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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 produ

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 were, the fact that buildings in Mercado had too many floors, so when he left work, he has to stop at all the floors, and that the parking lot had flies that would get stuck in his hair gel. He called Yahoo the "worst place in the world to work at" because of this. It was incredibly sickening how ridiculous the email was. The employer-employee relationship is a balance. If it swings too far in one direction where the employees get their ass kissed every day, then you breed self-entitled spoiled brats that are intolerable to work with. If it swings too far towards the employer, you get a dictatorship. I've worked in both environments, and neither of them are any good. But to quit because you think that monitors are a litmus test about the engineering culture is ridiculous and is more of a reflection on you than the engineering culture. If you have a problem, solve it like an adult. It sounds like the employee didn't even mention it to his boss until he left. (It also sounds like the boss didn't bother asking the employee at their 1:1's about what they thought needed changing, or maybe he was just unapproachable.) Maybe it was just an oversight, maybe they didn't have the money, who knows. Life in general is a lot easier if you're flexible and less of a prima donna and go with the flow. To keep quibbling over the minutiae and extrapolate that to mean something more than it is, to me, is more whining than anything else.

eshvk 14y ago
I am not so sure that the situation is as simple as that. My perception is that these tiny issues are usually symptoms of an underlying reason why there is no longer (if there ever was) a fit between the company and a person. I think what happens is that once a person consciously or not realizes that this underlying reason has come up, all these tiny things start becoming more and more irritating, until the person explodes.
gaius 14y ago
you're floating dangerously close to self-entitlement, and simple, pathetic whining Developers acting like this, and getting away with it, should ring the bubble alarm bells. It's how it was in the 90s too.
- mh- 14y ago
  this developer was at Yahoo, which burst long ago.
- brown9-2 14y ago
  There have been entitled office workers for a very long time, regardless of how well the office might be doing.
nirvana 14y ago
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 career I've been regularly surprised just how penny wise and pound foolish management can be in this regard.
- goblin89 14y ago
  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.
  - jwoah12 14y ago
    > 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. I know this isn't the point of your comment, but I had to point out this recent study that begs to differ. http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/17/coffee-drink-more-live-longer/ http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/17/coffee-drink-more-live...
    - Drbble 14y ago
      Well it suggests? That study had minimal controls for correlating factors, only alcohol and red meat, nothing about careers and lifestyles that correlate to coffee consumption. Less likely to die from "accidents" is an especially suspicious measurement.
MarkPNeyer 14y ago
i bet you're a blast to work with.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
knewter 14y ago
> It also sounds like the boss didn't bother asking the employee at their 1:1's about what they thought needed changing, or maybe he was just unapproachable. I'm an owner / CTO of a consultancy, and this point always frustrates me. We are only 12 or so employees, and we're all very comfortable with one another (we'll have game nights at the office, watch the GSL, etc). Still, when me and my partner have a 1:1 or talk to the employees, about 80% of them will not tell us their concerns or things they need. It's a huge problem for us - we are very interested in spending our money on benefits, etc. that people care about, rather than just guessing, but it's virtually impossible to do this. Story time: We had a designer leave recently (I <3'd him, awesome guy) to go work somewhere else, and a huge part of his decision, in the exit interview, was about a difference in health insurance between the two places. We had met with him 2 months prior EXPLICITLY to ask him (and other employees) if they wanted us to pursue any changes to health insurance, and were universally told that our existing benefits in that regard were fine. We have since modified our health insurance to be just fantastically good, because apparently this was a concern (and we've had to forego a few other things in order to be able to afford it). But the point is, this is a guy that I was friends with, and he just would not tell me what weight to give the health insurance benefit vector. It's maddening because I'm a very data-driven guy, and for whatever reason I can't get good data on employee concerns to save my life. Does anyone have any pointers here?
- huhtenberg 14y ago
  Sounds like your guy left because he wanted to leave, and the insurance was a made-up excuse.
  - dlss 14y ago
    Oh, I see. People just randomly leave. Of course! No need to look further, nothing that could have been done. That's a big load off my mind. Thanks for pointing this out :)
    - reinhardt 14y ago
      Not sure why this sounds so incredulous. I have left (or even better, been laid off and happy to collect severance) more than once. It's not strictly "random" of course, it usually comes down to boredom and need for change but the bottom line is that indeed nothing could have been done.
joshu 14y ago
Mercado -> Mission College? You have to admit the color scheme was really bad. And weren't there giant freaky spiders infesting the main campus? My main memory of the main campus was (aside from the depressed-looking employees) the inexplicably birdshit-splattered sidewalks and pathways.
- zem 14y ago
  you'd think that at the very least the spiders would have done something about the flies in the parking lot!
_feda_ 14y ago
I can't imagine how a second monitor could improve productivity for anyone. What would you display on it other than a distracting irc room or twitter feed? Technological hubris at it's most despicable I say :)
- kragen 14y ago
  • Editor on one monitor, running application on the other. • Editor on one monitor, documentation on the other. • More source code at once. I mean, seriously, have you never run out of screen real estate when you have five source code files, a web inspector window, and a browser window open?
- shrub 14y ago
  I have three monitors and it saves me a tonne of headache. Left to right: 1. (Ubuntu) Project Firebug Browser, Reference Browser, FTP 2. (Ubuntu) Source Editor, Email, Console 3. (Win 7) Photoshop, IE Tester, MS Office junk I can easily live with two, but there was a spare old monitor kicking about, so I absconded with it. With only one monitor, I spend a lot of clicking through the task bar trying to figure out what window I need next. With lots of monitors, I'm able to remain focused by just glancing back and forth between monitors.

