Check out Tim Berry’s post detailing the blog war that started when Mahalo founder Jason Calcanis posted about money-saving tips for startups. Really, some of the tips are at least worth a thought. Others are just silly. And for real, the guy is (to me) hilarious. From his tone of voice he sounds like someone I’d probably be friends with.

I’m obviously late into this game because Jason’s already crossed out the parts of the post that were apparently offensive. He writes, “Fire people who are not workaholics. don’t love their work… come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. don’t work at a startup if you’re not into it–go work at the post office or sta[r]bucks if you’re not into it you want balance in your life. For realz.“

Apparently there are now a ton of blog posts (537 currently) and hundreds of comments about this.

My take? Well, OK. I am not a workaholic. Or maybe I am. I did have a client say “you’re always working” to me once. And this is WITH a three month old baby. AND I’m a single mom. But, to me, this is not ‘working.’ When I was a business analyst working for a software development company, that was working. This is not working. This is having fun.

So maybe that’s what he meant by “workaholics.” I dated a guy who was “always working” in my opinion, but not in his. He was a developer. He liked developing. So when he wasn’t at work, he developed programs on his own. Is that “workahol-ism?” Not in my opinion (well, hindsight’s 20/20, right?? ha)

Really, what I think he was getting at is that if you hire people who do not love the ‘biz’ as much as you do, get rid of them. That’s supremely idealistic, however. NO ONE will ever love your business as much as you. If they say they do, they are probably kissing your butt. I worked for a “startup” and even though I liked my work I did not love their business and I certainly wasn’t there for the love of the game. I was there for the love of the paycheck. Let’s get real.

What Jason doesn’t seem to realize is that you can’t always fire people who don’t love, love, love their work. Honestly. Some people hate their work but seem to pull it off with both eyes closed and sound-silencing headphones on. If you want to save money, do it by hiring people who can do the work and do it with ease, quality and speed. That’s why freelancing and contracting is so huge right now. Freelancers and contractors don’t necessarily love their work. But they do it better and cheaper than the guy in the cubicle who spends 3 hours a day emailing his girlfriend and watching youtube, another 2 hours at the coffee maker and the remaining 3 hours griping about corporate communication!

So anyway. I actually like Jason’s post and recommend it. At least go to it so you can see all of the comments, or rather, go to Tim Berry’s post and read the short version of the long story.

Have a great day!

Tia Peterson

Virtual Assistant

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