limit setting 101
I know some times I post here about my life in management and I'm very... manager-y. I think people should work hard. Seek feedback to improve. Work extra hours when a project demands it. Be there for your company in a crisis. Answer your phone if I call you. Help the team.
But other times, life goes the other way and I find myself coaching newer engineers on the basics of setting limits and looking out for themselves. It surprises me because there are so many discussions online about looking out for #1, how does anyone miss this stuff? But they do. Here's my list...
- If you're sick, call in sick. Do not apologize. And if you work for me, it's okay to keep everything else private. If you're contagious it's certainly nice to tell your coworkers if you brought us something, but after that I don't need any details. Your diagnosis, what's coming out of you, color, consistency etc... it's okay to keep that to yourself. In fact I'd rather you keep that to yourself :) This isn't school, you don't need a doctor's note.
- If you're going on vacation you send a notification, not a request. I don't say no. We all get so many hours allocated, you should take them.
- Let's make a deal — if you make some effort to write your stuff down in a shared location, meet with a colleague about your high priorities, and otherwise empower us to not need you, then we won't bug you on vacation. In fact I will do everything in my power to not bug you. If we have to interrupt your vacation, it's a failure of the team. Let's all work together to avoid it. I have a pretty good track record of not calling anybody. If you've got a report due Wednesday and it's all nice an uploaded before you leave for vacation the Friday before, I bet we can take it from here. But if it exists only on your laptop and you bailed on us, I'm going to have to ask you to try a little harder.
- I also have a good track record of not calling my team members on weekends, but it can require some thinking ahead. As my boss says — don't wait until Friday at 3pm to ask for weekend support. Yes it's true that a crisis can come up out of nowhere on Friday at 3pm, that happens, but there's nothing worse than scrambling for a weekend plan when you knew darn good and well Wednesday morning that we weren't going to be done this week.
- Work on calling your shots. If you get asked "when will this be done?" don't throw out the absolute fastest "exhaust yourself" date. Don't throw out a million risks and considerations. Tell us a date that's doable with your current workload. Figure out a way to get things done inside your 40 hour week. Understand the consequences of being late, offer ideas for how we can help.
I had times in my career where I worked waaaay too much and it made me hate working. I don't want anybody to get to that. I think there are ways to work hard, but stay healthy. It's better for everyone in the long run.