eshvk 14y ago

I am not so sure that the situation is as simple as that. My perception is that these tiny issues are usually symptoms of an underlying reason why there is no longer (if there ever was) a fit between the company and a person. I think what happens is that once a person consciously or not realizes that this underlying reason has come up, all these tiny things start becoming more and more irritating, until the person explodes.

gaius 14y ago

you're floating dangerously close to self-entitlement, and simple, pathetic whining Developers acting like this, and getting away with it, should ring the bubble alarm bells. It's how it was in the 90s too.

mh- 14y ago
this developer was at Yahoo, which burst long ago.
brown9-2 14y ago
There have been entitled office workers for a very long time, regardless of how well the office might be doing.

nirvana 14y ago

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 career I've been regularly surprised just how penny wise and pound foolish management can be in this regard.

goblin89 14y ago
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.
- jwoah12 14y ago
  > 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. I know this isn't the point of your comment, but I had to point out this recent study that begs to differ. http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/17/coffee-drink-more-live-longer/ http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/17/coffee-drink-more-live...
  - Drbble 14y ago
    Well it suggests? That study had minimal controls for correlating factors, only alcohol and red meat, nothing about careers and lifestyles that correlate to coffee consumption. Less likely to die from "accidents" is an especially suspicious measurement.

MarkPNeyer 14y ago

i bet you're a blast to work with.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

knewter 14y ago

> It also sounds like the boss didn't bother asking the employee at their 1:1's about what they thought needed changing, or maybe he was just unapproachable. I'm an owner / CTO of a consultancy, and this point always frustrates me. We are only 12 or so employees, and we're all very comfortable with one another (we'll have game nights at the office, watch the GSL, etc). Still, when me and my partner have a 1:1 or talk to the employees, about 80% of them will not tell us their concerns or things they need. It's a huge problem for us - we are very interested in spending our money on benefits, etc. that people care about, rather than just guessing, but it's virtually impossible to do this. Story time: We had a designer leave recently (I <3'd him, awesome guy) to go work somewhere else, and a huge part of his decision, in the exit interview, was about a difference in health insurance between the two places. We had met with him 2 months prior EXPLICITLY to ask him (and other employees) if they wanted us to pursue any changes to health insurance, and were universally told that our existing benefits in that regard were fine. We have since modified our health insurance to be just fantastically good, because apparently this was a concern (and we've had to forego a few other things in order to be able to afford it). But the point is, this is a guy that I was friends with, and he just would not tell me what weight to give the health insurance benefit vector. It's maddening because I'm a very data-driven guy, and for whatever reason I can't get good data on employee concerns to save my life. Does anyone have any pointers here?

huhtenberg 14y ago
Sounds like your guy left because he wanted to leave, and the insurance was a made-up excuse.
- dlss 14y ago
  Oh, I see. People just randomly leave. Of course! No need to look further, nothing that could have been done. That's a big load off my mind. Thanks for pointing this out :)
  - reinhardt 14y ago
    Not sure why this sounds so incredulous. I have left (or even better, been laid off and happy to collect severance) more than once. It's not strictly "random" of course, it usually comes down to boredom and need for change but the bottom line is that indeed nothing could have been done.

joshu 14y ago

Mercado -> Mission College? You have to admit the color scheme was really bad. And weren't there giant freaky spiders infesting the main campus? My main memory of the main campus was (aside from the depressed-looking employees) the inexplicably birdshit-splattered sidewalks and pathways.

zem 14y ago
you'd think that at the very least the spiders would have done something about the flies in the parking lot!

_feda_ 14y ago

I can't imagine how a second monitor could improve productivity for anyone. What would you display on it other than a distracting irc room or twitter feed? Technological hubris at it's most despicable I say :)

kragen 14y ago
• Editor on one monitor, running application on the other. • Editor on one monitor, documentation on the other. • More source code at once. I mean, seriously, have you never run out of screen real estate when you have five source code files, a web inspector window, and a browser window open?
shrub 14y ago
I have three monitors and it saves me a tonne of headache. Left to right: 1. (Ubuntu) Project Firebug Browser, Reference Browser, FTP 2. (Ubuntu) Source Editor, Email, Console 3. (Win 7) Photoshop, IE Tester, MS Office junk I can easily live with two, but there was a spare old monitor kicking about, so I absconded with it. With only one monitor, I spend a lot of clicking through the task bar trying to figure out what window I need next. With lots of monitors, I'm able to remain focused by just glancing back and forth between monitors.