"We stayed up very late, listened to loud music, and did some of the best work of our lives."
No offense, but that sounds like some kind of boys club, not professional working environment. Staying up late = no respect for private life (unless you've signed for it), loud arbitrary music = forced culture implications (why do I have to listen to the music you like?). Yes, probably our work place expectations differs immensely.
"Hey let's all take turns picking the music that gets blasted. I choose Arnold Schoenberg."
5 minutes later...
"Everyone, we've decided that music is a personal taste, and that to maintain a professional working environment, we will not be playing music over the sound system."
In practice what I've seen is a "music clique" develops. If I went to put on some ambient Eno or whatever (because it's the closest to "no music"), it would probably be weird because I'm not in the music clique. I'm not really sure how you get to be in it, it would feel weird to me to put on music, effectively saying "everyone else, you must listen to what I choose". Just so rude, I feel.
I doubt that many of my co-workers would endure Dark Funeral or the like that gets blasted at my home. It's for their sake I insist on music on headphones only.
Sorry, slightly unrelated to the discussion, but it could be used for open offices :-)
Part of the inspiration was when I was taking it in turns I'd have to sit through loads of abrasive pop music and then when a beautiful death metal song came on everyone would complain and skip it.
Exactly. If we're going to have shared music, it needs to be what I want to listen to, which is likely to either be thrash metal or baroque. If someone tries to play country or 90s alternative or any kind of modern pop, I'm going to pitch a fit. No, I will not tolerate that crappy music while I'm trying to work.
I really don't expect a lot of people to care for listening to my thrash metal, so the obvious solution here is to simply not have shared music. It's just a bad idea, and just like you say, reeks of a boys' club and not a professional working environment. I don't go to work to bond with a bunch of people who I did not explicitly choose to be my friends; I go there to earn a paycheck and do interesting work within my profession and build my resume.
Have you worked in an early- or mid-stage startup in NYC or the Bay Area in the past... 10 years?
> No offense, but that sounds like some kind of boys club, not professional working environment
That's a strange value judgment; I'm not really sure what to think about it. At the end of the day, the company is still growing and meeting its goals. It is also still facilitating the development of open source software.
So something is working.
> Staying up late = no respect for private life (unless you've signed for it)
Reelio is one of those clients that excited me to show up early and stay late.
They also welcomed my wife and our baby to join whenever they wanted.
Hardly disrespect for private life.
> loud arbitrary music = forced culture implications (why do I have to listen to the music you like?)
Well, sure - this doesn't work in the middle of the day when the entire company is there.
But at 1AM when it's just a half dozen developers?
Have you never had the experience of hearing new music at someone else's recommendation in a teamwork setting? It's a beautiful feeling.
If you're at the office at 1am, you probably need a union, not music. Work ends, at latest, 8 hours after you get there. People actually died for that a century ago, and now people are just throwing it away.
I enjoy long days. That doesn't mean I'm throwing anyone's efforts away.
I am able to demand very high compensation, even among programmers. I am able to demand a work schedule that fits me (5-12 day stretches of long days, followed by vacations of a length of my choosing).
My position is a mix of blessings, for which I am grateful, and work to gain the esteem and trust of the python (and larger programming-) communities.
My heart goes out to those who struggled (and in some cases gave their lives) for better working conditions; I am nowhere near their plight and can't even know their struggle.
> Have you worked in an early- or mid-stage startup in NYC or the Bay Area in the past... 10 years?
...why do you think I have no desire to move to either of those parts of the country or to work for a startup? I like to describe Silicon Valley as "degenerate" for a few reasons, and this is one of them.
I'm perfectly happy working in the suburbs of Texas in a corporate environment (~500 employees, B2B telecom industry).
> and our baby to join whenever they wanted
Screaming baby in the office = I quit. I'm glad my current employer has "no children in the office" as written policy in our handbook.
When I worked retail, one of the cashier brought her (12 year old?) daughter to work one day and left her in the break room the whole time.
One of the CSRs had a previously criminal history, but was a nice guy and did good work. That day, the daughter accused him of molesting her. Because he had a criminal record, he ended up going back to jail. I don't know if he did it or not, but the daughter should not have been there in the first place. Had the cashier followed company policy, the situation couldn't have happened.
I'm not judging anyone, and no matter what actually happened, it's a horrible tragedy.
That's really fucked up.
It's not impossible to imagine a scenario where the daughter playfully started flirting with the cashier and that ended up fucking his life over.
> Screaming baby in the office = I quit. I'm glad my current employer has "no children in the office" as written policy in our handbook.
Clearly different environments work for different people. I'm not trying to suggest that I want to try to concentrate on software development next to a screaming baby (that obviously wouldn't be an ideal environment), but I would be pleased and encouraged to have an employer who was open to allowing families into the work space. That's the sort of thing that truly motivates me, far more than foosball tables and free snacks.
FWIW, not every company in the Bay Area is like that. I work for a small company in Palo Alto (< 50 people) where most people get in around 9 (some come earlier, some come later), and people will leave around 5 (some also leave earlier - SF people tend to leave around 3 to beat traffic). 1/3 of our company is also remote.
Unless I'm missing something, you weren't the person I was responding to, right?
I'm not saying that the startup environment is great for everyone, but it has produced a compelling critique of the corporate environment. Clearly.
Shared music, late nights, open plans, families, ping pong / pinball, and so on... These aren't per se the mark of a "boys club" in contrast to a "professional environment," they are a critique of the industry-style work environment, and one that has been enormously successful in two the most economically active cities in the USA.
I think the issue is not to invalidate your specific experience, but to highlight that your experience is pretty atypical and further that your experience should not be the norm. For every person like yourself that had a great experience in this mode, there are 500 people who are having a very BAD experience.
It's fantastic that it worked for you and your team, in that time and space, however, the combination of factors that created that were unique and not easily repeatable. So, in absence of a formula to replicate that, we should instead be working to normalize a baseline that is conducive/comfortable for most folks.
> Staying up late = no respect for private life (unless you've signed for it)
You did sign up for it if you took a job there with full knowledge of the office culture. A culture of staying up late is no less respectful of private life than a culture of starting early. The former is better for people who do better work late, while the latter is better for people who do better work early. It seems to be that companies ought to exist for both types of people, and it's perfectly alright to encounter the wrong type of office and simply choose not to work there without disparaging it.
No offense, but that sounds like some kind of boys club, not professional working environment. Staying up late = no respect for private life (unless you've signed for it), loud arbitrary music = forced culture implications (why do I have to listen to the music you like?). Yes, probably our work place expectations differs immensely.