Comment by quotemstr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by quotemstr | Hacker News Reader

I don't want a work-life balance.

Sure, the Swiss model is very attractive for a person in a certain phase of life with a certain attitude toward work --- one for whom work is something distinct from life.

Me? I want the freedom to pour myself into something I love. I'd rather spend 60 hours per week using all of my faculties to produce something worthwhile than to spend 35 or 40 hours just trading my time for money, doing something I have to force myself to do, even if I can go swim with the swans on my break.

I've seen people use the concept of "work-life balance" as an excuse to propose caps on the impact a single developer can have. These people want to live in a Harrison Bergeron world where my work beyond 40 hours wouldn't count so that they don't feel pressed to work more than 40 hours a week. I couldn't be more opposed.

When I'm doing something I love, I always think about ways I can do it better. When I'm doing something I hate, no amount of work-life balance will compensate.

I will consider what you said distinctly from the Swiss vs other models problem (because it is only slightly relevant).

I don't know how old you are, but I am assuming you are younger than me, and I would like to offer you some advice without (I hope) sounding patronizing.

Work-life balance is not about what you love vs hate. There are not too many people hanging around in hacker news that hate what they do for work, otherwise they wouldn't be checking here most likely. I would even go ahead and venture to say, around 20% percent of the people love what they do. But work is not the only thing you can love. You can love playing the piano, spending time with your girlfriend trekking, regularly having dinner with your parents every Monday, running a few times a week so on and so forth. Your view of the word 'love' is extremely one-dimensional, and life is too short for that. If developing is the only thing that you love, be my guest. But do not restrict yourself to just that, if you have the financial means.

Work-life balance is about the multi-dimensional aspect of life. You can (and in my opinion should) love many things, because there are so many things in life to love. Then work-life balance becomes about the maximization of an objective function whose variables are the hours you spend for each thing that you love, and the constraints involve (1) the minimum surplus of money you are OK with making given that you spend the hours in the variables, (2) the minimum amount of time you would like to spend for each thing, (3) the maximum amount you can spend. That's essentially life for everyone. The weights and the (1)+(2) constraints are dependent on the person (3) is a limitation of reality. People call the weights and (1)+(2) work-life balance. I hope this gives you a new perspective.

What is it you love spending 60 hours a week producing, week-over-week? Are you prevented from spending 60 hours a week doing that in Switzerland?

Nothing prevents you to pour yourself into something in Switzerland.

I think having bones prevents this.

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