Whenever I see a startup website advertising the motto “We work hard and play hard!” to hire talent, I know it is a good idea to avoid that company. In 5 years, the company will have to either go through a culture shift or go out of business. Chances are higher of the later happening.
The work hard and play hard ideology is impossible to pull off in the real world. If you are running a get-rich-quick scheme, it might serve a purpose. It should never be promoted in a company that really wants to create a sustainable business.
We can go back to the original “slow and steady wins the race” story – the Aesop’s tale of the hare and the tortoise. Some might say this story doesn’t make sense in the modern world – “We need to be fast and steady in order to survive the fast-paced markets today”. They are basically telling you to be fast like a hare and steady like a tortoise – the ideal worker of today. However, that’s a pipe dream. I don’t interpret the hare’s nap as a sign of hubris or lack of discipline. The nap is pure old-fashioned exhaustion.
Aesop’s tale forgot to define a factor in the fable. Was the race a sprint or a marathon? A sprint is about speed. A marathon is about stamina and strategy. The hare was trying to run the marathon like a sprint. No wonder he had to take a nap. And that’s the problem with companies that want their employees to be hares. Sooner or later the employees are going to collapse. Companies often take the approach of replacing these burnt out employees. In the process, the company as an entity burns out under the pressure of running without pacing themselves. The individual level exhaustion also affects the organization as a whole.
Get in touch with your inner tortoise ( Searching for Utopia. Artist: Jan Fabre)
Next time you are job hunting and you see a company advertising how their employees work hard and play hard, stay clear. That’s a company that is going to take a nap sooner or later. It is not that they are wrong to aspire to greater heights of achievement. It is just the rule of a living organism. Don’t bet your future on such a workplace. You have a right to work slow and steady. You are running a marathon. Not a sprint.
Tags: Software Development, Work Environment
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