How many companies are stingy with the user interfaces?

[Denaes]

By user interface I mean monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc.

I used to work for a company which would get you something basic like a keyboard wrist pad, but not special keyboards unless you had like a doctors note. The monitors were all like 8 years old, huge and the screen was slightly fuzzy with internal smudges (looked like smudges on the screen, but they were in/under the glass) and a normal $6 mouse.

The management had displays with like 3 plasma monitors and super keyboards and whatnot... only they didnt use their computers as much as the developers & support did.

The company I work for now isnt awful, but there is a certain level of complacancy around the bare minimum. All the developers were working with 17" CRTs of okay quality (aside from taking up half the desk!) stock keyboards & mice.

We got new computers... 2gb ram, dual CPU, super in every way... only we kept the same old monitors, the keyboards were new, but exactly the same setup/style and laser mice.

I dont know, maybe Im wrong, but from my development standpoint Id think the top priority to getting the most/best work out of developers is to make sure theyre comfortable and things are optimized.

As a personal developer and computer user, I think the user interface is the most important. Why spend $500 on the cutting edge cpu and get a $10-20 lamo keyboard that fatigues your hands unnessicarily? Ironically, these elements (laptops aside) are the three pieces that if you actually had a quality set, you could carry forward from PC to PC as you upgrade.

If developer comfort and productivity are such high concerns, why is a 21-24" monitor taboo, like its only for movies? Like its wasteful to have a screen where you can have all your VS toolbars open and still see the code without switching to fullscreen mode. Or you dont have to keep switching back and forth between documents?

Why do people only consider the keyboards that are actually designed for ease of use (ergonomic wavy ones or the straight lined up keys) and user health to be unnessicary until after the user is in pain?

I hate to say it, but maybe its because Im getting older, but Im starting to consider my personal comfort higher and higher into things. Not getting extravigant, but bypassing the cheapo models for ones with features that will assist me and make my time more enjoyable.

People look at my 17" laptop and think its a luxury compared to a 14" laptop. Personally I would rather be able to see whats on the screen than have a smaller/lighter laptop.

My next desktop Im getting, I could care very little whats under the hood. Generically I have some ideas, but I dont care about the bits/bytes. I care about basic efficient CPU, lots/fast RAM, DVD/CD burner, decent video card, large fast hard drives. Im putting far far more research into which mouse, keyboard & monitor Im going to get, because these are the things that will really make my life heaven/hell.

Or maybe Im just a spoiled programmer who should be happy with what I get

 

[PlausiblyDamp]

I do like the way management often get the best hardware, dual-core boxes with 20+ inch screens and excellent video cards just to run a DOS accounts package or a web based reporting tool...

If you spend a large part of your day writting code then a decent monitor is a must (size and quality). VS needs a minimum of 1280 resolution to be productive - anything less is a chore.

 

[Nerseus]

I hate to sound like a pompous braggert, but I picked my company for many reasons - the main one being that we all had a true *passion* for development. In that regard, weve spent the last 6+ years growing from 7 people to over 70 - not bad if you ask me.

So for the question, we try and get all developers two monitors, almost all of which are now LCDs. Im not sure the size, but theyre almost all 1280x1024 - a few lucky ones have the big 20" 1600x1280 (?) monitors.

Many devs get their own keyboards and mice. Some prefer wireless, some like natural, some like Logitech while some like Microsoft. We also allow anyone to pick out their own office chair - some like those strange kneeling chairs, some use the big rubber balls, some have standard office chairs. We like people LIKE coming into work

The way I see it (and most of management, too), why not spend an extra $300-$500 per year on an employee that you want to keep? Get them a nice mouse, keyboard, computer, chair, monitors, etc. Its SO cheap compared to losing a good employee and hiring someone new!

Since Im already bragging, Ill mention the foosball room (yes, a whole room!), ping pong room, break room that we spend around $500 a week just to stock (thank you Costco!). We have an espresso machine that costs about $1000/year just to maintain! My boss has a taste for the good stuff. Thats all for our local development office. The analysts have their own office and they get the same thing EXCEPT the espresso machine . In fact, they somehow managed to swing a real Otis Spunkmeyer cookie oven in which they bake Otis Spunkmeyer cookies from fresh cookie dough (again, from Costco).

I had to edit as I forgot about the actual development perks such as free books (I buy about 4 a year), training (within reason - we cant always get the good MS guys to come down), certification (the MS cert exams for example), etc.

