The relationship between managers and corporate culture

My friend sysadm1138 recently wrote a post titled “managers are more important than company culture.” I don’t disagree with anything she wrote, but I wanted to “yes, and” on it a bit. An employee’s immediate supervisor has the most impact their experience. This is true for everyone, but particularly for underindexed folks. But I would go on to say that managers are a reflection of the corporate culture.

I’ll grant that some people are better managers than others (indeed, some people are better people than others). Well-intentioned managers can still result in hostile and damaging work environments. But just as actions speak louder than words, the behavior of an organizations management at all layers is a more accurate reflection of corporate culture than anything else.

Even if 99 out of 100 managers are terrific, that one bad manager can taint the whole culture. If the organization doesn’t improve or remove harmful managers, then the culture is clear. Similarly, if the organization doesn’t enable and support employees identifying harmful managers, that says volumes about the culture.

This isn’t to say that you should only work at companies that have perfect management. I doubt any such place exists. But you should be aware of what the bad managers say about your culture. Corporate cultures, as expressed in words, are always aspirational. And when something is aspirational, you expect to fall short of it. Probably frequently. The question is how short do you fall? And what are you doing about it?

Bo Burnham’s “Inside”

I recently watched Bo Burnham’s new Netflix special. “Inside” is…something. It brings to mind two movies I’ve seen several times. But first, I want to talk about it as art. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s an excellent work of art. It evoked a lot of emotion, including confusion and discomfort.

The discomfort comes from the intimate feel it has. Burnham has been open about his struggles with mental health. “Inside” is not always clear on how much is Burnham being sincere and how much is him exaggerating reality for effect, as art often does. In this way, it brings to mind Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”

“The Wall” came about after Roger Waters spat on noisy audience members and expressed a desire to build a wall between the audience and the band. But I seriously doubt that Waters actually wanted to shave off his nipples or create a Nazi-like following. “The Wall” took a sincere feeling and made art out of it. Is “Inside” the same?

I hope so. There are definitely times where it felt sincere enough that I was uncomfortable with the awkwardness of watching Bo Burnham have a breakdown. Was that the goal?

“Inside” also reminds me of the Monkees’ flop of a movie. “Head” is just plain weird. It’s full of mostly unrelated bits that occasionally call back to each other. After a few viewings, I’ve started to feel like I have an idea of what it’s about, just not one I can articulate. It’s easier to express what “Inside” is about, but it’s still a weird mish-mash of content without a coherent arc.

I can’t say that I enjoyed “Inside”, but I did appreciate it as a work of art. Of course, it’s not perfect. It’s a little self-important and masturbatory. But it’s entirely Bo Burnham, and you can’t ask anything more than that.

On the “commercial side of cancel culture”

Writing on his blog last week, Evan Brown said about “morals clauses” in contracts:

These clauses provide the means for the commercial side of cancel culture to flourish.

Evan Brown

Evan is a fellow 812 native and a person for whom I have tremendous respect. I wouldn’t think to argue with him on a matter of law, but this is a matter of culture, so I will.

We’re starting from different points. Evan clearly believes that “cancel culture” is a real concern. I don’t. I’ll grant that there is a possible extreme that would be a problem, but I do not believe we are there or that we are approaching it. What is called “cancel culture” is often “facing accountability for one’s improper actions.”

To that end, I proposed that the “commercial side of cancel culture” could also be called “the free market”. This specific case—Jeep pulling use of an ad featuring Bruce Springsteen after news came out that he recently had a DUI arrest—is a particularly bad example to use to make the point, too. First of all, it is very reasonable that a vehicle company would want to dissociate from someone who recently had a drunk driving arrest. Secondly, the harm is not on the person “canceled” (to the degree that Bruce Springsteen can be canceled).

Springsteen presumably got paid already (although there may be a clawback clause or a payment structure that has not fully completed yet). He doesn’t need the money or the fame. Meanwhile, Jeep produced an ad and purchased air time for it. They probably planned for a much longer run over which to recoup their expenses. I’m not suggesting we feel sorry for Jeep, but I also don’t think we need to shed any tears for The Boss.

