> By mid-2021 I was tired all the time. I know I wasn’t alone, because it was an ongoing meme inside Google2. It’s only now that I realize what was wrong: I missed the satisfaction of building things and finishing projects.
The false dichotomy is the idea that the alternative to Google is to work more hours + evenings + weekends at a startup. He's replacing one problem with another, but this new problem feels fresh and new and like turning over a new leaf. At least for now.
The article really hit home for me, personally.
I've worked myself a little extra with a few of these, and I'm glad for it.
I've found a tendency in my line of work/colleagues to call patchwork acceptable, and it regularly comes back to haunt us.
We find a way to stop the 3AM calls and stop there.. neglecting that maybe one person has the necessary context and it may grow out of control again
They weren’t saying that they needed to work harder at Google to be happy, they were saying they needed to move somewhere else where they could get job satisfaction from completing projects.