It’s all about finding a balance where both work and family get the best of you

Home, Dinner & 01.02, /FORMAT : How I can live these parts of our source code every day thanks to Elastic!

Our Source Code is public to the world, but what does it mean in practice? I wanted to share how 2 parts of the code reflect to my life. The impact to me, my family, Elastic and also potential new Elasticians.

Before I started at Elastic as a Technical Recruiter little over 1 year ago (Feb 2018) I worked in companies where 9 to 5 in the office was the demand, and overtime (although mostly useless) was the norm. I loved being able to meet the people in the office but the commute and un-flexible mindset were killing me. I have a 2 year old daughter that I hardly saw because when I came home it was dinner and bedtime. I wasn’t able to go to my Crossfit gym because I lost 4 hours a day on my commute. 

It was work, eat, sleep, repeat.

When I started at Elastic, I started (by own choice) at the Amsterdam office that harbours an amazing group of people who are truly humble. No 9 to 5 mentality and a lot of freedom but still the commute was killing me. Thanks to my amazing leadership team I was able to lose the commute and work from home. It made a huge difference on my life.

But….. after a while I was also able to fulfil a dream of ours: Living in Spain!

I moved to Spain at the beginning of 2019 and used that chance to make ‘Home, Dinner’ and ‘01.02, /FORMAT’ work even better for Elastic and my family.

I was able to ‘split’ my days up into 2 parts (sometimes 3 depending on the need)

I start early in the morning, have a 3 hour brake and start working in the afternoon again. Sometimes I stop earlier and work in the evening when the whole house is asleep. It depends (love those two words) on what the day brings.

The benefits?

For Elastic it means that my availability is better for my teams and candidates since I cover technical recruitment across all timezones (EMEA, AMER and APJ). In my early mornings the APJ is still awake and in my late afternoons/evenings AMER wakes up. And EMEA has enough hours during the day. In that way I make sure both Elastic and the candidates get the best of me,

For my family it means that we are able to spend a 3 hour brake together when the sun is high in the sky. We mostly spend it at the beach or a playground. Something I would normally miss if I had a 9-5 job.

It also means that before I go back to work in the afternoon I often go to the gym which is much better for productivity afterwards. I’m fully reloaded with energy instead of the well know afternoon dip. And to be honest, I get more creative as well!

Like the title says: It’s all about finding a balance where both work and family get the best of you.

It’s all about finding a balance where both work and family get the best of you :elasticheart: