Episode 031: Negotiating A Shorter Workweek

00:16 Welcome, Itamar Turner-Trauring

Itamar Turner-Trauring started his software career in the cutting-edge field of multimedia CD-ROMs. He currently works as a consultant helping speed up Python code and deployments, and shares his software and career mistakes every week with 3700 programmers on his Software Clown newsletter. His crowning achievement as a parent was when months of brainwashing paid off and his daughter stopped saying "my legs are tired" and started saying "my legs are getting stronger! Itmar is that author of "You Can Negotiate A 3-Day Weekend".

00:51 Working Part-Time as a Programmer and Writing a Book

• "You Can Negotiate A 3-Day Weekend

03:54 Overcoming "This Isn't Normal" or "Entitlement" Feelings

• Negotiation is easier at your current job. Your work ethic is already established.
• Frame/approach it as a problem-solving situation.

08:05 Difficult Parts of Negotiation

• Harder to do up-front at new companies.
• Communication concerns.
• What about emergencies?
• Worries about getting work done and job commitment.

11:26 Scheduling Your Shorter Workweek

• Be courteous of your team.
• Plan around regularly-scheduled meetings.

14:40 Utilizing Extra Time as a Parent

17:52 Taking on Remote-Friendly Tasks + Peer Reactions

20:12 Output Value + Impact

• You can be productive and work shorter hours.
• The better the management, the less of an issue.
• Asking yourself, "What is enough work?" can be a struggle to measure when you're not counting hours.
• Honor your commitments.
• Parents are excellent multitaskers!!!

28:44 Genius / Fail Moments

• KWu uses a sippy cup at night so she doesn't knock it over. (#Genius)
• Chris told his daughter, "You are not your homework," which was adapted from "You are not your code!" (#Genius)
• Itmar's daughter's snack negotiation skills are getting more sophisticated. (#Genius/Fail)
• It took less than 90 seconds for Allison's life to fall apart in her household! (#Fail)

Follow & Support

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com.

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community.

Panel

KWu
Chris Sexton
Allison McMillan

Special Guest: Itamar Turner-Trauring.

Episode 028: Primary Caregiving

00:17 Introducing Guest, Nick Gauthier! Becoming a Full-time Parent

Nick is currently the CTO and Co-founder at Nomics. Before co-founding Nomics, Nick created MeetSpace, a video conferencing application for distributed teams. Before that, Nick worked at Codeship on the Codeship Pro Continuous Delivery platform, as well as various other web application consulting projects in Ruby on Rails, Go, and JavaScript.

03:55 Being a Full-Time Parent as a Man

• "Aww, you're babysitting!" 🙄
• Experiences with "Mommy and Me" groups and Meetups.
• Feeling instrusive in Mom spaces.
• Breaking into a "Mommy Group".

08:17 Partner Dynamics and Making Decisions

• Getting the scoop and being thankful to not have other parents' problems.
• Liking vs not liking the baby phase.

11:07 Changes as Baby Grows

• Transitioning to a nanny but still working from home.
• When going to work is a "vacation" or an "escape".
• Fielding distractions.

17:11 How Having a Child Has Changed the Way Nick Works

• Working with other parents.
• Context switching and protecting time.
• Asynchronous communication.

24:16 Communication Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

• Any communication, the normal expected turnaround time is 24 hours; unless in text is says urgent.
• Cell phone calls are last resort, but must be answered.
• Everything is "Do Not Disturb".
• Keep communcation very close to or 100% on topic.

29:06 Team Relationship Building + Watercooler Talk

• Optional "huddles" with no agenda. Explicit watercooler time.
• Company retreats.

31:21 Genius / Fail Moments

• Nick's daughter announced "Oh yeah! Get some beer!" in the middle of the store. (#Fail) But, she is mastering potty training with M&Ms as rewards! (#Genius)
• Chris: M&M inflation. (#Fail) "Scream Parade" on the other hand... (#Genius)
• Allison: Flow picture charts for the morning on what her son needs to do to leave the house 👍🏻. (#Genius)

Follow & Support

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com.

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Support us via Patreon and get access to our our Slack Community.

Panel

Josh Puetz
Chris Sexton
Allison McMillan

Special Guest: Nick Gauthier.