Free and open source software is not the end goal

When I first started thinking about this article, the title was going to be “I don’t care about free software anymore.” But I figured that would be troll bait and I thought I should be a little less spicy. It’s true in a sense, though. I don’t care about free/open source software as an end goal.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) says “free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses”. The point isn’t that the software itself is freely-licensed, it’s about what the software license permits or restricts. I used to think that free software was a necessary-but-insufficient condition for users having control over their computing. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case anymore.

Why free software might not matter

Software isn’t useful until someone uses it. So we should evaluate software in that context. And most software use these days involves 1. data and 2. computers outside the user’s control. We’ll get back to #2 in a moment, but I want to focus on the data. If Facebook provided the source code to their entire stack tomorrow—indeed, if they had done it from the beginning—that would do nothing to prevent the harms caused by that platform. One, it does nothing to diminish the “joys” of spreading disinformation. Two, it would be no guarantee that something else isn’t reading the data.

While we were so focused on the software, we essentially ignored the data. Now, the data is just as important, if not more, as the software. There are plenty of examples of this in my talk “We won. Now what?” presented at DevConf.CZ (25 minutes) and DevConf.US (40 minutes) last year. Being open is no guarantee of data protection, just as being proprietary is not guarantee of data harm.

We’ll always use other people’s computers

Let’s return to the “computers outside the user’s control” point. There’s a lot of truth to the “there is no cloud, there’s only other people’s computers” argument. And certainly if everyone ran their own services, that would reduce the risk of harm.

But here in the real world, that’s not going to happen. Most people cannot run their own software services—they have neither the skill nor the resources. Among those who do, many have no desire to. Apart from the impossibility of people running their own services, there’s the fact that communication means that the information lives in two places, so you’re still using someone else’s computer.

It’s all very complicated

There’s also the question of whether or not the absolutist view of software freedom is the right approach. The free software movement seems to be very libertarian in nature: if each user has freedom over their computing, that is a benefit to everyone. Others would argue (as the Ethical Source movement has) that enabling unethical uses of software is harmful. These two positions are at odds.

Whether or not you think the software license is the appropriate places to address this issue, I suspect many, if not most, developers would prefer that their software not be used for evil purposes. In order to enforce that, the software becomes non-free.

This is a complicated issue, with no right answer and no universal agreement. I don’t know what the way forward is, but I know that we cannot act like free software is the end goal. If we want to get the general public on board, we have to convince them in terms that make sense to their values and concerns, not ours. We must make software that is useful and usable in addition to being free. And we must understand that people choosing non-free software is not a moral failing but a decision to optimize for other values. We must update our worldview to match the 2020s; the 1990s are not coming back.

A sign of the times: basketball coaches speak up

I recently read an article in the local newspaper. Purdue men’s basketball coach Matt Painter was talking about the difference in how Black Lives Matter protesters were handled versus the insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol. Specifically, he said:

It’s just the double standard more than anything. America needs to see that—especially white America—and see the double standard that’s been going on for years. For that to happen, just makes you sick to your stomach.

This struck me as a significant statement. Not so much for what he said (which I agree with wholeheartedly), but the fact that he said it. I’ve never met Matt Painter. I know very little about him personally. This is probably by design. I don’t remember Painter offering much of a public opinion on anything that isn’t directly related to his basketball program in the decade and a half he’s been at Purdue.

For him to go on record with a statement like this, particularly in a right-leaning state like Indiana, is a sign of how the conversation has shifted. 2020 brought a lot of “hidden” things to the fore. I’m glad to see that basketball coaches, even generally tight-lipped ones, are comfortable making statements like this.

A few hours to the south, the University of Kentucky defended players kneeling for the national anthem in response to the insurrection. In fact, UK coach John Calipari joined his players in kneeling. A local sheriff burned his UK shirts and called for Calipari to be fired. Officials in another Kentucky county unanimously called for public funding to be pulled from the University.

To be sure, there’s an element of self-serving here. NCAA basketball players are disproportionately black, so Painter and Calipari are appealing to their target audiences. But they both coach in states that are both very into basketball and very conservative. It’s likely that a significant portion of fans (and donors) don’t share their views. They are using their privilege to speak up to an audience that may not want to hear the message.

