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It doesn't have to be crazy at work

It doesn't have to be crazy at work, is the book with that title. The title is almost clickbait, but the gist is printed straight up on the cover of the book; they didn't even wait for the blurb. Jason Fried, the CEO and David Heinemeier Hansson, the CTO of 37Signals (formerly Basecamp) co-authored this book. This book was gifted to me by whom I'd consider to be a mentor because he caught me working "crazy at work", it is rare to see such people who are more inclined to see you as a person instead of a number, he seemed to have taken guidelines from this book to heart, and I'd say it is a good change in this cut-throat corporate. This is yet another book discussion, it is almost as if I am picking books to only learn and not review them; I'm not a reviewer, and I do not have any affiliate account setup that will earn me commission; I'm just going to discuss the ideas that I grasp from the books I read, on to the book

The book is about how crazy the work is, how people are proud of it, and why that is a badge of stupidity and not an honour. The authors identify two primary reasons, the first is slicing work hours into tiny pieces with frequent distractions & the second and the most important is growth at any cost. The authors have loaded the book with facts that will support their argument, i.e., Calm, calmness in everything that is the opposite of crazy, they emphasize that they have realized profit in calmness. They haven't stopped at how they are making a profit from being calm, they have also listed many successful individuals like Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, and Charles Dickens who dedicate 3-5 uninterrupted hours a day to achieve more than most of us.

Authors are pro "work-life balance", and strongly support the notion of Life outside work. Then urge people to stay calm and enjoy life instead of hustling it. Life cannot be the leftover of work, being uncomfortable is not a sign of excellence, and cheating sleep to get more work done is not a hack, it is what a hack would do.

The understanding is there, most of the "crazy" is not done by workers it is mostly done by leaders; thus authors ask to not set tall goals (and every organization has OKR now), explain how their organization functions and makes a profit, they are pretty upfront on why they are not ready to work with Fortune 500 - because they tend to overpower the company that sells the product and hijack their roadmap. Ask to embrace JOMO - Joy of missing out, and ask to let go FOMO. They ask the leaders to not overwork since an over-worked leader is susceptible to expecting their subordinates to overwork.

Some cool ideas that I'd like to implement are having a good work environment is more important than talent and so they avoid talent wars (not interested in buying talent by paying them a high price). Benefits are for employees they are not bribes; here we need to note that 37signals (Basecamp) offers fully paid vacation, but their intention is to make them relax, they believe everyone needs a chance to truly get away and reboot. Authors believe humans are naturally better at budgeting than estimating, thus asking not to fix both the scope and time of a project, if done then it will be a problem.

In the book's last chapters, they describe the working process set at their organization to achieve calmness. They discuss everything like ideation, debate on new ideas, release cycle, office hours (when experienced individuals can be approached by anyone for solution) and so on. The request reads to try to ensure they have control over time since they cannot control time. They accept that they gave up many deals and profits to stay happy and calm, which they value the most. Since they don't believe in the outwork myth they neither encourage employees to overwork nor reward such behaviour.

Key takeaways for a humble worker, since many points discussed are for executives not even mid-level managers
  • A fractured hour isn't really an hour - it's a mess of minutes (so have uninterrupted distraction-free blocks of hours to work)
  • Let hustle-mania go, you don't have to do many things, and you value calm life
  • A great work ethic is about doing what you say you're going to do
    • putting in a fair day's work
    • respecting the work
    • respecting the customers and co-workers
    • not wasting time, and not creating unnecessary work for others
    • not being a bottleneck (be a knowledge disseminator, not a hogger)
  • Stop work at work, don't bring it to home
  • Don't encourage synchronous chat, since they eat away time in silence unlike a real meeting 
  • Look out for a company that simply wants to,
    • 1. Stay in business
    • 2. Serves customers well
    • 3. Be a delightful place to work
    • Too many achievements or a pressure cooker environment might be a cause for concern
Oh, yeah, they'd strongly disagree with Murthy or Bhavish

 -- Finally! I managed to publish this post, at least in 2024, this was in draft for more than a year now! hope I can write more from now 🤞can this auspicious day of Vijayadasmi help me do it? 🍀 only time can tell...
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