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The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One
- Jem 15y agoI had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))
- gte910h 15y agoSitting for a very long time is bad for you. It causes increased chance of death, causes your back to hurt, makes you fatter, and lets your energy level go down after hours of doing it. It's not so much the "coding" part as the "sitting at a desk for 10+ hours a day" part that makes standing desks so attractive to programmers. http://pressroom.cancer.org/index.php?s=43&item=257 http://pressroom.cancer.org/index.php?s=43&item=257 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175656.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175656.php
- Jem 15y agoI know that sitting is bad for you, I just couldn't imagine people standing all day instead. TBH after running around at home after my toddler I enjoy going to work to sit on my butt, heh :)
- jseliger 15y agoI suspect most standers 1) ease into it and 2) get adjustable desks precisely to avoid standing literally all day.
- damoncali 15y agoDo people really sit for 10 hours? I can't stop myself from getting up to walk around every half hour or so.
- gte910h 15y agoYou can sit for 10+ hours and still walk around a bit. It's a longer day, mind you, but it works. I'm constantly pacing on the phone for instance.
- joshuacc 15y agoI haven't done it a lot, but I like to pace when I'm thinking about a hard problem. Having my computer at standing height means I can go straight from thinking through the problem to coding the solution without the attention shift of settling back down to a sitting desk. Reportedly, there are also health benefits to standing rather than sitting.
- Revisor 15y agoThere is a lot of discussions about this on Hacker News and generally people who work standing are happy about it. See eg http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2828948 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2828948 For more http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=standing+desk&sortby=points+desc http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=sta...
- gte910h 15y agoI tried to do it exclusively at one place. Did not work out as well, but once I got a stool could vary the amount I did, that worked out well.
- Jem 15y agoAha, thank you! :)
- T-hawk 15y agoJust don't confuse the correlation and causation. Those who stand do so because they like it. It doesn't automatically mean that everyone who tries standing likes it.
- jnoller 15y agoHere's a write up I did, that includes more links on why I switched to it: http://jessenoller.com/2011/04/25/switching-to-a-standing-desk-thoughts/ http://jessenoller.com/2011/04/25/switching-to-a-standing-de...
- xutopia 15y agoI switched to a sit-to-stand desk for comfort. Buttocks and legs would get sore if I sat too long a day. I only learned about it being healthier for you after I started using my desk. I alternate every hour or so for an hour.
- bmccormack 15y agoI started standing about 2 months ago, mostly for the supposed health benefits, and really like it. The anti-fatigue mat and adjustable desks really helped me get going. I started one week at 2 hours of standing a day, then 3 hours the next, etc., up until I was standing all day long. I don't know that I necessarily code better when I'm standing, but overall I prefer it to sitting.
- SkyMarshal 15y agoWhen I worked at bigcorp, inc., I used to always prefer going down to the datacenter and working on my projects at one of terminals in the racks, standing of course. No cubicle distractions, no noise except the constant hum and the occasional greybeard shuffling by, standing kept the blood flowing better, and all of it helped me get into and stay in flow better.
- seanalltogether 15y agoHow many dev shops still give everyone workstations? Our company is entirely on laptops and I don't know a single person here that wants a workstation.
- MrFoof 15y agoDepends on the shop, and the needs of that shop. If your development necessitates that you run one or more virtual machines on a consistent basis, the 8GB memory limitation of most laptops bites your hand almost immediately. If you work on VLDBs, the lack of storage and I/O bites your hand almost immediately. If your developers largely don't need to be mobile, you're paying a significant premium for mobility and sacrificing power when those sacrifices aren't necessary. If you develop games or iPad applications, the lack of display real estate annoys the crap out of you almost immediately. Different strokes for different folks.
- kenjackson 15y agoI can't do serious dev work on a laptop. Too underpowered. Everyone here gets a laptop, but it's for working in bed, or on the road, at your child's birth, etc... But for day to day dev work, a high-end workstation is a fair bit more productive. At least for the type of dev work we do.
- pasbesoin 15y agoWaiting for the next post: Next: the real cost of private offices. You should include the cost of effective insulation/sound-proofing. (I've seen/heard it done reasonably well with expanding foam during wall construction.) P.S. Hey, folks, the original author, Rich Armstrong (richarmstrong), actually replied in a response this comment, but you killed it off -- it's dead, now. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2868730 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2868730 Maybe a mod could unkill it? Seems unfair; it was a perfectly legitimate response. I'll copy/paste it (presuming permission): I'd love to do that, but our offices are glass-doored, so not sound-proofed, though that's a good idea.
