architecturalist papers 41: An Easter Lesson, Sexism and Academic Research Values
Personal observations about Easter.
In 1994, I was taking a class in Computer Science. And the final project extended over Orthodox Easter.
I was in a quandary. The combination of workload, poor project planning had lead to the difficult decision of what to do. I needed more hours in the day to get it done. If it were just my grade, I would have been happy to take a hit. But it wasn’t; I was part of a group project. And I felt I was going to let my team down.
I went to the professor, and his reaction was illuminating — “Tough.”
At first, I was infuriated because I thought it was a statement about my Easter. Later on, I learned it was a statement of prioritizing my personal life over my work.
It was an essential and evil lesson. My personal life had to take a secondary place to my work life. If I cared about my career, frivolities like friendships and family could not intervene.
And so I missed Easter celebrations.
And I did that for the next 30+ years.
But not only Easter, all sorts of celebrations, because work mattered over everything.
Over the years, I saw this fetishization of deadlines. That was somehow hitting the date at all costs was the right thing to do.
And I have learned something from that experience. Some jobs require that kind of sacrifice, and they have a high burnout ratio. I had one of those jobs. Within two years, I was a burned-out husk, getting drunk by 6 pm to get through the day. Until I had my nerves dulled from booze, I couldn’t relate to my family.
As time has moved forward, I have concluded that jobs that impose that sacrifice have to be a matter of life and death because your life is a casualty of those jobs.
Any other employer who makes that kind of request all of the time is evil.
And anytime an employer makes that kind of demand, it reflects poor project planning.
As a strategic software architect, when I see a team in that kind of state, I view that as my failure. It’s my job to ensure that I never have to make that ask.
But this persistent evil behavior endures. And it got me wondering where it comes from. I realized where it comes from. It comes from the academic community. Academics have firm deadlines. The paper arrives by the date, or it might as well never arrive. The paper that gets published first gets all of the credit. And so high-end schools teach that the work deadline is all that matters.
And that academic community was primarily male that happily dumped every personal obligation to their family on their wives. My mother and I lived through that period with my dad, who decided to abandon his pregnant wife and son in a tiny apartment on nun’s island, so he could do research in Paris. Fortunately, his friend and colleague explained the foolishness of his ways, and he adjusted.
I saw some of that through the SIGGRAPH era.
After all, the 1990’s SIGGRAPH deadline meant if you were publishing there, your Christmas is about writing a paper. While your spouse takes care of the family and social obligations, you have time to work without interruption.
And I still remember my outrage during the Fukushima disaster. The SIGGRAPH committee sent out a note saying that the deadline for papers was extended for folks submitting from Japan IP addresses. It was an absurd comment and yet utterly consistent with that professor who said, “tough.” I could imagine the academics who wrote that note thinking — “notice how compassionate we are! We extended an immutable deadline!”
So here’s my Easter comment to everyone. Enjoy Easter. Enjoy your life. It’s a short one. Life is a marathon, and you can’t sprint all of the time. Pick the sprints, pick the times to relax, and find the teams that will support you. And leave the teams that won’t. And if you want to sacrifice your life for a greater cause, that’s your calling. Just make sure it’s really a matter of life and death.
And if you are blessed to have a family, find the time to be with them. They matter. I don’t regret many things in my life, but I regret every single Easter I didn’t spend with my mom.
Originally published at http://wrongtool.kostadis.com on April 4, 2021.