I understand your feelings on this, but I suspect that depends upon the degree to which someone is able to compartmentalize and multi-task. Having a work life and a personal life doesn't have to be an either/or proposition, even if you work for people you know. I freely acknowledge that it's not for everyone, however if you have the ability to structure your life properly, it can work wonderfully for both parties.

One of the biggest pluses would be the personality aspect. You can interview and hire someone with a stellar resume and great interview skills, however you cannot truly know their personality until you work with them, and personality is one of the things that can make or break a working relationship. As the article touched upon, you often better know the strengths and weaknesses of those closest to you. This allows you to find the best fit for someone's personality and skills, which benefits everyone. Additionally, your friends and family are likely to give their absolute best effort because they're not just a part of your business, they're a part of your life. That's not always the case I know, as I'm sure we've all heard horror stories of friends and family who have taken advantage of such opportunities. But implementing the steps outlined would aid in preventing such situations, or in remedying them quickly should they arise.

> I suspect that depends upon the degree to which someone is able to compartmentalize and multi-task.

Well yes, it depends on your ability to compartmentalize. The problem is that it depends on your friends' and family's ability to compartmentalize just as much. I know I would be able to handle my wife complaining about my work and keep that out of my personal life. I have much less faith that if I had to sit down and have a "serious talk" with my brother, he wouldn't hold anything against me personally.

When relationships are on the line, it's not all about you. What might not faze you, might still throw a wrench into things for other people, and the end result is just as damaging.

I have hired nearly all of my best friends (and even my girlfriend), and a large part of me regrets it; and yes: for the very reasons you describe (personal, not business).

I have had to fire friends, and I have had to negotiate with them. I actually have managed to keep these people as close friends, but it got really tough going at times. :(

The thing that got really really hard for me, though, is that I no longer really just have "friends" in the sense of "someone you can tell your problems to".

Here is an example: let's say work sucks, or things are going badly in some negotiation, or maybe you literally jut hate your job that day and feel like going off on a massive "I wish I could just quit all of this" rant.

It no longer works to do this with your friends: they now have both emotional and economic incentives to argue with you, become frustrated at your opinions, or, even worse, themselves feel bad about their own lives.

In the other direction, I often feel the need to avoid hanging out with some of the people I most cherish in my life, as I know if I do they will ask after the status of something I should have done, or start asking me questions about something they should do.

The result is that I'm, in a way, not even allowed to have work/life separation anymore: whereas I'm totally fine with the idea "this is just dinner, can we not talk about work?", it is nearly impossible to get everyone else to abide.

I therefore have actually been quite happy as some of my friends have gotten larger jobs elsewhere (I really was mostly doing extreme part-time hiring as contractors) as I now can interact with them "normally".

(Now, that all said, I also feel I have seen this "work better" in a previous company I was a part of, but I can't help but wonder if it was because I was the employee as opposed to the employer.)

(I don't really hear my friends complaining about this interaction, for example; that said, maybe they just wouldn't tell me, due to this very same underlying bug.)

I love this idea of encouraging people to both take a little time for themselves and for others! It may seem like a sacrifice to lose 2 work days a month, but you may find that those 2 days allow you to be more focused and productive during the rest of the month.

I had as much legitimate mail going to the spam folder as I did actual spam, though I had entirely too much of that too. It's pretty useless IMO.

Exactly. A good friend wouldn't. That's a comment from someone looking to find a reason to explain their own lack of success. A good friend would congratulate you, regardless of whether you beat them out for the job or not. Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me... and some people don't just have a few, they have entire vineyards. Nothing will ever be their fault, it can't be because the other person was more skilled, or had more more experience, they must have had an unfair advantage. That's easier than taking a hard look at yourself, being honest and addressing the real issues.

A good but insensitive friend. And maybe he was right (though overstated), perhaps being female was an advantage in getting the intership. If she wasn't sensitive, she could have responded, "maybe so, but you had the advantage of being male." And she'd be right.