- richarmstrong 15y agoI'd love to do that, but our offices are glass-doored, so not sound-proofed, though that's a good idea.
- potatolicious 15y agoSometimes I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't like private offices. It just seems like a separation between myself and the rest of the team. I actually like open seating arrangements. When I need some serious concentration and can tolerate no distractions, a solid pair of noise-canceling headphones does the trick.
- corin_ 15y agoPersonally I love them - we're a small company, only six of us in the office (a few others dotted around elsewhere), and private rooms are great. Most of the time we leave our doors open and can chat from the hall, or shout to each other - but even then, it's nice having a bit more personal space than if they were in the same room. We work in publishing and marketing though, so essentially we work on different things except when two or more of us come together on a specific topic, at which point we can either sit in one person's office or go into the conference room. Maybe we would feel differently if we were all developers and therefore had a different style of working together?
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- msluyter 15y agoPersonally, 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 circulation killing front steel bar that makes it impossible to perch on the edge if you so desire? </rant>
- richarmstrong 15y agoYou 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.
- corin_ 15y agoIt definitely isn't just you - we have one in our office, and it's used by the newest hire (who joined 2 months ago) because nobody else wanted to use it, so it was the spare chair when he arrived.
- helwr 15y agoJeff Atwood on chairs: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/07/investing-in-a-quality-programming-chair.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/07/investing-in-a-qual...
- zr52002 15y agoTry the Herman Miller Mirra, it's a lower chair in their line but the back structure makes it far superior to the Aeron.
- georgieporgie 15y agoI'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?
- ikarous 15y agoI wish my company had similar sentiments. I sit in a darkened corner with the lights turned off. The only thing I can see is an unilluminated beige wall. It's very depressing. I brought in my own chair (a used Steelcase Leap) and my own keyboard. That helped a lot. Even so, I still have to get up frequently throughout the day so that I don't get back or shoulder pain. When I do, I get suspicious looks from folks who think I'm not working hard enough. The irony is that I work at home on my own time because I'm more productive there.
- stewiecat 15y agoThe only thing I work on that my job provided is the laptop, which they purchased for me after realizing my own was a bit too old. External monitor, mouse, keyboard, stand, etc. all came from home.
- acangiano 15y agoI expressed similar thoughts in the past: http://programmingzen.com/2010/12/28/give-your-programmers-professional-tools/ http://programmingzen.com/2010/12/28/give-your-programmers-p... It just doesn't make sense to cheap out on these things. If you do because you can't afford it for every developer, then you don't have enough money to employ that many developers.
- mattdeboard 15y agoWait, 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 gear for a dev should be a sunk cost isn't fair or realistic. Especially when the business has other employees who don't touch emacs or eclipse but still sit at a desk all day working on a computer. )
- angelbob 15y agoProbably 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).
- jackowayed 15y agoHow 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.
- wheels 15y agoWhat I always find a little bit suspect about these posts – especially from FogCreek – is that it's really, "The Price of Dev Happiness As Long As You Define Happiness The Way Your Boss (Me) Does". I prefer sitting cross-legged with a 13" laptop on a mat on the floor. I've had most of the things mentioned in the article and prefer my mat on the floor, thank you very much. But I'm just a random example. More of what I'm getting at is that individual work preferences and your own brand of "happiness" goes beyond choosing your own keyboard. There's always something a bit smug and one-size-fits-all about the FogCreek posts about their work environment (which honestly sounds like it'd make me go absolutely bonkers).
- Goladus 15y agoI generally agree, but it's a lot easier on the dev to have this default, $5,000 workstation package with components that you can decline than it is for the default to be scrounged up from whatever is lying around and you have to negotiate for extras.
- domador 15y agoI think the list is more of a likely upper-bound to fully outfit a developer's environment. The message seems to be "bosses: it's not that expensive to fully outfit your developers (don't be cheapskates)" instead of "potential FogCreek employees: this is what our cookie cutter looks like (and we'll also do corporate calisthenics every morning)". It's wonderful that you are so easy to please, though, wheels. Yes, work preferences vary from person to person, but there are likely some common themes among people.
- spolsky 15y agoI 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 with a 13" laptop? OK, maybe you believe that. We have bought beanbags and those big bouncy balls for people. We have bought Embody chairs for the rare person who doesn't like a (properly fitted) Aeron chair. If anyone wanted a 13" laptop instead of a 30" monitor, you'd say the word and in 5 minutes you'd have a 13" laptop. So, this impression you have of Fog Creek as a veal farm with identical programmers all being chained to their identical, Joel-Spolsky-Favored desks is entirely in your own imagination. It sort of reminds me of when I blogged about how we have free lunch and a bunch of people whined about how they don't like to eat with their co-workers. That's nice, some people don't, and that's fine. I never said that the free lunch was mandatory. It's almost bizarre to assume that a company that bends over backwards to make people happy and productive at work is actually some kind of evil plot that would "make you go absolutely bonkers."
