Comment by mattydread | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattydread | Hacker News Reader

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You are exactly wrong on what Sinofsky said about work/life balance.

From http://blogs.msdn.com/b/techtalk/archive/2005/11/16/493549.a...

"The only thing I would say is that anyone who tells you how cool it is to pull all-nighters on commercial software or anyone who says "I live at the office" and means it, is really someone I would not want checking code into my project. To be blunt, there is no way you can do quality work if you do not give your brain a break. Since the 1940's people have been studying the quality of work people are capable of without the proper sleep, change in environment, and exercise. There are reasons why even back during Apollo moon missions they forced the astronauts to sleep and not run on adrenaline. So working at Microsoft does not push the limits like this--it is not good for you, not good for business, and not good for the customers paying you for your software. If a company is driving you to work crazy hours like this, either because you want to or they want you to, it is just uncool."

It's been some years since I read it so perhaps my memory is hazy. This is the part I found most objectionable:

> In other words, no matter how many hours you are officially supposed to work when you are new you will put in a lot more to get those projects done. That is ok. No, that is expected because you are going through the learning phase. Your learning is not happening on a practice field but is happing in the big show. So the extra hours and effort are worth it to you and the team.

Then later:

> Microsoft will feel a lot like college in terms of the hours you put in and the environment you work in. It will be fun. It will mean late nights. It will mean "hanging out". All of those same things. That was my experience and when I look around I see the same thing happening now.

Even though your excerpt makes what I would call a more correct point, I still think the above is uncool. Reading it several years ago put me off severely and coming back to it I still think he was wrong to put it that way, even if he partially redeems himself later. I read it as "it's OK and good for low-paid college grads to overwork themselves, but later you won't want to do that."

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