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The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

blog.fogcreek.com

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Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#111

Post by jackowayed »

angelbob wrote: post #110
mattdeboard wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, sorry, are you saying that a company shouldn't hire a person if they can't afford top-end office equipment? Or is this only for developers? I think that's silly & unrealistic, and am hoping it's just hyperbole to make a point. (edit: I don't actually disagree with your general point, that better tools == higher productivity == better return on that developer salary. However, implying the cost of buying top-end…

Probably primarily for developers. A $100/mo investment to get more out of your developers (who cost at least $30k, and usually $100k+) isn't a problem. If you're looking at much cheaper office staff, you can presumably pay less to make them more productive since hiring more of them is cheaper (measured in Aerons).

How do you manage the differentiation without the less special classes having some resentment? There are some costs that they'd likely understand (person who spends all day in email and Word objectively does not need as good of a computer as a developer), but how do you tell someone that they're not worthy of the same desk/chair that a developer is? What happens if there's a spare developer chair that they start sitting in? Do you ask for it back when you hire a new dev?

I'm not saying it's impossible, especially as the company and grows and there may be less direct contact between the departments, but I definitely see some issues that could arise.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#112

Post by gte910h »

jseliger wrote: post #109
gte910h wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found the aeron's nothing that complicated to adjust properly, but man, was that stuff worth it.

I'm sitting in the Herman Miller Embody, which is vastly harder to adjust properly, at least for me. I've actually been meaning to finish a very long review of the chair; maybe this'll inspire me to do so and submit to HN.

I don't mean to come off wrong, but did you read the actual manual? Most HM chairs have a nice procedure to adjust them.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#113

Post by mathattack »

There are two unwritten assumptions in this post:

1 - The company focuses on people as appreciable assets, as opposed to costs to be minimized.

2 - There is not diminishing returns for chasing the best.

Where this is true and recognized, companies don't nickel and dime employees. It is usually true in the best recruiter of each talent focused industry. Like them or not, this is in part why Goldman Sachs and McKinsey succeed, as well as top software firms.

Once you view people as costs to be minimized (think the auto industry) or there is diminishing returns on individual excellence (think Wal-mart) then this system breaks down.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#114

Post by nknight »

jackowayed wrote: post #111
angelbob wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably primarily for developers. A $100/mo investment to get more out of your developers (who cost at least $30k, and usually $100k+) isn't a problem. If you're looking at much cheaper office staff, you can presumably pay less to make them more productive since hiring more of them is cheaper (measured in Aerons).

How do you manage the differentiation without the less special classes having some resentment? There are some costs that they'd likely understand (person who spends all day in email and Word objectively does not need as good of a computer as a developer), but how do you tell someone that they're not worthy of the same desk/chair that a developer is? What happens if there's a spare developer chair that they start sitt…

A developer who plants themselves in their chair for a 12-hour hacking run and barely moves in that time objectively needs a more ergonomic environment than the 9-4:30-ers that spend most of their time standing around the water cooler or coffee maker.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#115

Post by dpark »

jackowayed wrote: post #111
angelbob wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably primarily for developers. A $100/mo investment to get more out of your developers (who cost at least $30k, and usually $100k+) isn't a problem. If you're looking at much cheaper office staff, you can presumably pay less to make them more productive since hiring more of them is cheaper (measured in Aerons).

How do you manage the differentiation without the less special classes having some resentment? There are some costs that they'd likely understand (person who spends all day in email and Word objectively does not need as good of a computer as a developer), but how do you tell someone that they're not worthy of the same desk/chair that a developer is? What happens if there's a spare developer chair that they start sitt…

You tell them that the devs are all pretty pretty princesses who can feel a pea through a pile of blankets.