- Void_ 15y agoClean desk. Priceless.
- BasDirks 15y agoThe price of Hacker happiness: an old calculator or other programmable device.
- synnik 15y agoOne size does not fit all. I prefer a 99 dollar ergonomic chair, as sitting and standing both exacerbate my bad hips. I prefer 3 22" monitors at half the cost of a 30". I prefer total resolution available, not size of the monitor. I just saved him $1500 bucks, and I'm happier than I would be if I was forced into their setup.
- gte910h 15y agoI'm sure he'd be happy to buy that as well. Edit: He honestly says that elsewhere in the replies (user spolsky).
- domador 15y agoPersonally, I'd add a walking treadmill to this list. It could double the total cost, though (depending on the model, of course).
- JimmyL 15y agoAn old company of mine had Nightingale CXOs (http://www.nightingalechairs.com/cxo_home.html http://www.nightingalechairs.com/cxo_home.html) as the standard issue developer chair. I remember the first few days I was there, not really getting it - the thing is this complex-looking chair that you'd think would be infinitely comfortable, and mine...wasn't. And then around day three, just as I was finishing all my HR stuff and the get-to-know-you tours (and starting on my first project), one more person came around and introduced themselves as the local ergonomics advisor, and explained that they were here to fit my chair. I then had to watch the Flash movie on how to adjust my chair, and play with the little 3D rendering of it (during which time, the visitor was watching how I moved). After ten minutes of this they stopped me, and proceeded to adjust five or six settings on the chair (a few angles, the arm width, the pan distance, etc.). Upon sitting down again, it was like I was sitting on a cloud, and I understood what you get with a thousand-dollar office chair. In an ideal world, it wouldn't take someone who took a course in chair-adjustment (they had a rep come in for two days to teach the advisors how to perfectly fit the chair to the desk and person) - but damn, does the system work well.
- gte910h 15y agoI found the aeron's nothing that complicated to adjust properly, but man, was that stuff worth it.
- jseliger 15y agoI'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.
- gte910h 15y agoI don't mean to come off wrong, but did you read the actual manual? Most HM chairs have a nice procedure to adjust them.
- clistctrl 15y ago
- krschultz 15y agoThe real piece of math missing from this is the cost of the real estate. I'd take a cheap chair and desk in NYC over a $1000 chair at a $1500 desk in the suburbs. The surroundings matter as much as the inside of the office. But a lot of companies move to the suburbs because rent becomes prohibitive on a large scale.
- grannyg00se 15y agoThat's all very nice, but I'd rather just stay home. I get to keep using my own highly personalized office space and avoid commuting. Employer get to save $5000 and reduce office space requirements.
- edw519 15y ago======================== | Interesting | Boring | | Work | Work | ================================== | Nice || Heaven | Read | | Office || | HN. | |--------||-------------+--------| | Bad || No one | Kill | | Office || cares. | me. | ==================================
- patrickyeon 15y agoJoel Spolsky's argument for going all out and treating their devs well is that interesting work and good pay might get them the top 1% devs, but adding a nice workplace gives them access to the top 0.1%. It is, of course, an optimization that can only really be applied once you've got "interesting work" and "competitive pay" locked down.
- gte910h 15y agoI disagree. I've had jobs where I can't think because the building is too hot, even though the work was interesting, etc. Neither of these lines are binary either. I've been on projects which were kinda, but not really interesting, etc. Lastly, your health makes that a much bigger deal. Your back starts hurting, you want a solution, which may entail a job change.
- mgkimsal 15y agotoo hot? I wouldv'e committed a small crime for heat. I came in to my office in July 2007 and it was 62f. It warmed up to about 66 after I ran some space heaters. (this was in the US, not the southern hemisphere!) :)
- gte910h 15y agoYou can locally heat up a cube. There isn't really an effective cooling substitute that's localized. I would have killed for 62F. My house is 68F year round (I work at home now). (My bedroom is probably 64-66 or so).
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- tedkalaw 15y agoI wonder how the AirTouch desks compare to the GeekDesk. I'm really interested in trying out the standing/sitting thing, and those two seem to be the really big ones. Does anyone have any experience with either of them?
