As various pictures of previous Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Days popped up in my Timehop over the last couple of days, I wondered how the event was handled during the pandemic. (Answer: I don’t know what people did last year, but this year they went virtual.)
My kids are grown now, so Take Kids to Work days are pretty much off my radar screen. However, there was a long period of my working life when it was a big deal. Before I had my own kids, I drove 30 miles to pick up my niece for the day. Once I had kids, it was even more important to me to [puts on very intentional and well-meaning voice here] show them what work was all about.
Work is different now
I read an article on Friday that asserted, “our relationship to work is broken.” Even though the article was about our relationship to work, my mind kept reading it as “work is broken.”
Work certainly has its issues in our country (and our world) right now, but I don’t see it as wholesale “broken.”
The author profiled Gumroad, a platform that facilitates creators selling their work. Gumroad’s CEO believes work should be purely “transactional,” free of emotion. Gumroad also eschews:
- meetings
- full-time employment (everyone is paid hourly)
- deadlines
- benefits
- culture
CEO Sahil Lavingia says the approach is about “freedom at all costs,” rather than sacrificing everything for growth.
Lavingia has paid his share of dues (the company lost everything in 2016 and he had to start over). He’s back up to 25 people (not full-time employees, though (see above)).
My take
Why can’t I just say, “OK Sal Lavingia believes one thing and I believe another”? And am I turning into the tail-end Baby Boomer that I am, wanting this generation to “pay their dues” and invest themselves at work with loyalty?
Let’s take each of those bullets and break it down a bit.
No meetings
This is probably a bad one to start with, because it may be the area where I agree the most with Gumroad. We do have too many meetings. When I think back on my 20 years at Healthy Kids, I think we arguably could have cut our meetings down by 50% and gotten the same thing done. Now that workplaces have productivity apps such as Slack, there’s even more argument for asking if a meeting is really needed. I suspect the solution falls somewhere between Gumroad’s “no meetings” plan and an organizational lean toward meeting for the sake of meeting. Because I’m a fully remote worker, I value quite a few of my meetings because it gives me an opportunity to interact with my colleagues.
No full-time employment
This one is really interesting to me. I suspect Gumroad has high expectations of its 25 hourly workers. And I don’t believe “butts in seats” is an effective way to manage people. I feel I have the best of both worlds being a full-time worker at an organization that has a pretty specific outline of when I’m expected to be at my desk yet also trusts me to get my work done when and how I want to. I wonder how Gumroad sorts out who gets paid what, though. For me, I’m happier being a full-time, salaried employee. Maybe it works for Gumroad and others, but it’s not for me.
No deadlines
“There are no meetings or deadlines — just broad product goals to work toward. Projects happen iteratively and take as long as they take,” says Charlie Warzel’s article. I guess this is possible with ultra-motivated individuals. I also work at an organization with specific deadlines for its publications every day, which skews my reading on this. At my organization, there are projects that I suppose could be put in the “no deadline/be iterative, take as long as you need” category. This one stretches my brain. One of the reasons my current job is such a good fit for me IS the specific deadlines. I struggled in 20 years or project-based work to space out the small tasks in a way that didn’t completely stress me out on the way to completing the big tasks.
No benefits
I realize our world is changing rapidly. It’s getting harder and harder to get a position with a suite of benefits. After four years of freelancing, I was ecstatic to get back to a position with paid time off, health benefits (even though I currently use my husband’s) and a consistent paycheck. Until we figure out a way to make health care equitable for everyone, a slide toward a world with less benefits is a disservice to everyone.
