Early mornings are when the sun is not yet on the horizon. The sky is lit, yet still dark. This is a moment of the day I wish I would spend more time on. I would be outside, having a nice cup of coffee, then I would maybe have a calm walk where I make sure I hear and smell the trees. Everyone is still asleep, there are no cars yet, and it's very cold. For as long as I can remember, early morning and afternoons shuts down my coding mood. I'm sure there is a primitive part of me that wants me to go outside hunt or forage berries because it's daytime and the panther is gone. Get your spear ready you idiot don't just sit there or you'll starve at dinner time.
Another observation is that during the daytime, there is this incredible sense of discipline, status quo, and reality. The daily routine that humans rely on for comfort and certainty is all set in motion.
Unfortunately for night owls, according to a recent study by Christoph Randler and Lena Saliger of the University of Heidelberg there is a major difference between the personalities of a morning and an evening person. And their study supports a strong correlation between being a morning person and conformity. The night owls scored the lowest in that regard.
As a night owl, the evenings are better at fostering a sense of imagination and out-of-the-box ideas.
This brings me to my main point, fear versus happiness. Imagine you're thinking of drinking coffee at 11 pm because you are finally going to start "that thing you are intending to work on for so long" say an artwork, that dress, or any project. You get a surge of dopamine, and you're about to make that coffee but somehow why does it feel so wrong. You might say "Right, I'm now a grown adult and I have responsibilities." Mostly (according to my friends) attending to one's responsibilities is justifiable here and so we chose to proceed to go to bed early and wake up fresh tomorrow. It is a socially acceptable response, and it's natural for morning people.
But is it really justifiable? The fear of not meeting OKRs, sprints, story points, deadlines, or any other terms for over-ambitious expectations. Will you put every effort into those even it does not usually incentivize financial stability? Or maybe, we tend to pride ourselves as honest and hard-working people. But is it? should we really subject ourselves to someone's moral principle just to toil and somehow deny ourselves our own simple moment of happiness? Personally, being able to do what you love to do where money is not important, is true happiness. Just keep that roof above your head as much as you can. So I will explain further how we shall accomplish this.
Now, what about honor? Yes, an employment contract is still a contract and it should be honored. So what if the effort requires long hours of total concentration and creative thinking. This is where it gets complicated. The first thing to figure out is to find your ideal Attendance to Effort Ratio or A/E. Simply Attendance is how often you attend meetings, your overall presence on slack, how often you take vacations and paid time offs. The Effort is the overall contribution to the company's products and services for a software company this means how much effort will you put into shipping features and fixing bugs. This will depend on the team that you're in so here is the steps:
To find your attendance to effort ratio:
- Rank every programmer in your company. You start on who is the highest contributor, this is the person who carries hard up to to the lowest contributor.
- Find someone in the middle of your list and figure out how much is that person's A/E ratio and adjust yourself to them
Now you have your A/E ratio. You have two choices and possible scenarios within those choices. But first, ignore the person on top of the list and just pretend that person doesn't exist he/she will soon leave the company anyway.
First is 1:2 ratio means you are giving effort more than what your base effort is supposed to be. That means you sacrifice your own happiness because you believe it will make other people happy, you picture the customer is going to be happy management will adore you. And because everyone is happy you are also happy. Because of your 1:2 A/E ratio, the founders will become rich after exiting in two years to the future. And they will become billionaires and happy as they can be. But you are still one paycheck away from being homeless you still fear getting fired, regretful for not doing the things you love. After the company got sold they decide to cut cost and is now outsourcing your job to other countries. You got laid off and you're now working for another company.
Note that, there is a poor chance that management might actually be happy, it is much possible that is that they become less annoyed at you. Your salary is too expensive for them. It's a slim chance as well that because you fixed something you are actually happy? maybe for an hour after shipping. but wait until the bug reports come in. They will probably get to you while you are in the middle of working on another feature or fixing another bug.
The second is the 1:1 ratio, you are average and in the middle of the talent pool. But you get to spend more time for yourself and you are as happy as you can be. Management will probably look to outsource your job right now or the customer is looking to switch to your competitor. You got laid off and you are now working for another company. The result might be the founders are now bankrupt or the product is on life support. You got laid off and you're now working for another company
Whatever you decide I wish you the best but remember that in capitalism your labor is supposed to produce profits for the capitalist and that is what only binds you from them. It's not in their best interest to make you happy. Their ultimate goal is that within 2 years they will get their jackpot. But that goal doesn't matter to you, you are not the capitalist.
I hope you notice that on the 1:1 ratio you have a guaranteed or high chance of being happy and having a fulfilling life but that roof above your head for either choice is in danger. Fear will always be there.