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November 28, 2005
Snow Falling on Tech Dreams & Harried Parents
"What is a startup without bleary-eyed, junk-food-fueled, balls-to-the-wall days and sleepless, caffeine-fueled, relationship-stressing nights? Answer?: A lot more enjoyable place to work." Be balanced is the tenth rule of Evan Williams' rules for executives of Web startups. Finding balance, or at least trying to allow employees to find it, is excellent advice for all Silicon Valley companies, web-related or not. Over many years the Valley work ethic and the cell/pager mentality of constant access has dramatically transformed home life for many residents and not for the better.
"As information technology allows households and communities to become places of production, it also changes the way such social institutions think of themselves. Families and communities, like upgraded software can be 'refreshed' or 'reinvented.' Families can then become a kind of product. Finally, the pivotal assumption that work is done at a workplace and family life is lived at home is much too simplistic. Many forces, not the least of which is the technical ability to work from home, have blurred the domains. If time at the workplace does not really reflect the time spent working, how does that effect family leaves or the length of a work week?"
That's a rhetorical question from one of the anthropologists at the Silicon Valley Cultures Project. Dr. J.A. English-Lueck knows exactly what that does to the length of a work week and offers examples:
"John is a middle-aged product development manager at a high tech company in Silicon Valley. ... He tries very hard not to take too much work home with him, preferring to work late on site, but the international nature of his work means he is on the phone at midnight and at dawn. He is grateful for E-mail and voicemail since they can fit his schedule. Realistically, he thinks about work problems constantly, in his garden, and in his car. He talks about his work all the time with his wife and volunteers to install network servers at his daughter’s school on NetDay.
"Meanwhile, his administrative assistant, Sharon, complains that her work load is overwhelming, even to the point where she is expected to move furniture and take out trash. She is expected to learn new programs and upgrades on her own time. Both John and Sharon now take work and worry home. Sharon checks her E-mail and voicemail in the predawn hours before her children wake to prepare for any tasks that may need to be addressed immediately. She carries a pager and a cell phone so that she can stay in contact with her teenaged children after they come home from school."
The modern work grind is no news to most people but that doesn't make the challenge of balancing work and family life any less real or important. I haven't read Po Bronson's new book, Why Do I Love These People, but I'm always interested in the drama of families: what brings them together and what pulls them apart. When it comes to family life, is balance even possible?
I don't know the answer to that question, and I'm not sure I ever will. I can say that Sweden seems like a more promising venue to create a more balanced family life. Which does not mean the three members of my family hew to a party line on, well, anything. The snow has returned. My kid, ever gracious, muttered "I hate snow" and rolled back into the bedcovers when I delivered the news this morning. But I was happy then and I'm happy now. The grim winter lanscape has become a paradise of white and black line art punctuated by occasional flashes of color.
There may be something more beautiful than tree branches laced with fresh snow but, offhand, I can't think of what it might be.
Posted by Deborah Branscum at November 28, 2005 06:00 PM