“Establish basic working norms.”

That pull quote above is from this article, which is actually a cool gender-driven look at burnout, but also falls into the predictable business journalism bucket whereby a bunch of things are proposed that would never even remotely happen in most organizations. This quote above is a good example of some of those things.

I think in general most of us know we need both — and BOTH is important here — formal and informal rules around any job we have. The formal rules are the HR bullshit and the handbook that everyone kinda knows at a 35,000-foot level, but no one necessarily reads every line of. Don’t send dick pics, etc. Don’t be violent at work.

The informal rules of work — you could also call them “unwritten rules” — are harder to learn, and you need a rabbi/shepherd at most jobs to help you learn them. This is about politics, it’s about how the CEO likes to be approached, it’s about one sales guy who is at the bar at 12pm every day but makes quota so don’t expect deliverables from him after 11:55am, it’s about video vs. non-video for team calls, etc. At many orgs, there’s an unwritten, informal rule that if a top dog slaps out an email at 11:42pm, sometimes needs to respond at 11:45pm, or there will be an all-hands eventually about “team commitment.” Thankfully (ehhh), at every job I’ve had, there’s always someone willing to respond at 11:45pm.