Things I Like
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As I’m writing this article at my kitchen table in Chicago, just 7 miles from our office, it’s clear that our team members’ freedom to move to wherever they’re happiest and most productive is one of the most valuable aspects of working at our companies. Sometimes that means moving across the country. Sometimes it’s moving across the street to a café. It comes with a whole different set of responsibilities and dynamics to be sure, but it’s been integral to our ability, as a business and individuals, to thrive and move forward at work and beyond.
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Silicon Valley’s move to make corporations more like cults, then, could be seen as a way of resisting the movement toward gender, racial, and sexual equality that may, at core, threaten executive power by asking that all employees, not just ones who look like their CEO, be treated equitably. Because another thing that cults offer is mystification: in a cult, you don’t ask, you just believe, and in a corporation, it profits the leadership for its members not to inquire or demand to be treated equally, but rather to accept their different placement in the corporate hierarchy. Cults then are an innovative, if deeply traditional, solution for what to do when the business climate threatens to become too equitable. If it isn’t legal to discriminate within an organization, perhaps one may attempt to do so by more mysterious, cloaked, socially enforced means. The Silicon Valley startup’s coveted “unknown”, like in the traditional cult, becomes a kind of yearning for the return of a mystified, hierarchical power that remains unquestioned.
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The problem is not that there is a cost involved in building something that works well in different contexts than our own. The problem is that we’re treating that as an option instead of a given part of what it means to build for the web.
I've been reading about accessibility lately; trying to learn more, trying to bake it into the parts of a project I touch. Mostly, I'm trying to be aware that we all make a lot of assumptions every day as we work. We forget all the time that not everyone is like us and so as we build our things, it's good to try and remember that.
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Perhaps it’s not our job to decide what’s important right now. Instead, we’re the ones who save everything for those after us to sift through. Those future people, with their knowledge and context we can’t foresee, are the ones who trace the paths back to us.
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My words might not be as important as the great works of print that have survived thus far, but because they are digital, and because they are online, they can and should be preserved …along with all the millions of other words by millions of other historical nobodies like me out there on the web.
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This is why I would work hard to avoid any “Us vs Them” rhetoric. Much the opposite, I would argue all developers should aim to achieve a combination of engineering and craftsmanship.
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But I am furious at a world in which women and POC are being told to be as self-confident as a group of mostly white dudes who are basically delusional megalomaniacs. We’re great the way we are, level-headed self-assessments and all. Stop rewarding them for being jackasses.
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In this, as in so many other things, we would do well to be gentler with ourselves and others. Her choices are not an inherent judgment of mine, and my choices are not always, or ever, a good match for her needs. Our journeys are our own, and the key to each person’s success does not – cannot – lie on someone else’s path.
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BambooHR software in Utah has an “antiworkaholic” policy. Christian Rennella instituted a four-day work week at ElMejorTrato.com, a search engine in Latin America. And Jason Fried, co-author of the book, “Rework,” and co-founder and CEO of Basecamp, an online project management and collaboration Web site based in Chicago, has his 46 employees work four days a week May through October, and five days a week the rest of the year. “But we’re an outlier. . . . I don’t think people are creative when they’re tired.”
I had a hard time picking out a quote in this one, so I recommend reading the whole thing. But this article makes some really great points. If most start ups fail, as the researcher quoted found, then why are we killing ourselves? The pay off is a remote possibility, so why not enjoy work and life while building your company. These companies show it can be done. In addition, the people quoted as talking about working hard as a must, well, they just come off as asses to me. You don't have to live life that way. And if these companies can make 32 hours work, why is it so hard for other companies to even consider part time?
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But you are the only person you absolutely must live with for your entire life. No matter how long you live, you will be stuck with yourself.
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It might seem counterintuitive that you will perform better at work if you spend more time with your kids, leave work early to volunteer at a local nonprofit, or take an hour out of your workday to go to the gym. But that’s just what happens.
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I’ve stopped mindlessly checking Twitter. I’ve stopped using Facebook on mobile at all. I don’t refresh my inbox. I don’t fill awkward silences with technology. I’m mindful of the affect of my tech behavior on the people around me. I’m much more present, and I’ve grown incredibly irritated at my friends when they have their phone out for absolutely no reason.
I haven't used a phone regularly for about a year and a half. Like this post, I use an iPad mini for all my roaming about data needs. And as this post states, it means I don't pull it out in public a lot, people notice, that side effect has been great.
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The team at Codrops have put together a fantastic resource on CSS. What is great about this is that it is about CSS and not about a preprocessor. We need to remember and understand the underlying elements of what we are working with to understand how to use CSS. I'll use this a lot, along with MDN. Thanks Codrops!
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My goal is to live a balanced life, where the work I do is important, where the time I have with my family and friends is plentiful, where I can grow and improve and do fantastic work. I don’t need the big stage to do these things.
I think a lot about balance and about what success means for me, even more, what does work mean? I really like the idea of getting off the “paved road” that Corey talks about. But I also wish that it didn't feel like I had to explain myself so much to people in my life. Viewing life differently means people ask questions and it gets tiring.
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We’re among the first generations expected to maintain connections with every single person we’ve ever met, thanks to the Internet. The weight of our swollen social networks can be super stressful, let alone a distraction from knowing who you want to focus your time on.