I think the monitors thing only matters if it's applied consistently, such as getting the biggest/latest/greatest when starting or when requested by the employee for a work reason. If the company doesn't give that to you in the first place but does when you are pressured to get a project done, that's not valuing you - that's desperation. The previous department head in my company has resorted to something similar and that was a complete turn-off as it was more about his ass being saved than caring for his people.
Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
41–50 of 250 posts
Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
#42Agree with the monitors. The email thing less so. A consistent email format, helps people remember and communicate better. Yes it has less of "YOUR" ego imprinted all over it, but surely there are a plenty of other ways to express yourself? Seems a bit petty, and creates admin more work for you sysadmin and his managers. "GodHatesFags@yourcompany.com". See, now you need a policy against that sort of unpleasantness. B…
> See, now you need a policy against that sort of unpleasantness.
No you don't. Choosing a name like "GodHatesFags' would be a firing offense at any law-abiding company in the US.
Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
#43Agree with the monitors. The email thing less so. A consistent email format, helps people remember and communicate better. Yes it has less of "YOUR" ego imprinted all over it, but surely there are a plenty of other ways to express yourself? Seems a bit petty, and creates admin more work for you sysadmin and his managers. "GodHatesFags@yourcompany.com". See, now you need a policy against that sort of unpleasantness. B…
Yeh I agree with that, I recently joined a new company and was a little disappointed that I wasnt asked what email I wanted 'dale@company.com' (dale is usually just rare enough that I can get firstnames in these situations) I got dharvey@company.com, and within a few days I realised that every time I needed to email someone I didnt know I never needed to go searching for their email address, I already knew it.
I usually set up "preferred address" (specified by the user, defaulting to firstname), then set up aliases for firstname, lastname, firstname.lastname, firstnamelastname, flastname, firstl.
The thing which annoys me is when I have firstname on a major public service, and other people have weird derivatives (like first1@ or firstl), and I get misdirected mail. On google I have firstname.lastname and an annoying realtor(tm) has firstname.b.lastname@ and I get huge amounts of useless mail.
Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
#44I personally like formulated emails. Maybe it's the fact that I really like consistency but it also makes emailing coworkers much easier. I don't want to have to go hunting through a directory to find their custom email.
Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
#45Of all the "big companies" I've seen, Facebook has the best internal IT. A lot of those policies were set by Yishan Wong; basically, if something can be done more efficiently by an individual employee than by using IT, the process is broken. (http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/) Facebook IT is basically a cache, but if something is faster to get from the Apple Store or whatever, that's how they did it -- not sure how it is done now.
It's hilarious how in big companies it takes weeks+ to get things done in IT which could be trivially accomplished with a credit card and web browser, for less money. Yes, there are security policies (which should be enforced in the infrastructure and by user policy, not by end user hardware alone, and it should be carrot vs. stick for common builds), but things like ordering keyboards and chairs shouldn't be bottlenecked.
Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
#46I see lots of different comments here about monitors. I think you're kind of missing the point. The point of the article is that engineers value being trusted and allowed to create the work environment that bests suits them. Whether you prefer 3 x 23" monitors or a single 30" monitor or even a 13" MacBook Air, you should be able to use the tools that make you most efficient (especially if you're being paid $120k+… wh…
This is exactly it. At my company, the cost of someone's engineering rig ends up being a rounding error. So the prevailing popular setup these days is a loaded Macbook Air or Pro (sometimes with Linux installed instead of OSX) and a 30" monitor. I think the only real restriction is that we do not run Windows, which would be an impedance mismatch and support hassle for what we do (massively parallel real-time analytical databases). Of course, this means people have to support their own system if they run some odd OS flavor but no one seems to mind. Whatever makes people happy.
For that matter, we also let everyone pick their own email address as well.
Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
#47I see lots of different comments here about monitors. I think you're kind of missing the point. The point of the article is that engineers value being trusted and allowed to create the work environment that bests suits them. Whether you prefer 3 x 23" monitors or a single 30" monitor or even a 13" MacBook Air, you should be able to use the tools that make you most efficient (especially if you're being paid $120k+… wh…
I agree. But as it so often happens, engineers love to talk about their personal preference of monitors. I imagine that's because there isn't another place where you can candidly discuss this topic
Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
#48it's hard for me to imagine that the first apple computer would be have been created if woz insisted on using a large cinema projector, much less two projectors
he hacked a regular tv instead, and that's how apple was born
Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
#49The email comment makes no sense. If someone is so adamant they need a specific email address, what else will they be unreasonable about? I'm more interested in whether the company does everything possible to make the office a place you never want to leave. The right equipment for every job should be default. Food follows closely after, followed by nontraditional work spaces. Some of my best work is done either stand…
Well, you shouldn't compromise on any of those if they're important to you. And if you don't care about your username, then great, one less thing to have to worry about.
But I think for anyone that does care about their username, it's a sign of respect when the company lets you choose it, and a sign -- not the end-all, but a sign -- of trouble ahead if they can't, and the OP's point is valid.
(The thing about large monitors isn't the end-all-be-all way of judging an employer either! These are just litmus tests that give a very quick way of judging whether they have an engineering-focused culture. I'd expect these factors to largely align, but hey, if there's somewhere that gets both these tests wrong but everything else right and is still an awesome place to be an engineer -- more power to them.)
Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.
#50This post confuses masterful flourishes with substance. And by the way, I don't like big monitors - I get too many degrees of freedom and find it too hard to focus. I have a 27" cinema that I never use with my 13" MBP.