5 ms·

It seems pretty standard to me. Typical open-office setup, with one 24" screen and $5 keyboard and mouse that come with the PC, and a basic 10-years-old office

It seems pretty standard to me. Typical open-office setup, with one 24" screen and $5 keyboard and mouse that come with the PC, and a basic 10-years-old office chair. I've seen quite a few mid to large size industrial/engineering companies and it's a standard setup. Actually the ones having a 24" screen are lucky, most people get a 20". That's why people commonly bring their personal headphones, keyboard and mouse. And sometimes their own larger screen even.

bluedino 6y ago
I’ve brought my own SSD and RAM to jobs that give you a bog-standard issue PC. Shhh.
- sharken 6y ago
  This is the part that I don’t get, why must it be so hard to get proper tools for the job. Having a fast NVMe disk, 16/32 GB of ram and a current generation (or previous generation) CPU should be the standard for a developer. Apart from that there is the crappy office keyboard, mouse and all too small mousepad. Fortunately those things can be replaced without much issue.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Because many companies are run with a mix of cost and profit centers. If you run IT as a cost-center and allow bean-counters to “optimize” things, you can easily get outcomes like that. Making a computer faster for a worker who isn’t on the critical path and who is almost never waiting on their computer doesn’t make sense. Most of accounting falls into one or both of those tests, so they could rightly decide to optimize for cost. They can then wrongly conclude that they’ve already solved that question universally and apply that solution to devs. Even a lot of IT employees don’t care or don’t know. Some want to just order something that users won’t revolt over and make the deployment and warranty support a first consideration.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
user5994461 6y ago
I don't buy it. Even when I was working in countryside Europe a decade ago we had better equipment than that and often double display (17" or 19" at the time). Some of the companies even had personal offices or small offices for 1-3 people. I don't doubt that there are some shitty companies out there that can't get an office chair and a display from this decade, but it's far from the norm.
- dagw 6y ago
  Maybe things have gotten better but I worked at a couple of large engineering companies in London 5-10 years ago and cramped, shitty, open plan offices with cheap ancient hardware was very much the norm at every place I worked at and visited. Coming from offices in Norway and Sweden I was shocked at how terrible their working conditions where.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    Incidentally I've worked in London for the past few years, in a bank. Every desk in the building is equipped with aeron chair and multiple monitors. Yes every single one in the whole skyscraper (10 000 employees). That includes multiple floors full of developers. On our floor the entire department had quadruple monitors (24" IPS Dell UltraSharp monitors if you're interested). Allegedly we're privileged because the norm is only 3 monitors for developers, the story goes that when the department was opened almost 20 years ago the head decided that developers would get proper equipment or the department wouldn't be opened. Back to Dell, many companies are simply procuring equipment from Dell. The most classic display they sell is the Dell UltraSharp 24" IPS display, which is really good and really affordable. London is the biggest tech hub in Europe with the most tech companies, quite of few of which are very serious about equipment because tech culture. I've not seen a company that didn't have dual displays since I moved here. I can't imagine a company that can't buy a display if you tell them what do buy. I don't want to jump into "just leave your company" because it's a bad HN trope, especially in COVID times, but come on, if your company can't procure a display/chair you can find a better company.
    - 6y ago

bluedino 6y ago

I’ve brought my own SSD and RAM to jobs that give you a bog-standard issue PC. Shhh.

sharken 6y ago
This is the part that I don’t get, why must it be so hard to get proper tools for the job. Having a fast NVMe disk, 16/32 GB of ram and a current generation (or previous generation) CPU should be the standard for a developer. Apart from that there is the crappy office keyboard, mouse and all too small mousepad. Fortunately those things can be replaced without much issue.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Because many companies are run with a mix of cost and profit centers. If you run IT as a cost-center and allow bean-counters to “optimize” things, you can easily get outcomes like that. Making a computer faster for a worker who isn’t on the critical path and who is almost never waiting on their computer doesn’t make sense. Most of accounting falls into one or both of those tests, so they could rightly decide to optimize for cost. They can then wrongly conclude that they’ve already solved that question universally and apply that solution to devs. Even a lot of IT employees don’t care or don’t know. Some want to just order something that users won’t revolt over and make the deployment and warranty support a first consideration.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

user5994461 6y ago

I don't buy it. Even when I was working in countryside Europe a decade ago we had better equipment than that and often double display (17" or 19" at the time). Some of the companies even had personal offices or small offices for 1-3 people. I don't doubt that there are some shitty companies out there that can't get an office chair and a display from this decade, but it's far from the norm.

dagw 6y ago
Maybe things have gotten better but I worked at a couple of large engineering companies in London 5-10 years ago and cramped, shitty, open plan offices with cheap ancient hardware was very much the norm at every place I worked at and visited. Coming from offices in Norway and Sweden I was shocked at how terrible their working conditions where.
- user5994461 6y ago
  Incidentally I've worked in London for the past few years, in a bank. Every desk in the building is equipped with aeron chair and multiple monitors. Yes every single one in the whole skyscraper (10 000 employees). That includes multiple floors full of developers. On our floor the entire department had quadruple monitors (24" IPS Dell UltraSharp monitors if you're interested). Allegedly we're privileged because the norm is only 3 monitors for developers, the story goes that when the department was opened almost 20 years ago the head decided that developers would get proper equipment or the department wouldn't be opened. Back to Dell, many companies are simply procuring equipment from Dell. The most classic display they sell is the Dell UltraSharp 24" IPS display, which is really good and really affordable. London is the biggest tech hub in Europe with the most tech companies, quite of few of which are very serious about equipment because tech culture. I've not seen a company that didn't have dual displays since I moved here. I can't imagine a company that can't buy a display if you tell them what do buy. I don't want to jump into "just leave your company" because it's a bad HN trope, especially in COVID times, but come on, if your company can't procure a display/chair you can find a better company.
  - 6y ago