- pedoh 15y agoThe big takeaway for me from this article is "treat your employees well". It may be that some devs prefer sitting in a beanbag chair with a 13" laptop. Do you think Fog Creek is going to say no? Heck no. They're going to do whatever it takes to keep your developers (and all employees) happy. We are at work a huge percentage of our lives. Not being happy at work is depressing, particularly when the employing company can take steps like this to make the environment welcoming and positive. I think that from an employer perspective, sometimes it's the "little" things that pile up and really make a difference. For example, how much does having bagels, cream cheese, coffee, and fresh fruit available every morning really cost a company? In the grand scheme of things, probably not very much. But for those people who need something to kickstart their day, offering this sort of freebie is going to make them happy. In my opinion, the desk setup as described above would make me FAR happier than free breakfast. Knowing that a company does this for their employees would certainly push that company to the top of the list of companies to work for.
- eterps 15y agoSo, how does the airtouch cope with the cables to your workstation? Or is it intended to be used with laptops?
- tghw 15y agoI leave my tower on the floor next to the desk and all of the cables are long enough to reach even when it's at standing height. There is a tray below the back edge of the desk that you can rest smaller objects on, like a USB hub. I believe they also make a bracket that attaches to the underside of the desk that can hold your tower, if you need.
- synack 15y agoAll I really need to be happy is a comfy couch or hammock and a Macbook. The rest is superfluous.
- nkurz 15y agoI 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 hours ago | link [dead] I'd love to do that, but our offices are glass-doored, so not sound-proofed, though that's a good idea. His submissions are both dead as well: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=richarmstrong http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=richarmstrong What's happening here?
- iandanforth 15y agoThe cost of the workstation should be doubled when calculating the cost over 5 years. I don't know anyone happily working on a 5 year old box. 2.5, sure, but not 5.
- mathattack 15y agoThere 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.
- jseliger 15y agoOne question to the writer, if you happen to be reading this: Why "AirTouch Adjustable sit/stand desk and non-moving side desk – $1738 from Steelcase" instead of Series 7 desks, which I think get mentioned elsewhere on your blog or Joel on Software? And do those desks have memory, so you can move it from one position (seating) to another (standing) consistently?
- rdl 15y agoI wish there were an adjustable desk with a glass top; I think the geekdesk kits might work with the ikea glass tops, but I'm not sure.
- blago 15y agoOr spend the $6,174.00 for: Flight to Thailand: $2000 Rent a beach house: $3500 Rent a motorcycle: $674 eat, swim, snorkel ≈ $0 and work from a tropical paradise for 4 months. Keep your toys for the kids. I'll go get an oil massage.
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- paganel 15y agoI don't know if anyone mentioned this yet (I haven't read through all the comments), but having the headquarters located somewhere in an interesting area (preferable downtown, and I don't mean the downtown of a dying city like Detroit) and allowing your employees to take their 45min-1h lunch break where-ever they want (in this way taking full advantage of the cafes/restaurants/beautiful buildings supposedly surrounding their work-place) it's also a very nice thing to have. For me, at least, it allows me to clear my head and come back fresh to my desk full of new ideas and joie de vivre. I think what companies like Google end up doing, by keeping their employees locked-up in beautiful golden cages even during launch-breaks is detrimental in the long run.
- AhtiK 15y agoInteresting that the mouse is considered as something as "up to $70". After you get used to high-dpi gaming mouse you can't even work properly with <$100 models. Just like moving to SSD felt like a revolution, for me moving up to a gaming grade mouse has been.. irreplaceable. The precision and speed for any mouse-oriented task saves quite some time and especially gives a great feeling of having better contact with the screen. Highly reccommended. It takes a few days to get used to moving your hand a lot less than before but think how much less strain! Current setup: Logitech G9X and Razer exactmat. Previous mouse was Razer Lachesis but ergonomically it was somewhat crap.
- joshuacc 15y agoBased on your recommendation, I think I may have to try a gaming mouse. However, the model you mentioned is currently listed as $71.99 on Amazon. Were you thinking of a different model, or have prices just dropped since you bought it?
- mleonhard 15y agoI use an Evoluent Vertical Mouse, which is about $85. I will never go back to normal wrist-twist mice. It's also good to have a thin and large mouse pad, like the SteelSeries QcK.
- devicenull 15y agoI currently use the Logitech MX518... I've had one for so long that the paint has started to wear off it. Still works perfectly though.
- kozo 15y agowhat i cant understand in my workplace is that the admin dept has this very nice comfy chairs and yet the IT dept has this very old non-ergonomic chair that you would buy a backrest for it.