/end of brag

-nerseus

 

[Denaes]

Im jealous.
My current company isnt really hip with the training. If we find books we need, we can buy them and were reimbursed, but they become company books. We can take them home, but we generally need to share. 10 people cant all buy the same book

Your place sounds like one of those video game places where everything is relaxed and the company really takes care of the developers.

I agree with the periphials (that was the word I was looking for!) theyre so cheap in comparison to medical conditions and sagging moral or as you say even rehiring someone new.

 

[mskeel]

It sounds like you need to buy your management Peopleware. Just sneak it onto your bosss desk and hope he reads it.

My company is great. Its a small business like Nerseus, only about 13 people, and they really try their best to take care of us. Unfortunately, we do a lot of work at client sites where they dont have the same philosophy. Its the bigger places like Northrop Grumman and the Government labs where it gets to be really difficult to get what you want/need. Im sure it has to do with corporate culture where if I get an ergonomic keyboard but you dont, then obviously Im better than you which leads to mutinous attitudes among the workers -- if you believe in that sort of stuff. The solution (obviously ) is to give everyone terrible equipment.

At my company, we get as many monitors, servers, mice, mice rests, keyboards, and office supplies as we want/need plus your own office, a giant whiteboard, a stocked fridge, and a pinball machine in the break room (Black Knight, the companys namesake of course). Sadly, I rarely have time to play because Im so busy with clients. The best part is that a every single person I work with in my company is a quality person -- extremely smart, knowledgeable, and hard working.

AND I just got done with this awesome two day training on DDS -- DDS rocks my world!

 

[snarfblam]

From what I see, employers on the whole have lost sight of the needs (and wants) of their employees. It is all about good numbers. Every level of management gets pushed on, in one way or another, to produce good numbers. Today. Tomorrow is another day. No one understands the concept of investing in your employees.

Companies tend to forget that a happy employee is a productive employee, and that a good job is something that good workers compete for. People who like their jobs tend to do them well and people who dont, dont.

I don

 

[sjn78]

The place I work for hands out equipment according to your pay scale. I got a new computer the other week. They told me this was a test pc they got from their pc supplier and no one else had one to these specs yet. My 3 year old home pc is still better than it.

They will give a secretary a high end pc and someone who needs a fast pc misses out because of their 4 year replacemnet cycle on desktops. So with my pc at wok, it will be 7 year old technology by the time it comes around to replace.

A couple of us do have 21" lcds which im not complaining about, but with Dell bringing out bigger and cheaper monitors all the time, it wont be long before the lcd I have becomes old technology. I have the 24" widescreen dell at home and would never go any smaller.

Same goes with keyboards at work. We all get the $10 version while the higher paid people get an ergonomic one. And our chairs, might as well bring in a milk crate to sit on.

But saying all that, I get on pretty good with the IT guys there so I know how to break the equipment to get something newer.

By the way, we still run Win2000. We plan on upgrading to XP around the same time Vista is released. Shows how far behind we really are.

 

[PlausiblyDamp]

Companies tend to forget that a happy employee is a productive employee, and that a good job is something that good workers compete for. People who like their jobs tend to do them well and people who dont, dont.

As an excellent example I quit my last job over working conditions (to go work for a competitor) for approx 2000 a year less than I was earning. When I was asked for my reasons for leaving I told them exactly what issues I had and how I had raised these with my manger in the past and nothing was ever sorted. To emphise just how poor the conditions were I made them aware of the pay cut I was taking.
Their solution to tempt me to stay - no change in working conditions but a small pay rise, makes you wonder what thought process went into that decision...

 

[mskeel]

By the way, we still run Win2000.

That is annoying, but that also has a lot to do with maintenance and IT support which dont scale very easily. While you might be extremely comfortable with a PC, tons of folks, even in tech fields arent. When its time to fix something, knowing that everyone is on the same OS with the same patches helps the troubleshooter eliminate tons of issues up front without having to worry about strange configuration quirks. I dont necessarily agree with it, but I can see the reasoning behind it.

Heres a funny story along the same lines. Ive heard of a company who refused to upgrade to service pack 2 because it had a breaking change with their ancient payroll application. The company is one of the biggest defense contractors in the US. How funny is that?

 

[mskeel]

An interesting post from the Coding Horror Blog proposing a "Programmers Bill of Rights". I think its pretty much right on the money.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000666.html