alt Hacker NewsPretty wild how common it really is. In places you wouldn't expect. I started working night shift in a warehouse when I was in my 20s, and got to know a couple of the funny yet seemingly regular guys. I asked them for advice on how to adjust to the graveyard shift. They said you gotta stay up on weekends, keep the same nightshift schedule, no exceptions. "Come out with us for a few beer sometime."
So there we are in a regular pub, about 11pm. One guy starts dialing on his phone and says, "I'm gonna pick up. You want in?" I kind of smirked and said, "uhhh I don't smoke weed dude. Thanks." And he looked at me like I was an innocent deer and said, "umm, we're going skiing dude. this is how we stay up."
Oh boy. I was never addicted to it thank god, but what a wild couple of years that was.
I have made it abundantly clear to partners & employees health comes first, made sure they have access to a health plan, and made sure they can actually get appointments with providers. In fact that stance is probably the only reason we’re still in business and they’ve been loyal through some rough patches.
Right before my cofounder and I wrote down our values, when we were done, I said, okay, now we’re both going to schedule the labs and checkups I know we’ve both been procrastinating.
Let’s just say that was the difference between stage 1 and stage 4… by a few months. It has been probably our defining corporate value ever since. And yeah I don’t ever expect an outside investor to like that.