No culture
Warzel says Lavingia has, since the restart in 2016, “purposefully destroyed Gumroad’s corporate culture.” Lavingia prides himself on not having a culture. If Lavingia and an employee aren’t talking about Gumroad business, they don’t need to be talking. I understand why it’s problematic to apply a “we’re a family” lens to work, but I don’t buy the “no culture” idea. To me, it’s a bit like a sin of omission rather than a sin of commission. “No culture” IS a decision about culture. I struggle sometimes to not be an overly-involved, pollyanna, cheerleader at work. I do truly love it that much and deeply respect my colleagues. Most of them are people I would want to hang out with outside of work. It’s a balancing act, and I personally want a little emotion with my work, not a solely transactional vibe.
Does work need to be fixed?
I have learned a lot by starting a new (to me) career at mid-life. I worked for the same place for almost 20 years, then had a four-year hiatus while I took care of my father-in-law, then landed at a place with a hybrid (some in-office, some virtual) workforce where you had to reserve a phone room to have a phone call (which was foreign to me). THEN my company was purchased by a company based in the UK, so I got introduced to new wrinkles in the 21st-century global workforce.
I’m not sure what I was trying to convince my niece, my daughter and my son of during all those years when I enthusiastically included them in Take Kids to Work Day and helped plan the event at my office. I think one piece of it had to do with seeing work as an adventure in some way, not as a grind. For me, the path to experiencing work as an adventure winds directly through organizational culture. I would be hard-pressed to enjoy it if there was not one (culture).
I’m linking up with Kat Bouska’s blog for this prompt: Throwback Thursday: Choose a photo or blog post from a previous April…how have things changed?
I’m also submitting this to Five Minute Friday, for the prompt “broken.” I did not stay to the five-minute limit.
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
I think there are so many variables at play and there can’t be a blanket mentality when it comes to work. I’m in agreement with a lot of what you’ve said here, as well.
There really are multiple variables. And in fairness, Charlie Warzel said that. I think his point was, “this should make you think….” and it definitely did! I really hate seeing things from a solely midlife perspective, and the Gumroad founder has had many successes (and a failure), but he’s under 30 and I keep wondering if I’m looking at it from an older/Boomerish perspective. I think the “no deadlines’ thing especially seems unrealistic to me, but maybe it works for Gumroad’s industry.
Short answer: YES
Love this post, especially the throwback photo.
There have been quite a few other Take Kids to work photos showing up in my Timehop. Wish I had held on to them (but I didn’t know I was going to write about this). My niece (the first kid I took to the day … drew a picture of me pregnant that said, “Aunt Paula in a few years” as her project during the day, so I’m not sure how much I was getting through about the adventure of work LOL.
Oh my, Paula! so much has changed since I started working, and even more since I’ve retired, especially through the pandemic (I was a teacher). I know one thing, I wouldn’t have survived had we not had a culture! A culture of mutual respect, of support and encouragement, and one of helping one another. I hope it won’t disappear completely! Your #fmf neighbor, Cindy
Thanks for sharing (and thank you for teaching — what an incredible contribution). I agree — culture has to exist (somehow). It’ll be interesting to see what changes.
The dynamics involved with my line of work have changed drastically. And, I wear two hats in the employment field; one as a hairstylist, the other as bookkeeper/manager of our family businesses. Scheduling has moved away from appointment availability and is now focused on client demand in both industries. In other words, if you wish to remain a functional entity, working on days, or times, never previously part of a work schedule, are now mandated. Only the strong will survive.
Is it fair? Difficult call. Let’s face it, people are apprehensive and such fears will not just up and disappear. My salon clients have moved from their once cheerful greetings to “Did you get vaccinated yet?” And, it’s the same with our family companies. People want assurances, hovering on guarantees, that our services will not put them in harm’s way with COVID.
So yes, work is broken but, sadly, people are broken so much more.
Oh boy Patty – I hear you on all of this. I know I would not make it in a customer-facing business like a salon (or food service). Customer demands have changed so much, maybe at least in part because of the internet (yelp, etc.) Thanks for sharing your observations.
Interesting points to ponder. I don’t think we can make broad generalizations that cover all work environments, but it’s good to rehash “the way we’ve always done it”.
