but we believed in it enough to recite it with pride"

I have worked for companies that had a mission I believed in, although from my position I was far from moving the needle in any direction.

Maybe that gave me an extra kick at times; maybe I stayed up late a few times without complaining because it was necessary to finish off some crucial work.

But rest assured that I have never proudly recited a shared mission statement written by someone (the "company"-- its executives and vice presidents and so on) who would have no hesitation to let me go--with great sadness--because there are hard times coming. "But," they would say, "it has been great working with you, we wish you the very best."

[jdbernard]

Everyone is focused on work-life balance because so much of the article praises the idea that dedicating your life to work is what makes companies "incredible sources of community and self-actualization."

Imagine you are a young adult with a young child, and your partner also works. How is any of the following tenable?

"Everyone stayed for dinner every night [..] there was no way I was going home before my neighbor was."

What about a family?

"my manager asked me to reconsider the vacation I had been planning because my team needed me. “If you go, who will cover your work?” I looked around at my colleagues who were also regularly working 15-hour days and decided to stay put."

What about your family? What about your colleagues' families?

"Call me masochistic, but I have to admit that it felt good to care about anything that much."

But this only works if you don't have other pursuits in life that you care about that much.

"But I am still nostalgic for a time when the gravitational pull of work was strong. For me and everyone around me."

As a husband and a father, as a manager, I want to create a place that allows people to do their best work, and then go home and give their best to their families without feeling pulled constantly back to work.

"It’s more about missing that universal agreement that it’s really, really cool to devote yourself fully to your work."

10 years from now most of us are not going to be working for the same company. 10 years from now most of my kids will be grown and I'll have lost the opportunity to invest in their lives and our relationship. I'm devoted to my work, but not at the expense of my wife who I promised to share my life with, or my children who I literally brought into this world. If I'm not there for them, present in their lives, who will be? I want to build that community. I want children who take to me when I'm older. I want a family that shares values. That only happens if I surge enough time with them, over time, to know what they value, to show what I value, to grow together as they change.

How many of those coworkers will we be sharing and creating close community with ten years from now? Are we really building a lasting community around this mission?

You say:

Forget work -- think about a side project, a hobby, a sport -- anything that you've applied yourself to.

And I agree with you about the value of having a performance oriented community focused on a meaningful mission, but if we work the way the author is advocating through her examples we won't have time/energy to apply yourself to any other pursuit.