Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Quit? Because the other company has bigger monitors.

sef.kloninger.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 250 posts

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

#151

Post by goblin89 »

nirvana wrote: post #107
steve8918 wrote: post #84

Valuing an employee's time is definitely something that should be considered. But even taken a few steps further than "I need another monitor to increase productivity", and you're floating dangerously close to self-entitlement, and simple, pathetic whining. At Yahoo, I distinctly remember a thread on devel-random where one employee, in a single post, complained about things like how ugly the color scheme of the walls…

There seems to be a clear dividing line. On one hand you have things that benefit productivity-- like monitors and good chairs and a decent work environment. On the other hand you have convenience petty complaints like the flies in the parking lot or too many floors in the buildings. Good management should be able to tell the difference between the two and at least score well on the productivity relevant ones. In my…

To tell the difference between the two is the problem. An understanding of decent work environment varies from person to person. Is it better to have small or large offices? I'd say the larger the better, having working people around helps me concentrate. Does coffee benefit productivity? I'd say it certainly does not (contrast to a good nap at the right moment), and probably isn't very good for health. Now, if I'm a manager, do I put all employees in large spaces without a coffee machine around? Probably a bad idea.

IMO it's more important for the management to recognize and fulfill employee's real needs. Give people what they need before they ask for it. Because some would ask for wrong things (e.g., not knowing that the company can provide a better solution to their problem), and others will never ask for anything, continuing to suffer in silence.

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

#152

Post by illumen »

dsirijus wrote: post #139
mh- wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

congrats, you found the most effective way to ensure that you only hire candidates who couldn't get on at more enjoyable places to work.

No, I attract hard working, no nonsense people who take joy in getting things done with least amount of friction, and who don't need masseuse to write code.

Smart working people can just go elsewhere. The hardworking people can make use of recycled computers scavenged off the street. If you can't wait 10 minutes for the test suite to run, things to compile or files to finish transferring - then you're just a wining bitch. Using old hard drives is fine, an SSD will just make the work easier. Work should be hard, and painful - otherwise it's just play. Why would you want to see multiple views of your data, when you can just flip between windows all the time and scroll a lot?

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

#154

Post by mattmanser »

IgorPartola wrote: post #148
nirvana wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big monitors, small offices. Give me a room where I can close the door. I'll share it with one other person, but it can't be a tight fit. If you expect me to work while you're interrupting me every 5 minutes, then you don't really expect me to be productive. Also good- conference rooms for ad hoc meetings. (Maybe for the people who like to work together in a room they can take over a conference room or whatever.... m…

I don't get this new obsession with "let's just put everyone in a giant room so they can collaborate". I think it's a cop-out to not get bigger/better laid out offices. Developers need to write code either alone or in pairs. Large places breed interruptions, killing productivity. All these experimental ideas with unassigned offices where anyone uses them when they need to don't work either because people will simply…

What's new about it? It's rare these days to get your own office for any job. Open plan somehow took over all the workplaces to all our detriment.

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

#155

Post by [deleted] »

steve8918 wrote: post #84

Valuing an employee's time is definitely something that should be considered. But even taken a few steps further than "I need another monitor to increase productivity", and you're floating dangerously close to self-entitlement, and simple, pathetic whining. At Yahoo, I distinctly remember a thread on devel-random where one employee, in a single post, complained about things like how ugly the color scheme of the walls…

[deleted]

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

#156

Post by vidarh »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #153

2 large monitors? really ? How very 2004, I thought all the rockstar programmers these days did everything from starbucks on an 11" Macbook air or through an SSH session from their iPad!

Except at Github, apparently: http://instagr.am/p/Kt05fpp2OL/

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

#157

Post by mgcross »

mattdeboard wrote: post #17
kprobst wrote: post #2

Strictly speaking, I would leave for two monitors rather than a big one. Productivity-wise I find that makes all the difference. But the point about the engineering culture is certainly valid.

I'm just the opposite. I was offered a couple of 20" monitors but asked for a huge monitor. Do not regret it.

Count me in too. I'm just not a fan of tennis. One 2560x1600 monitor feels much more fluid than tracking my head across two monitors that amount to a 16:5 screen with 3" of deadspace (bezels) running down the middle.

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

#158

Post by vonmoltke »

rmc wrote: post #144
benihana wrote: post #58

Want to know if a company has good engineering culture? Look up the company's engineers' facebook and twitter feeds and see what they're saying. Engineers who are happy tell everyone about it. Big monitors and choosing your email addresses are great; for a couple of weeks. Then after the big monitor honeymoon phase is over and the daily slog begins, the engineers realize that they have a big monitor that buries them…

The theory behind "2 monitors" is that companies that allow 2 monitors aren't the sort of places which have lots of soul crushing work. It's a proxy for a good company.

Not a very good theory, because I recently left a place with lots of soul-crushing work but where people in the software functional all had two monitors.

I was working mostly as a software engineer, but was actually categorized as a systems engineer; I did not have two monitors. They had people in the electrical and test orgs working effectively as software engineers also, and few of them had two. This (dys)functional organization was not at all apparent to an outside observer, no matter how much research they did, without someone on the inside.

So, while I would certainly be more favorably inclined towards a company that promised two monitors, choice of dev box, or other things, I would not use such things as a primary or secondary filter on where I want to work.

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

#159

Post by baggachipz »

benihana wrote: post #58

Want to know if a company has good engineering culture? Look up the company's engineers' facebook and twitter feeds and see what they're saying. Engineers who are happy tell everyone about it. Big monitors and choosing your email addresses are great; for a couple of weeks. Then after the big monitor honeymoon phase is over and the daily slog begins, the engineers realize that they have a big monitor that buries them…

Absolutely true. There is a company here in Charlotte, NC (any dev in Charlotte will know who this is) who puts all the toys on display to attract employees: flat screens on the wall, all the monitors on your desk you can handle, etc. etc. The actual company, though, is a soul-crushing hell hole with more churn than an amish dairy farm. That place is pure evil.
Post reply on HN