One could certainly argue that these acts are insufficient on their own. I agree and acknowledge that I don’t know what else they may do more quietly. And this won’t solve the problem, but shows that acknowledging racial disparity in policing is mainstream. This is encouraging. We must first recognize problems before we can fix them. Coaches, who generally try to avoid controversy, using their platform to speak up is a good first step.

Nothing changes on New Year’s Day

The start of the year is an arbitrary point in the planet’s revolution around the sun. It doesn’t have any inherent meaning, but the meaning we collectively ascribe to it matters. This year is different (how many times have we said that recently?)

2020 was a tremendously bad year in so many ways. A (hopefully) once-in-a-century pandemic has killed millions, sickened millions more, and affected basically everyone on the planet in some way. Systemic racism came to the fore in the United States in a way that society is actually reckoning with it. I won’t even touch the political events. It makes sense to celebrate the end of this year.

But as U2 reminds us, nothing changes on New Year’s Day. The world we woke up in is not meaningfully different than when we fell asleep. The first few months of 2021 will look a lot like the last few months of 2020—perhaps worse in some respects.

But there’s cause for optimism. Vaccines exist that, despite distribution issues, can help bring the pandemic to an end. A coming change in US government gives a lot of us hope for more competent governance. While it’s still dark, there is light at the end of tunnel. Where 2020 was a year when things seemed to get progressively worse, 2021 gives us the hope that it will end better than it started.

If you don’t feel like celebrating today, I understand. There’s still a long road ahead. But if you do feel like celebrating, then celebrate! We’ve earned it. (Just be sure to celebrate responsibly to avoid spreading the coronavirus. And wear a mask. Over your nose.)

We don’t have to accept the way things are

If you’ve read this week’s Newsletter Fiasco, you’ve already seen this. But I wanted to share it again because it has been weighing on my mind…

We are living in one hell of a moment. A moment where we decide if we support justice or if we are content to ignore injustice to preserve our own tranquility. Can we continue to allow our police departments to instigate violence against the very people they are sworn to serve and protect? Can we live in a society where unprovoked assault on journalists happen dozens of times in a single weekend?

Justice isn’t only about punishing wrongdoers. Justice is the active presence of equitable treatment. No state can be called just when extra-judicial killing is tolerated. We live in a society that provides military equipment to police while doctors are begging for masks.

None of this is new. The oppressed among us have lived this their whole lives. That many of us are only now getting mad is an indictment of us. The past cannot be changed, but we can act for a better future. A future where Black lives matter. A future where those who enforce the law are held accountable to it. A future that provides for the safety and well-being of everyone.

Working from home: my advice

There are as many articles about working from home as there are people who work from home. But I’ve been asked by a few people about my experiences, so looking back on the last nearly seven years, here’s what stands out.

Let’s keep a few things in mind first. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to work from home. In the midst of a pandemic, I feel for them. Also, working from home for a few weeks as an emergency is different from doing it all the time. Routine work from home you plan ahead for. It probably doesn’t involve having your partner and children around all the time while you also worry about a global pandemic and economic collapse. Just do the best you can and understand that your best now probably looks a lot different than your best a few months ago.

Your environment

Ideally, you’ll want a separate room that’s walled off from the rest of the house. This gives you the ability to focus and sets boundaries for you and others. If that’s not possible, get yourself the most secluded space you can. Make sure you have enough space for your laptop and any additional equipment you might need. Make sure there are power outlets available. I also ensure there’s space for mug of coffee or a cup of water, depending on the time of day.

When it comes to noise, you might not get much choice. If you like having chaos in the background, that’s great. With a partner, pets, or kids at home, you’ll probably get that. Noise canceling headphones are a good thing to have, but keep in mind that “noise canceling” means “the hum of your HVAC” not “the shriek of your toddler”. I personally tend to listen to podcasts. I’m generally not paying active attention, but the background talking helps. If I’m reading intently or writing, then I’ll shut it off.

