Working on weekends #33
Description
I used to work on weekends. I was aware of advice against this. However, I thought online writings were too focused on work-life balance (which hasn't been much of an issue for me, until recently) that I overlooked other downsides that I consider serious now. Examples:
- Pressure on colleagues
- Normalizing inefficient work week
- Setting unrealistic expectations for myself
Pressure on colleagues
If I work on weekends, it will show up one way or another. Be it a notification when I push something to git, or logged timestamps somewhere. Sometimes colleagues know about this either instantly (on weekends) or it's obvious to see when they return. This puts unwanted pressure on them. Some may feel pressured to show more urgency or dedication. This is exacerbated whenever there is a tight deadline or some firefighting. I don't want to inadvertently give the wrong impression that I do or do want to look like I care more about work than others.
Normalizing inefficient work week
Even if there is not a compelling reason to think of working on weekends, I sometimes did it anyway. One reason was that I didn't do a good job finishing my tasks during the work week, in the first place. I remember a time when that became a habit. I always relied on weekends to finish left over work. I think I'm lucky I was forced to stop this when family responsibilities started to grow and take more of my weekend time. I now, thankfully, have more discipline and less distractions during my work week.
Setting unrealistic expectations for myself
Even if I made the most out of the work week, I used to work on weekends because I thought I didn't have something better to do, was in the "flow", or was too curious about the problem at hand. Although I haven't been given feedback on this, but I feel this would set inaccurate, unrealistic, and unfair expectations of my normal productivity. Once, for any reason, I work like a normal person, I would then look like I'm under performing.