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Comment by cballard | Hacker News Reader

> The first really great company I worked at was explicit about being family-oriented; they'd bring everyone's family to the office and cook dinners, had Christmas at the founders house, that sort of thing.

This sounds horrid. I don't want to spend Christmas with my boss, and I definitely don't want to have dinner in the office, ever.

"Sorry Grandma, can't make it for Christmas, have to go see my boss instead"?

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Argh. Nobody was required to go to the Christmas party, which was not actually on Christmas, and nobody was required to eat dinner in the office.

Ah, "had Christmas", to me, implies being on Christmas, i.e. "we had Christmas at Aunt A and Uncle B's last year".

Sorry. Not my most carefully-worded comment ever.

I had the exact same reaction - if you told me a company was family oriented, I would imagine that means they foster a good work/life balance so that you can spend time with your family.

That's not to say that companies shouldn't provide opportunities to bond with your coworkers, but I think I'd want to work for companies that appreciate people have lives outside the company.

... which they very much did as well.

I see that you clarified in another comment.

However, it's not uncommon for tech companies to say that they're like a "family", but what it really means is that they want you to long hours, weekends etc, because you know, family obligations.

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