We’re all burnt out
I was cruising Facebook the other day, wasting time- and couldn’t help but resonate with a post that my colleague shared.
*First and foremost, I want to say that I am privileged. I understand that. A techie living in Oakland, California. This post comes not from a place of superiority, but rather just a memo of how I (and many others) feel at this time. There is no more justification I want to provide, or feel that I need to give.
OK, so jumping right to the post. He had reposted a post from Serge Beauchemin, an entrepreneur in Canada.
Here is the original in French (because he’s from French Quebec):
De la COVID dans le toupet!
33 meetings prévus à mon agenda cette semaine. Et on est que mardi!
Oui, c’est aussi ça la COVID. Fini les déplacements, vive zoom, teams, Hangout, FaceTime, Skype, Bluejeans, etc!
Ben oui mais cela veut aussi fini les temps de déplacement entre les réunions. Fini le temps de régler un truc avec une petite réunion éclair dans le bureau du collègue ou par un simple appel téléphonique ou l’autre partie répond et que le tour est joué en moins de 10min!!
Fini le temps de s’aérer les neurones en se déplaçant d’un endroit à l’autre. Fini le temps d’écouter de la musique à la radio et se rendant au travail le matin ou en revenant le soir. Fini les pauses du lunch à regarder les gens passer devant soi dans un foodcourt ou bien assis sur une terrasse!
Non, maintenant tout le monde a besoin d’un rendez-vous planifié. Tous les rendez-vous durent au minimum 30min si c’est pas 1 heure! Et c’est back à back sans arrêt! Pas le temps de passer aux toilettes, pas le temps de diner pendant une heure, pas le temps de jaser de ton weekend ou de ta soirée, niet! C’est go go go!! Boulot sans arrêt. Meeting après meeting après meeting.
Et les courriels qui continuent de rentrer à un rythme d’enfer! Et pas juste par Gmail, alors que tu y as même plusieurs comptes là. Mais non!! Il faut aussi que ça rentre par LinkedIn, SMS, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter etc.
Et les horaires flexibles!!!! Ceux qui décident de travailler en dehors des heures normales d’affaires pour en faire plus parce qu’ils n’ont pas le temps de tout faire dans leurs journées. Pas le choix. Il faut ce qu’il faut. Il y aussi les parents qui travaillent le soir parce que le jour il faut s’occuper des enfants. Et il y a ceux qui aiment mieux travailler le soir, ou très tôt le matin ou même ces autres qui aiment mieux le travail que tout autre activité!! Alors les courriels rentrent le soir, le matin avant 6am, les weekend, la nuit parfois! Les texto aussi!
Je ne reçois presque plus jamais d’appels téléphoniques mais je ne compte plus les autres “entrants” dans ma journée de travail! De partout!!!!
Et là dedans, j’ai des livrables aussi!! Moi aussi je dois “produire” des documents, lire des rapports, des analyses, prendre des décisions, mener des projets à terme”, etc. etc.
Bref, il ya a peut-être un vaccin contre la COVID mais je crois qu’il nous faudra aussi réinventer le code du travail entre nous. Parce qu’on va tous finir par faire de la surchauffe cérébrale!! Ils appellent cela de la “surcharge cognitive”.
Ne vous en faites pas. Je vais bien. Je ne fais que constater l’état dans lequel nous travaillons tous ces temps-ci et ça m’inquiète un peu. Pour ma part, je décroche le soir à compter de 19h max et les weekend, c’est fermé. J’y arrive à 80% du temps…! Mais ça, ça me force à accepter que ça s’accumule un peu tous les jours. Et je dois composer avec cette pile que je n’arrive plus à diminuer. Et vous, ca va la COVID?!
And in English (translated a la Google Translate):
COVID in the forefront!
33 meetings planned on my agenda this week. And it’s only Tuesday!Yes, that’s COVID too. No more travel, live zoom, teams, Hangout, FaceTime, Skype, Bluejeans, etc!
Well yes, but that also means no more travel time between meetings. Gone are the days of settling something with a quick meeting in the colleague’s office or with a simple phone call or the other party answers and you’re done in less than 10min !!Gone are the days of ventilating neurons by moving from one place to another. Gone are the days of listening to music on the radio and going to work in the morning or coming back in the evening. No more lunch breaks watching people go by in a foodcourt or sitting on a terrace!
No, now everyone needs a scheduled date. All appointments last at least 30min if it is not 1 hour! And it’s back to back nonstop! No time to go to the bathroom, no time to dine for an hour, no time to chat about your weekend or your evening, niet! It’s go go go !! Work nonstop. Meeting after meeting after meeting.
And the emails that keep coming in at a rate of hell! And not just by Gmail, when you even have several accounts there. But no!! It must also come in via LinkedIn, SMS, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter etc.
And flexible hours !!!! Those who decide to work outside of regular business hours to get more done because they don’t have time to do everything in their day. No choice. It takes what it takes. There are also parents who work in the evening because during the day it is necessary to take care of the children. And there are those who like to work better in the evening, or very early in the morning or even those others who like work better than any other activity !! So the emails come in in the evening, in the morning before 6am, on weekends, sometimes at night! Text messages too!
I hardly ever receive phone calls again, but I no longer count the other “entrants” in my working day! Everywhere!!!!
And in there, I have deliverables too !! I too have to “produce” documents, read reports, analyzes, make decisions, carry out projects “, etc. etc.
