Whenever I chat with friends who still live in Paris, working at the same corporate job often for more than 10 years, I can’t help but wonder. Is the Silicon Valley’s startup culture, despite its crazy focus on work, actually more family-friendly?
It goes like this: in Paris, you work in the office until at least 7pm. You can’t be perceived as the first one to leave, right. So you stay a bit longer. It doesn’t mean you are working especially hard, just that you stay late in the office, because that’s what everyone else does. So you leave the office around 7:30pm. Then you face a horrible commute. If you are lucky, it will take you 45 minutes to make it home (I’m being nice, some people have commutes longer than 1h30 each way). So you are not home before 8:15, maybe 8:30pm. The kids are already in bed, or just about to.
Bottom line: you don’t see your kids during the week, at all.
What about Silicon Valley? You leave the office before 6pm. You play with your kids for a few hours. It’s sunny outside most of the year anyway. Then you put them to bed. Then you work again, often from 9pm until late in the night.
Personally, I like the Silicon Valley approach. But your mileage may vary. In France, at least once you go home, leave your work behind. You avoid the feeling of working 24/7.