Seriously, I think you've got to buy everyone fancy chairs if you buy them for devs. Otherwise it breeds resentment. If I were a secretary sitting in a shitty chair while all the devs sat in $1000 chairs (including the intern who's only there for the summer and gets paid less than his equipment costs), I'd feel pretty unappreciated.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#116

Post by dpark »

synnik wrote: post #98
spolsky wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the way people on the Internet always find a way to misinterpret every post in the worst possible way, no matter how little sense they make. After reading a detailed article about how we spend over $5000 to make sure our developers are comfortable at work, do you really think that we then CHAIN them to an Aeron chair and REQUIRE that they use 30" monitors even if they prefer sitting cross-legged on the floor w…

I earned a degree in Fine Arts many years ago, and one of the hardest lessons to learn was to listen to your audience. The artist always had a message to send, and the audience usually got a different message. As the originator of any message, it is important to hear the feedback and respect that feedback. Telling your audience that they got your message wrong shows disrespect for the audience, and a misunderstanding…

On the internet, where many thousands of people may read an article, it is not possible to make everyone understand your point as you intend it. This is especially true in the geek crowd where many of us insist on being pedantic, nitpicky jackasses who seem to willingly misread in order to find something to argue about.

Appending "of course there are exceptions" and "this is just a generality" and "your experience might differ" to every thing you write in an attempt to appease the nitpickers is a recipe for crappy writing. It's also a doomed effort, as the nitpickers will not only still nitpick your original points, they'll nitpick your concessions as well.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#117

Post by [deleted] »

synnik wrote: post #98
spolsky wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the way people on the Internet always find a way to misinterpret every post in the worst possible way, no matter how little sense they make. After reading a detailed article about how we spend over $5000 to make sure our developers are comfortable at work, do you really think that we then CHAIN them to an Aeron chair and REQUIRE that they use 30" monitors even if they prefer sitting cross-legged on the floor w…

I earned a degree in Fine Arts many years ago, and one of the hardest lessons to learn was to listen to your audience. The artist always had a message to send, and the audience usually got a different message. As the originator of any message, it is important to hear the feedback and respect that feedback. Telling your audience that they got your message wrong shows disrespect for the audience, and a misunderstanding…

[deleted]

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#118

Post by dools »

nkurz wrote: post #90

I find it disturbing that the author of this piece is having his on-topic responses censored: richarmstrong 5 hours ago | link [dead] You are not alone. I wrote that blog post while sitting on a Humanscale Freedom Saddle Seat stool ($300). I considered getting into it about Aerons, but thought better of it. Plenty of folks here dislike them, too, and have the choice of any chair they want us to order. richarmstrong 5…

The author of this piece is Rich Armstrong.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#119

Post by georgieporgie »

zr52002 wrote: post #31
msluyter wrote: post #12

Personally, I hate Aeron chairs with a passion. Obviously, the overall point here is to keep developers happy, so I'd presume FogCreek allows developers to opt for different/better chairs. I just don't understand why these are considered the pinnacle of comfort. Is it just me? Am I the only person who finds everything about them to hideously uncomfortable, from the jabby knife in the back lumbar support to the circul…

Try the Herman Miller Mirra, it's a lower chair in their line but the back structure makes it far superior to the Aeron.

I've read that the plastic chair back feels good at first, but gets uncomfortable. I seem to recall something about H.M. listing it as rated for three hours (?), making it a "task" chair rather than a "work" chair (if I understand the nomenclature). What's your experience been with it?

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#120

Post by psykotic »

rickmb wrote: post #84
nandemo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the main problem with laptops is the bad ergonomics.

An external keyboard, monitor and mouse. In which way does the ergonomics differ from a fixed workstation?

At that point you're left with an underpowered desktop experience. It obviously depends on what work you're doing, but I'm happy with my desktop machine with 12 cores and 24 gigabytes of memory and wouldn't switch to a laptop for anything in the world. I have my personal MacBook Pro I can use when working from home or when travelling but it's definitely a second-class experience. The downside is that a high-end dual-processor Xeon and a compatible motherboard costs a big chunk of Fog Creek's whole per-programmer equipment budget. If you're working on web apps, it probably wouldn't be worth it.
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