Can you skip work tomorrow?

Sometimes my friends ask this. I tell them "I can, but I probably won't."

The tech industry is an enlightened industry. Generally, employees are treated like adults and allowed to organize their days in a way that's productive for them. I usually wake up without an alarm, around 8:30 or 9, and I watch Liverpool games at the office if they're playing during the week. So if you ask me if I have to work tomorrow, the answer is No, I can take off work whenever I want. Another company that does this is Netflix, who lets its employees take as much vacation time as they want.

There's a flip side to this, of course, the reason that I usually show up for work instead of lounging around home in my PJ's watching Friday Night Lights. If I took enough days off work, eventually I'd develop a reputation as someone who didn't ship code. And maybe if someone else in the company wanted work done right, they'd turn to someone else instead. That's not a reputation that I want attached to my name.

It's not all stick, however. I also like showing up for work, making Twilio better and building an experience our users will be delighted with. And part of the reason I like it so much is because our company makes it a lot of fun.

So yes I watch soccer at work and have a beer at the end of the day and go on vacation a lot. But I also put in a lot of work; one day last week I showed up at ten, went home at seven and kept working until one. So I can take off work tomorrow if I want, but I probably won't.

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