In short, there may be a vaccine against COVID but I believe that we will also have to reinvent the labor code between us. Because we will all end up having brain overheating !! They call it “cognitive overload”.
Do not worry. I’m fine. I’m just noticing the state we’re all working in these days and it worries me a bit. For my part, I pick up in the evening from 7pm max and on weekends, it’s closed. I get there 80% of the time …! But that, it forces me to accept that it accumulates a little every day. And I have to deal with this pile that I can no longer reduce. How are you with COVID ?!
I wanted to dig into a few lines here.
No more ‘quick meetings’
Serge writes, gone are the days of settling something with a quick meeting in the colleague’s office or with a simple phone call or the other party answers and you’re done in less than 10min !!
I love this line, because a lot of what I used to enjoy about being in the office is the serendipity of bumping into a co-worker, or white-boarding something that happened to be simmering for the past week. I’ve heard the alternative argument that serendipity ends up wasting time. It’s more efficient to focus on a task or ticket, and leave the serendipity to video conference or voice. I wonder what the hybrid is?
… and deliverables as well
And in there, I have deliverables too.
With the back-to-back meetings you need to structure in meeting time, and then also try to produce some sort of meaningful output. Which will always have some slop. I think the beauty of being in the office was that you were present, and could be available when needed — but could also tune-out to folks working around you. I know many folks who would ‘escape’ back home to really get some deep work, but that was a decision to disconnect from the workplace. Another question… I wonder what the hybrid is?
Reminds me of a YouTube video I was watching the other day of Ali Abdaal, of 10 time management tips.
In his 5th segment, he speaks about time blocking, which is any time you need to do something — you put a block on your calendar. The big problem with ‘producing deliverables’, is you just honestly need some uninterrupted time to do it! Thats where I really love this idea of time blocking to get those 1–2 things done that you really need to get done.
Ventilating neurons
Gone are the days of ventilating neurons by moving from one place to another.
This is the part that I (personally) miss the most. I loved the 20–30 minute commute that I used to get in riding MUNI or BART (train lines in San Francisco) to get to the office. It’s when I didn’t need to read email, I could listen to the next episode of a podcast I was hooked on, or read a few pages on my Kindle, or just jot down ideas on a notebook. Daydream and disconnect.
Octavia E. Butler — and the Parable of the Sower
I’m in the middle of reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and my god — is it so good (thats a bit of pun, once you read about Earthseed you’ll know). In any case, the beginning of chapter 14 starts with this line:
In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.
This is such a beautiful line, as I feel that COVID has burned everything we know about yesterday’s work. The office, Zoom, video, social connections, taking care of kids, schooling…etc. The list goes on. The story is not at all about remote work or anything of the kind — but the only thing that this brings to light is that if we’re to have a Renaissance, a new beginning, a new normal —to get a new next the Phoenix has to burn first.
Benedict Evans and the new normal
Which leads me to the former A16Z venture capitalist, Benedict Evans. I was watching the Great Unbundling on YouTube (an amazing 1 hr YouTube video if you’re interested).
He states, we were brought into a forced experiment of everyone (who could) was sent to work from home. The most interesting thing on the below slide is the h2. What happens once the novelty wears off? What works better and what gets broken?
I don’t quite know and I don’t think Ben Evans presented a clear answer either. He took some stabs, but nothing that was definitive. I think we’re still in some extremely grey territory, thus the reason for me writing this post.
The other interesting point is one he makes around the ‘short business trip’. With this set of data, I feel that the short trip is going to become less and less worth it, unless the stakes are high enough.
This doesn’t quite jive with Don’t Split the Difference philosophy and a post I wrote on The 7–38–55 Percent Rule. In Don’t Split the Difference, a book by a hostage negotiator turned business negotiator, he says that 55% of the signal between humans is through body language. If we spend all of our time behind screens, given this hypothesis, we’re under-optimizing for communication.
Phil Libin (former CEO of Evernote) and mmhmm
Phil Libin is all about remote work.
He was interviewed by Business Insider and on his new startup mmhmm; around remote work and he said:
Mmhmm staff would meet one another despite not having a centralized office. The way they’ll do that? Twice-yearly company holidays
This is an interesting thought, but my question is how you brainstorm and let natural conversations flow over video. To Serge’s point, you really miss out on the physicality of being together. Many of the ideas that we had at Sutro was from layering and compounding interest of ideas building on top of each other. I’d love to get Phil’s comments on how to best iterate and brainstorm on video. I’m honestly all for it, because I think it’s the future — I just haven’t figured it out yet.
Hybrid and remote is here to stay, so whats the new normal?
Hybrid and remote work is definitely here to stay. So, I wonder now -what is the new normal? The pros of having a remote team, is my ‘supply of work’ is around the world. I can hire amazing developers in Kosovo, engineers in China, and marketers in Atlanta. We’re not fixed to a geography, I’m not just fixed to the Bay Area. And if everyone is on screens from their homes (or offices), we can set up anywhere.
Specific-local, general-global
I think the solution is to truly have a global team. We’re not moving away from that, but I think having focus areas in verticals around the company to be geo-specific, may be the way to go. There is beauty in people meeting people, and serendipity. But there is also beauty in having flexible schedules.
BTW, if you’re interested in the dispute between burnt and burned, I was too… check this article out.
Music I was listening to while I wrote this
From Chris Luno, melodic house beachy sundowner mix.
This is day 13 of my #90DayOfProse challenge
