Social Impact

I often see the remote work “debate” framed in one of two extreme ways. The first: remote work is great, and it’s only micromanaging, incompetent, and/or nefarious bosses who want to deprive workers of their freedom by forcing them back into the office. The second: remote work is terrible, and it’s only lazy workers who want to keep “quiet quitting” in their pajamas.

A common misconception about compassion is that it means being “nice” or suppressing our true feelings. Not at all! Compassion means understanding suffering in ourselves and others and desiring to prevent or alleviate it. That often involves speaking up fiercely for others and ourselves.

Last week, I hosted a live session to address the Compassionate Coding community about practicing compassion for ourselves and others in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here are some of the highlights

The prevailing work culture in Silicon Valley is not healthy or sustainable. Here are 5 ideas for improving the situation for everyone.

When it comes to communication, especially involving engineers, tech has a toxic tone problem. I know because I’ve not only been surrounded by it for the past decade, but during less enlightened moments, I’ve contributed to it. But there's hope!

Compassion has the power to heal the tech industry. Software may be built on machines, but it's built by, with, and for human beings. It's time to start focusing on the human factors of software development, including the importance of cultivating compassion.