Open Comments Thread for "Personal Chemistry and the Healthy Body" by Gerald M. Weinberg

Then you're FIRED !!!
Move your a$$ out of the office, you've been replaced with a some nice Bangalore guys that will work 12hrs/day all the time.
F'ck off code money, there are 1000's like you waiting in line and you're not management material, don't let the door hit your behind !!!
Ask a very succesfull and healthy organisation, ELECTRONIC ARTS how is to really exploit full employee potential and that is "work 'till you faill and than discard the remains"

There's alot of lip service paid to the "work/life balance" at many companies. Sometimes I think it's a technique of "management by confusion" to encourage employees to make time for family, exercise, and relaxation while simultaneously demanding a 55-60 hour work week. I think developers are somewhat susceptible to the grinding demands of so many companies because, frankly, we can tend to be one-pointed individuals. Our interests don't fall outside of technology alot of the time. To go with the commentary to this post on Slashdot, it's easy for someone with a one-track mind to get so focused on their work that they lose perspective on everything else. Soon health and relationships become a victims under the boot as the corporate culture we find ourselves in feeds our single-pointedness. Plus, there's the whole hero psychology where we struggle against insurmountable odds to bring the project in on time. But why? Is it our company? Chances are the answer is "No". I tell you this, no manager's going to break my back forcing me to work ridiculous hours on some project that I don't have part ownership in.

That's where I think the advice Weinberg offers is so relevant. If you take care of your body, then you feel better. If you take some time off to nourish your mind and your relationships, you become a more well-rounded individual. The more experiences you have and the healthier your mind and body, the more opportunities you'll have to maybe start your own thing. Then if you do work 55-60 hours a week, at least it'll be for something you own. Even if ownership isn't one's goal, projecting health, confidence and vitality may just short-circuit a prospective manager's impression that you can be treated like a commodity.

Although it is now obvious to me that health is indeed the most important thing in anyones life, it has not always been so. Three years into one arduous job my back spasmed and I was unable to move for a week :(

The work/health/life balance in my previous experience was only paid lip service. Work, corporate greed and the direction humanity is facing is the root of this social delimma. It incorages such an imbalance in favour of work (and bad work practices) that for most people and especially programmers a balanced healthy life becomes impossible unless we throw off the shackles of corporate expectations.

Worryingly the direction of governments is becoming more and more corporate directed and less humane and I question what lies at the end of our current path.

perhaps it should e the first thing people are thought in college. to put there health first.

nothing more to say. Any idiot knows that much, and if people do deviate it's for some reasons that aren't covered in this piece. In general, it's all true of course.

Esther Derby posted this interesting entry to her blog in reference to this Weinberg essay:

http://www.estherderby.com/weblog/archive/2005_01_01_archive.html

She adds some excellent comments of her own, and I was also very happy to find the link to this post in Dale Emery's blog called "Aggregates and the Imbalance of Power":

http://www.dhemery.com/cwd/2004/04/aggregation.html

Great stuff well worth your time.

Dan

I regret to say that this job loss doesn't break my heart.

For years, I have seen American software developers resist change, and use a patterned anti-intellectualism in defense of jobs viewed as a meal ticket.

I have seen them express contempt for union tradesmen with the courage and fraternity to recognize that the latter have interests partly divergent from management and savage each other in meetings...to the extent that they cannot collectively review their buggy code.

Golden
World of Warcraft Gold

I couldn't have said it better myself. Because programmers don't realize that their interests diverge IN PART from management, they end up naming the coworkers as the problem.

Or, they are in criminal relationship with management in which they decide that their interests diverge TOTALLY and end up pimping.

The work/health/life balance in my previous experience was only paid lip service. Work, corporate greed and the direction humanity is facing is the root of this social delimma. It incorages such an imbalance in favour of work (and bad work practices) that for most people and especially programmers a balanced healthy life becomes impossible unless we throw off the shackles of corporate expectations.

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wow gold