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Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

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Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

#71

Post by pwthornton »

I'm shocked at how few companies let their knowledge workers pick out their machines. I've been using OS X since 10.1, but I keep going to companies that stick me with Windows, despite the fact that I'm probably 10-20 percent less productive (maybe more when you factor in all the OS X-only software that I'm used to). My last job eventually got me a Macbook Pro, and I'm trying to work on this new employer.

I was able to get a big external monitor but only after asking. It's not something that you're asked about when you start.

I don't work for a software or engineering company, and I enjoy the work, but I'd really like to be on a machine that really worked well for me and my needs. I really dislike Windows software in particular, and have found some real gems on OS X.

Too many companies try to nickle and dime IT spending. Saving a few hundred dollars or so on an employees machine isn't going to do you a lot of good if that means a lot of lost productivity.

The problem is that the people at the top often spend more time in meetings than working and only do email, PowerPoint, Word and Excel. They don't quite grasp how a better system could lead to more productivity, because their jobs aren't to produce things.

Of course, if you don't understand how your employees produce things, maybe you shouldn't be at the top.

Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

#72

Post by hollerith »

dangrossman wrote: post #61
joshu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you really want your raw email available publically?

I've been posting my e-mail addresses in plaintext all over the web for a good decade and a half. I still use those same addresses. I see no spam. Spam filters work. Why are people afraid of having their e-mail address out there without obfuscation?

Back when Usenet and mailing lists were the medium for most of the important conversations on the internet (that is, before 1994 or 1995) if you tried to post to Usenet or a mailing list with an obfuscated email address, people would complain (in replies to your post) if the admins running Usenet or the mailing list let your post through at all.

Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

#73

Post by Jun8 »

rdl wrote: post #45

Of 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…

Thanks for the link, it has great comments, but for me the most important was: "every modern IT organization is actively destroying value in their company", which in the Big Co I work is totally true.

Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

#76

Post by joshu »

dangrossman wrote: post #61
joshu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you really want your raw email available publically?

I've been posting my e-mail addresses in plaintext all over the web for a good decade and a half. I still use those same addresses. I see no spam. Spam filters work. Why are people afraid of having their e-mail address out there without obfuscation?

I get a boatload of spam daily. On gmail.

Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

#77

Post by stch »

fishtoaster wrote: post #59
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right with you on things that impact productivity, e.g. monitors, chairs, etc., but coming from finance I'm impressed by how Silicon Valley will take huge pay cuts for little things like catered food, pinball machines, or hammocks. I didn't realise it until a VC (not going to name them, but a big one) showed me a graph during his pitch of how much less his start-ups pay in cash + equity versus similar companies for "…

Because I spend at least 8 hours of every weekday- often 60% of my waking day (more if you skip commuting/eating/etc). Salary generally improves my life outside of work, but niceties at the office improve the chunk of my life that money can't. A $900 chair that lasts for 5 years is negligible next to my salary in terms of actual cost to the company, but it huge in terms of the impact on my life.

So take the higher salary and buy yourself a $900 chair for work?

Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

#78

Post by jedberg »

raldi wrote: post #66
crazygringo wrote: post #8

The monitors, I totally understand and agree with. That's about actual productivity. But choosing your own e-mail address? There must be a thousand little details like that in my life, every day, that I have no control over, like the color of my desk, or the sound of a coworker's voice. By all means, try to find a workplace that suits you the best, but if a seemingly tiny detail like that bothers you so much, unless…

May I ask how many letters there are in your last name? Mine has nine letters, and it killed me to work somewhere that my username was "mschiral" and I had to type most of it but then stop two letters early . It's like Shave and a Haircut without the "two bits".

> It's like Shave and a Haircut without the "two bits".

This is what makes me miss working at reddit.

Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

#79

Post by bmj »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #62
jclulow wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be important to you, but I don't think the article is saying that it has to be. I think it's a good yardstick, though, for taking the 'temperature' of the sorts of policies and the kind of work environment you're about to be standing in if you decide to take a job. As someone recently said to me when I asked if their e-mail address was "firstname.lastname@" -- "Please, we're still a startup; firstname@ i…

In some large Silicon Valley companies, "firstname@company.com" is a badge of honor because it indicates that you were an employee back when the company was small. New employees don't receive that option at some point.

Yep, that's how it works with my employer. Typically, your email address and network ID are setup prior to your first day, which doesn't bother me much since what I got matches what I'm used to using.

Re: Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

#80

Post by JumpCrisscross »

fishtoaster wrote: post #59
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right with you on things that impact productivity, e.g. monitors, chairs, etc., but coming from finance I'm impressed by how Silicon Valley will take huge pay cuts for little things like catered food, pinball machines, or hammocks. I didn't realise it until a VC (not going to name them, but a big one) showed me a graph during his pitch of how much less his start-ups pay in cash + equity versus similar companies for "…

Because I spend at least 8 hours of every weekday- often 60% of my waking day (more if you skip commuting/eating/etc). Salary generally improves my life outside of work, but niceties at the office improve the chunk of my life that money can't. A $900 chair that lasts for 5 years is negligible next to my salary in terms of actual cost to the company, but it huge in terms of the impact on my life.

They're not mutually exclusive. The pay difference is often substantially more than the cost of the benefits disbursed, i.e. if salaries were normalised you could more than buy all the benefits on your own. Salary can improve your life at work as well, e.g. I got sick of waiting for my seventh monitor and so just bought one while procurement did its 6 days for a line of code routine.
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