A mid-May batch of links
Since the most recent batch of links went out, paying subscribers received a meditation on how to win with curiosity, a summary of how I’ve been spending my free time, an essay about how birthday celebrations hit differently now, and an interview with an early-stage founder about how to drum up press for himself. This coming weekend, I’ll publish a column about public displays of attention, pegged to recent events overseas that impact life at home.
Below, you’ll find a batch of links that cover the themes of this newsletter, which are career development, community building, and self care.
Honey, I Love You. Didn’t You See My Slack About It?
For a class of young workers, it’s only rational to apply the tools of the corporate world to their relationships and families. Businesses have goals and systems for achieving them, the thinking goes. They get things done.
Paid time off for pregnant women could go national as work movement, led by New York.
The workday is poorly designed. Setting new norms for the workweek makes sense to me, but I wonder what the side longterm effects will be if we move officially to a 32-hour workweek. I have yet to meet myself someone who works at a company that has employed one, and I’d be eager to know how it affects them in office and outside of the office.
Nvidia’s CEO was labeled a ‘demanding’ boss by staff. But experts say you have to be cutthroat.
Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds. None of this seems all that surprising, and also I don’t think it’s indicative of a plan gone awry. We are witnessing, currently, a redistribution of the workforce around what people need, and every company will attract and keep the category of workers who see that offering as ideal for them. People from big companies may decide to untether themselves and go off on their own, riding the wave of the prestige of their past employer to contract work.
Why Members-Only Clubs Are Everywhere Right Now.
Tesla’s Technoking gives lessons on performance reviews. Lots of good advice in here about how to remain relevant at a company, especially through regular 1:1s with your manager. People think performance reviews are a drag; they’re actually good for you, if you’ve been speaking with your manager over the course of the entire year leading up.
Employees are winning the battle against RTO.
How to Have Hard Conversations as a Manager. It’s not surprising to hear, if you’ve been paying attention and speaking with mid-career professionals, that many people in the current wave and next wave of workers are opting out of management responsibilities. They noticed what it was like for the previous generation and they know as a result it’s not for them.
This tech exec’s infertility struggle was a ‘nightmare’ at work. What she wants you to know.
How To Survive a Toxic Workplace. “West’s first piece of advice: Don’t assume you actually know what stresses you out at work.” This is generally right. It’s not the work that’s bothering the person, it’s that work stress has led them to express it.
How to slow down but achieve more, with Cal Newport.
How to manage better and boost your career as the job market levels off.
To be sure, when the Great Resignation music was playing, it was a headache to have your team members leave for jobs elsewhere. But with the music stopped and few people budging out of their seats, openings to promote high-performing and high-potential workers into can be scarce. Promotions and raises are two familiar levers for rewarding performance, and they’re harder at most places for managers to pull on now than a few years ago.
The Fad Diet to End All Fad Diets.
Women are leaving tech - we need it to stop.
Leaders of diversity and inclusion consultancies and female networks told me companies with men in leadership positions often don’t know how to approach finding female talent or are unable to write job descriptions that appeal to women. They’re also often looking for a silver bullet without doing the real work.