A Day At Asana | Hacker News Reader

A Day At Asana

blog.asana.com

20 pointsjackstah11 comments

This makes me laugh and also burt a little inside. It reminds me of a pitch for joining a senior citizen community the way it flows. "At first you'll start your day with a good friend doing arts and crafts and then hey look how the time flies, its time for a delicious meal prepared by your friendly Chef Pierre" The real kicker is the 7 o'clock dinner time at the end - I'd have to cross out a few of the last lines and rewrite my own. "And now its 5 o'clock. You gather your stuff together and skip out the door to the dismay of management to reclaim the rest of your sanity." I suppose I wouldn't last long.

Reading this makes me feel treated like a kid. As if Asana staff will be leaning over my shoulder the whole day like creepy startup Jesuses.

Plus Donnie and Kim, peeking round the door, desperately fishing for compliments on their cooking :)

I get it, you're all lovely. But this is too much.

That is a really nice selling pitch for the culture there.

What isn't said is "we expect you to stay at work till 9pm+ because you don't start coding until 2pm, when the food coma has worn off."

;-)

That is a really nice selling pitch for the culture there.

I thought almost the opposite. I mean it is isn't the worst I've ever seen by a long stretch but the fact that you'll be there past 7pm on day one left me a bit cold. They didn't mention a start time so I'll assume around 9ish (I'm sure they'd have have made a point of saying "stroll in at 10 or 11 with a donut" or somesuch otherwise).

Maybe I'm not made of the right stuff in that I don't want my whole life to revolve around work. Then again, I'm easily replaced by someone who is hungrier and more of a team player.

I felt the same way. On most days I've already had lunch and am back to work by 12:30. At 7pm I would be cleaning up from having dinner with my family and be heading off to have a light saber battle or play trains with my son. I worked a job where I spent most of my life at the office when I was in my early 20's and it nearly destroyed every non work relationship I had. Stepping away from work and my co-workers at lunch gives me an opportunity to clear my head, get away from the work and think/concentrate on other things. Don't get me wrong, I like the people I work with, but I have no desire to spend my every waking moment with them.

Hi Guys! Wow this is amazing! I wish I could sleep here LOL! No, no, I don't mind lunches with you to discuss business ... because I have been working hard all morning, and my lunch-times should be about squeezing some more creatives out of me .. oh, and we can all "occasionally" laugh at a cat video too, what a bunch of jokers my bosses are!

I dont mind staying late every single night! In fact, I've put some of these needles in my arm so that you can take my blood if you like! PLEASE TAKE MY BLOOD!

WE'RE HAPPY HERE, I SWEAR! OH GOD I'M SO HAPPY

I'm disappointed to see such harsh, judgmental attitudes with regards to this close-knit and supportive company culture. With the countless stories of poor management and toxic work environments, we should applaud and encourage companies that do their best to respect employees. Why such hostility?

I'm sure people will interpret this article which is essentially a job ad in many different ways but here is my take away from it...

In my opinion, 2 of the most prevalent contributors to a toxic work environment in tech are micromanagement and long hours. Now in regards to this ad...

Micromanagement - To me this reeks of micromanagement. Firstly they depict an environment where you seemingly have a step by step plan as to how you need to go about your day. They even have a culture to manage and work you during your lunch break... "we all eat together; this is another opportunity to keep up to date on what is happening outside your team". Also, the "talking to a pre-schooler" tone of the ad doesn't help either - saying thing like "grab your buddy" are not how you address a professional.

Long hours - So at lunch you essentially are at a work meeting with food and then at 7 you have dinner which based upon how lunch goes is probably also a work meeting. And not only that when a company serves you dinner it usually is because they are expecting that you are staying to do some work later. So just by the ad you have no real breaks and are working 9-8 (11 hours) and probably more after dinner.

Now I'm not trying to say you are wrong - just the way that I personally interpret this, it epitomizes many of the things wrong with many tech companies. I'm glad that they are upfront though - most employers mention this kind of stuff after you've taken the offer.

Are the Asana guys still cranking on lunascript?

AFAIK, they are no longer working on Lunascript (the language) but still use the Luna framework in their app.

source: http://www.quora.com/Why-is-Asana-developing-their-own-progr...

Twee

Reply on news.ycombinator.com