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Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

> I was Facebook’s first engineer promoted to E9 outside the US

> I was Facebook’s first engineer promoted to E9 outside the US. All this, at the cost of my second-grade son making sure he had a reserved spot on my calendar prior to me heading off to work that morning. Was it worth it? > If you want atypically fast career growth, you need to put in the hours. Only you can answer whether the sacrifices are worth it. Ask the kid. Or the spouse. My father had a significant career: medical doctor with a PhD, yadda yadda. I won't go into the details, but he left much to be desired both as a husband and as a father. At the age of 54, while he was working on a second PhD, he had a stroke that nearly killed him and left him severely disabled until his death at 70. Was it worth it? His surviving family doesn't think so. I think we would have all been happier if he had made different choices. His mistakes were a big part of why I quit working to spend time with my own family. Ask my spouse and children whether I made the right call.

Original discussionWork Life balance slows careers116 source comments · at import
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PA

If, hypothetically, your kids and wife asked you to work many more hours and earn much more money, would you do it?

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PS

Between his career, and serving in our lay ministry church, my Dad (indirectly) taught me that I wanted to be around with my kids (unlike him). I definitely don't have the career drive he had. I'm also certainly A LOT happier than he has ever been, and I have a great relationship with my kids. There aren't a lot of people I meet, that are meaningfully more successful in their career than me, that don't usually make sacrifices I'm unwilling to make for their work/life harmony.

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GE

I think what complicates the matter is that some people have an inherent drive. They want to see progress and really struggle when it's not happening. The flip side of the coin is those people might end up alcoholics to try and suppress that drive.

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