I see your point, there are likely just as many people who consider being male an advantage, as there are people who consider being female to be an advantage in this situation. The only person(s) who actually knows why she got the internship and he didn't is/are the person(s) making that decision. Frankly I'm more concerned with her self-doubt than I am with his lack of tack. If you aren't going to believe in yourself, why would you expect anyone else to?

I agree, using the term 'earned', rather than 'deserved' is an excellent suggestion. For some reason 'deserve' has always bothered me. I believe in working for and earning what I receive. Deserve in my mind implies something given to you, or perhaps something you feel you are entitled to, rather than something you earned. So for me, earning something would provide a greater sense of accomplishment/achievement, than being told I 'deserved' it. Though I've never heard the reference to 'Imposter Syndrome'. That to me seems like a case of low self-confidence?

True to a certain degree, but you could also say that money provides greater autonomy. However there are also people who work because they choose to, rather than because they have to, and I doubt they all consider it a hobby. Some people may not need the money, but they need work to give them purpose, which falls in line with the article. It's a good article, though a bit too simplistic, as I feel that motivation is more individualistic and diverse than what's set forth. But I think the purpose was to set forth the authors premise in a straight-forward, scientific manner, so the simplistic nature of the article is likely unavoidable.

I can remember some CEOs who works for a symbolic $1/year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-dollar_salary). They certainly do it because they like what they do, not because they have unpaid bills.

I still posit that most people who "go to work" consider monetary or other material reward their work provides very important. Many of them would trade their current place of employment to another comparable place that would pay, say, 30% more. This probably does not matter when you earn $100k+, but most people don't.

What is true from my experience is that paying more does not increase motivation when autonomy, mastery, and purpose are addressed poorly. It just feels like a more fair compensation for the pain of working in such an environment.

The CEOs who get $1/yr have huge equity positions that mean they will receive a serious payout if they and the company succeeds.

I'm pretty sure none of them would work at a job that the total compensation was $1/yr.

A founder of a startup may be _losing_ money at huge pace during the first few years. People working for charity might do it without being paid.

But you're right, they can afford it because their material needs are already addressed.

I agree wholeheartedly with your statement regarding autonomy, mastery and purpose. Paying someone is often not enough to make them feel valued.

Agreed. In my experience Google is notoriously bad at customer service of all types, and attempts to share constructive feedback are ignored. So making it easier to provide feedback is worthless if you don't have a system to actually interpret and implement that feedback. I think it's simply a move to make the user feel like their suggestions are valued.

I currently have a sleep schedule similar to your previous schedule... work until I'm done with projects, usually Midnight to 2:00 am, sleep until 9 or 10 am. However I've noticed recently that I wake up nearly every night around 5 am, regardless of when I go to bed, and then I lay in bed irritated that I can't get back to sleep until around 7:30 am, then I doze off and wake up again around 10 am. So based upon your comments, and the article, I'll try getting up when I wake around 5 am and doing something productive, and then go back to bed around 7:30 am and get a few more hours of sleep. I don't know why, but I would have never considered doing that, I guess because I'm always irritated that I can't sleep in the middle of the night. My work environment would allow me to nap during the day, but I find it uncomfortable to sleep during the day.

They would disappear briefly, only to reappear as a new shell corporation. That's the whole point for many of them, no real liability. They hide behind false information, then disappear when it's convenient and start over. So I doubt the threat of an automatic negative outcome during litigation would be a deterrent. The law really only intimidates the people playing by the rules, or trying to.

The thing is that if you sold your patent to a shell corporation, then sued someone, the person can counter-sue saying, "You're not a real corporation, you lose, I get your assets." And now you no longer have that patent to sue with.

This would make shell corporations utterly useless for patent trolls.

"The law really only intimidates the people playing by the rules, or trying to."

A seemingly simple yet profound statement. Thanks for this.

That's a common occurrence for myself and many of the designers I work with. Regarding content, we are at the client's mercy, and unfortunately I find their sense of urgency is often nearly non-existent.