Also consider what’s behind you. You’ll probably be on video calls a lot. Does the background send the message you want? Most people will understand a messy room, but if it bothers you, now’s the time to address it. Be particularly careful if someone can walk into frame unexpectedly. Years ago, I’m pretty sure I saw someone walk out of the shower in the background of a call with a coworker. That was awkward. You may consider having some kind of visual indicator: a flag or a light or something. Anything that will make it clear to those around you that you’re “on air” can help them avoid being in the meeting unexpectedly. But also consider that everyone else is going through this and a cute animal or kid can help everyone relax for a minute.

If you can help it, don’t work from a bed or couch. They’re too comfortable and I’ve found it’s really hard to maintain focus. The only time I’ve worked from bed is when I’ve felt particularly unwell but couldn’t bring myself to not work. (That is a personal failing, not an admirable trait.)

Try to find somewhere with sunlight, too. Especially in winter, having some sunshine really helps my mood. Consider where it will come in, though. You probably don’t want it directly in your face as you look at the screen, nor directly over your shoulder.

Your communication

Get ready to embrace your employer’s video platform of choice. I work in an open source community where a lot of daily communication happens through text-based chat. But video calls add an important human dimension. The in-person conversations you used to have? They happen on a webcam now!

If you have multiple monitors, put the thing you’re looking at on the one with the webcam. That might be the chat application, but it also could be a shared document that you’re looking at. But I can say from experience that it’s really disorienting to be looking at someone in profile the whole time.

On a similar note, try to find a good angle for your webcam. It’s best if it can catch you straight on. Up-nose shots are no fun and looking-down-on-your-forehead shots seem weird.

If your bandwidth isn’t up a video call, disable the video. It’s better to have the audio than nothing. If you’re not normally working from home, you might not have paid for the bandwidth you need, especially if others in the house are streaming movies or something. Also keep in mind that some providers throttle the upload bandwidth, which means that you might be receiving the call clearly, but your video or audio might be on the strugglebus. A business-class connection will generally not have that limitation, so it may be worth checking with your provider on that.

One thing you won’t get working remotely is the random water cooler chatter. That can be really helpful for team bonding. In previous jobs, I’ve done things like pair people up with randomly-selected coworkers and say “schedule a 15 minute call in the next two weeks to talk about anything you want.” I have a script that will draw names out of the hat for you. If you have a chat tool like Slack, IRC, etc, have a channel devoted to chit-chat. People can pop in and shoot the breeze without worrying about bothering someone who is in the zone.

Your self

Dress for success. Or at least for work. In cold weather, I put on jeans. In the summer, I wear shorts. What I don’t wear is pajama pants. I’ve found that I just can’t motivate myself to get work done on days I stay in my pajama pants. Not everyone has that problem, so if you find it works for you, great!

You might also want to shower. Or not. I won’t say how often I shower, but I can assure you it’s not daily. A lot depends on how I feel. If I feel like I need a shower, I take one. Sometimes that’s in the morning, but it’s usually at night or occasionally midday. You may find that you need to do your whole morning routine in order to feel motivated for work. That’s fine, but don’t expect that everyone else will.

Try to get some exercise if you can. I’m really bad at this myself, especially when I’m busy or the weather is bad. But when the weather is nice, a 20 minute walk around the neighborhood is a good chance to get away and think for a few minutes. A standing desk or treadmill desk can help too, or even some hand weights that you use during a call.

You know what’s great? Naps! It’s hard to do this at an office, but one of the things I really like about working from home is that I can go lie down for 20 minutes. “But, Ben!” you say “isn’t that like stealing from the company?!” I look at it this way: I could spend 20 minutes taking a nap, or two hours sitting at my desk but just sort of mindlessly staring at my screen. Which one seems better?

At some point, you’ll want to eat. I see a lot of advice that says “don’t eat at your desk”, but I do that almost every day. I did that when I worked in an office, too. For me, it was a way to shorten the work day a bit. For you, do what works best for you. Experiment a little bit. For me, I also know that I should not keep food within arms reach because I will eat it. All of it. Having a little bit of physical separation from food goes a long way.

Perhaps the most important thing is to give yourself some slack. Being a human is hard, and being a human in the time of pandemic is harder. You have a lot on your mind, and it’s okay if you’re not always at your best. Especially if you’re working from home in a suboptimal situation.

