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Survey: Tech Pros Ignoring Work-Life Balance Is a Myth (dice.com)
Nerval's Lobster writes: Are tech professionals really willing to live on energy drinks, and sleep on office couches, in order to get the job done? For many, the answer is "no." In response to a new Dice survey (Dice link, obviously), only 5 percent of employees at technology companies said that work-life balance wasn't a top priority for them. Contrast that with nearly 45 percent of respondents who said they wanted more of a work-life balance, even if their current position made that difficult. More than 27 percent of those surveyed also characterized work-life balance in the tech industry as a "myth." It seems that, despite all those companies talking publicly about wanting to give employees a better work-life balance (complete with on-site gyms and unlimited vacation time and... stuff...), it's not really working out for a lot of people. (And that's something that people have been calling out for some time.)
The ideal work/life ratio is 0.
(You can still work, but work on things you care about, not what someone will pay you for).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Free lunch, on site gyms... are all about keeping you at work longer, not going out to lunch, meeting a woman...
I've always cared about work life balance - the thing is, that was as true when I used to work 80-100 hour weeks, than it is now when I work 40-50 hours a week. It's just that early on I was happy to have the work side be much heavier.
People see technical workers working hellish hours and think they have no work-life balance because non-techs cannot understand how that might bring its own kind of pleasure.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Even in places that aren't crazy (Silicon Valley) and full of kids in startups, you have the expectation of working the occasional "crunch time" or odd hours. That's even something we were told to expect in college (in the midwest).
Companies of the same class, industry, and region also vary widely.
If anything, it seems that 45% of the respondents were complaining about "work-life balance" issues. That would seem to make it more of a myth even if a small minority thinks it's one.
Outsourcing and "the bad economy" have certainly been held over people's heads. To believe that corporations won't abuse you to the extent we let them get away with it is just plain silly.
Most people simply aren't in the position to declare that they've had enough and they're not taking any more. Consumer culture strongly discourages that level of solvency.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yeah, but if we dont have 3 kids and a 5BR house, what you going to do to get a fresh crop around there? import violent druggies and terrorists and criminals from mexico, middle east and china?
If you want me to make the next generation of suitable normal non-violent people who can have a passion and actualize on that , i need a place to live and crank out the new units.
or if you want society to end, keep referring to us doing the hard work of making a living and raising kids as suckers / breeders.
Bullsh*t.
If you don't have a work/life balance, then find another job.
If you can't find another job in your city, then find another city.
Jobs "in the trenches" are easy to find, and easy to replace.
If you're not willing to find another job or another city, then that's your choice. But that's also a completely different topic.
In the end, it is ENTIRELY YOUR CHOICE. Unless you are a slave. Oh wait, maybe you are a "voluntary slave."
Society isn't going to end if tech people stop having kids. The key is that the tech people need to all forgo having children, so that they can devote their lives to their companies. Other (non-tech) people, in other parts of society, will have kids to provide the next generation. This is what we have welfare and many other social programs for: the poor people are having and raising all the kids in society; we're basically paying them for it by giving them handouts. There's no reason for productive people to have children now, since we can simply segregate our society into a higher, productive class and a lower class for breeding. I can't possibly imagine why this won't turn out just fine. Uneducated people are perfectly capable of raising all the physicists and engineers we need for the future.
The old policy, which, IIRC, was a fixed 14 days, had employees keeping track of them and just using them for no reason at all, thus increasing absence for no benefit.
There is the problem in a nutshell. People thinking that taking a day off for no reason at all provides no benefit. There is plenty of benefit from taking a mental health day and simply playing with your kids or doing whatever hobby you enjoy.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
If you are a one-man department, you have a ton of leverage that was literally handed to you by laying off all your co-workers. Use it to get a better deal. If the company starts acting like a dick, fire up the search engines and polish your resumes. You don't want to give your life to an ungrateful employer. It's not something you want to remember on your deathbed.