A meeting can be a very short and informal “huddle”, which I’ve found useful. But yes, many meetings can reasonably be scrapped. Hard to imagine a workplace with no culture.
I’ve been a contract worker for years, but have had a few part-time side gigs for the benefits 🙂
Yeah – generalizations are rarely useful. I do think this article painted an extreme picture, and that’s kind of helpful as a backdrop for thinking about all of this.
Great post and a lot to consider. Covid has changed work. Work needed to be changed, but the change will depend on those making it. Right? Also love the photo.
Yeah — I have become simultaneously more patient with some office politics stuff (due to being in the workforce so long) yet more frustrated with the fact that so many problems would be resolved with some old-fashioned communication (a phone call vs a text/email maybe?). It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘broken’ so much as ‘changed’.
I think of my chosen profession–Journalism. I came in just as everyone was madly excited about not having to set type any more. The new and improved ‘ticker-tape’ machines were now there to set the stories. We had light tables. Paste-up. The headline machine (mine and everyone else’s favourite). Went though gallons of wax.
And then I think about what putting a paper together entails now. When there even IS a paper! The stories still get written. The news still gets out. But how different it all is!
The same with other jobs. The work still gets done. Just in a different way…
Thank you for sending me down this thoughtful lane today, Paula!
Yes, Diane! Ironically, my “new” (to me) career is in journalism, with a lot of people who share your memories. I guess the takeaway for me is to always remain flexible and open to learning no matter how old I get — otherwise I’ll get left behind!
I enjoyed reading your post because of the different types of work experience you’ve had. Mine had much less variety, mostly office work I haven’t been able to step back from the pandemic and my personal experience (being sent home suddenly and still there, and anxious about the prospect of returning to an office I miss terribly in some ways and don’t in others) to totally process what is going on, but I think we are starting to see the outline of a revolution.(I note here that I majored in cultural anthropology in college). Work isn’t broken, far from it. It’s undergoing a massive change and I think more of those changes will endure than people think right now. The pandemic has shown us just how important our interactions with each other are. The goal of having “no culture” is not, in my view, either possible or healthy as long as we employ human beings. If humans interact, they form relationships. What was a physical office is now people scattered in homes but working towards common goals, probably still with deadlines attached. That watercooler chit chat now uses chat software, the middle aged workers sharing photos of new grandchildren is now done by email, and, the meetings (yes, there were too many, and fewer meetings are a change for the better), are events looked forward to because we get to hear (and maybe see) each other. These are all parts of being human and create culture even in a company that has a “no culture” culture. Yes, it has a culture! These next couple of years will be most interesting.
It is the beginning of a revolution. I agree — thanks for all of these thorough thoughts.
Not to be rude, but Lavingia’s an idiot.
“Let us all be free!” they say,
“Throw loyalty ‘neath the bus,
and collect our hourly pay,
thinking just of us.
Let the sick care for their own,
or die, for we don’t care,
don’t throw them even a bone,
and let us take their share.
We are young and we are strong;
we need no gentling culture,
and we’ll let the weak belong
to the circling vulture.”
And thus, the pagan victory
over responsibility.
I love this wisdom, Andrew. Love and support to you and Barb.
Paula, thanks…I was profoundly influenced by Al Sever’s “Xin Loi, Viet Nam”, in which he had a near-death experience, and came back with the knowing that in this life we have no rights, only responsibilities, and that the ruling paradigm for living can be translated as “never leave your wounded behind”.
Oh, and it really is Viet Nam, not Vietnam…translates as ‘Far South’, not ‘Farsouth’.
Wow, Andrew. Thank you for sharing that. I’m actually reading a book right now about a woman who had a near-death experience after being struck by lightning. I’d have to find the exact reference, but I think she argues it is a misnomer to call it “near-death.” It’s a very compelling read. “Never leave your wounded behind” is the way to go, although I don’t always meet my own standards for doing that. Hugs.