Your boundaries

You should have them. Working from home can really blur the line between work and home. It’s okay to step away for a few minutes to load laundry or run the vacuum. It’s not okay to keep working until 11pm because suddenly your living room is now your office. This is where having a separate office space helps. If you can make it happen.

Communication boundaries with coworkers are important, too. Don’t send an IM if it could be an email or a message in a broader channel. In a previous job we set up an escalation process for help requests in Slack:

  1. Ask in a product- or customer-specific channel with no tagging names, @here, or @channel
  2. If sufficient (use your judgment, based on the urgency) time goes by and you haven’t gotten an answer, repeat the message with @here to alert folks who are available
  3. If that still doesn’t get a response, send an IM to the person you think could help

Your routine

Like I said above, some people find they need to go through the whole routine in order to get motivated for work. That might mean doing makeup and hair and getting dressed in your “grown up” clothes. I’ve even heard of some people who drive their car around the block once just to have that mental routine of a morning commute.

I, on the other hand, do none of that. The closest thing to routine I have is making coffee before I sit down at my desk. For me, I love that I can be out of bed and at work five minutes later. I am not at all a morning person. What I do miss is having a commute home. Especially if you have kids, it can be hard to go straight from work stress to kid stress with no break in between. I don’t really miss the act of commuting, just the time to switch gears. For me, I found that was a good time to do 10 minutes of meditation. It helped me calm down after work and it gave me just enough of a break to be less frazzled with the kids.

Your distractions

I love working from home, but it’s not all great. Being able to step away for 5 minutes to get house work done is a great mental relief. But it’s also possible to get carried away, especially if you’re trying to avoid a hard problem at work. Unloading the dishwasher is fine. But don’t let it snowball into then cleaning out the fridge and scrubbing the stove top and and and.

If you have roommates, spouses, children, etc, they need to know when you’re working and that you should be left alone except in emergency. Find a way to signal that, like wearing your headphones when you walk through the house.

You can do this

Whether you’re making work-from-home a permanent thing, or you’re just work-from-home-during-a-pandemic-oh-god-what-is-happening-in-this-world, I hope some of the advice here helps. If you only take away 12 words, let them be: set boundaries, do what works for you, and go easy on yourself.

Business cards at conferences

Paper is dead; everything is digital.

Are you done laughing? Good! Stephanie Hurlburt posted a lengthy set of thoughts on using business cards at conferences, and it inspired me to think about how I use business cards.

I happen to be at a conference right now, and I brought my box of business cards with me. I’m sure I’ll only hand out a few, if any, but I prefer having them to not having them. If someone wants my card, I should have one available for them.

When I worked in marketing, I really liked getting business cards from prospective customers and partners. It made following up after the conference much easier. Sure, we had those nifty badge scanners, but some people covered their codes to protect from sneaky scans or they used a throwaway email address to avoid spam. But even if the scan worked, typing useful notes into the scanner is a tedious process. It’s much easier to pull out my pen and jot a few notes on the back of their card.

Now that I don’t work in marketing, the above scenario isn’t as important. But it’s easy to be insulated against the scenario arising.

What about digital methods? Sending someone an email or LinkedIn connection as you stand there works: unless it doesn’t. Conference WiFi can be unreliable, and mobile networks aren’t always great inside a large metal and concrete building. Taking pictures of business cards works, but it’s still harder to take quick notes, even with the stylus on my phone. I have a QR code that is a link to my LinkedIn profile saved on my phone. I have literally never used it.

Conferences are hard places to make connections. You’re busy and you meet so many other people that by the time you get home your brain is mush. For me, business cards are an easy way to preserve data. And sometimes they’re useful for winning a free lunch at a local restaurant.

I cry at work

The new podcast “This is Uncomfortable” had an episode about crying in the workplace. I don’t have a lot to say about it, other than it’s a good story. But I wanted to go on record as saying that I cry at work.

Sometimes work is overwhelming. Sometimes my personal life leaves me on edge. Sometimes I read a moving article.

Sometimes I cry. It’s okay to feel things.