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Comment by brentpayne | Hacker News Reader

How many Valve employees does it take to change a light bulb? Who orders the light bulbs and who decides when and where it is to be installed?

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When I worked at the office supply store across the street from Valve HQ I had a guy come in and order 8 laser printers or delivery and he told me he played the role of IT over at Valve. So I'm sure they actually have people who choose to focus on things like that.

Flat organization doesn't mean you can't hire an office manager, it just means the office manager doesn't have a boss either.

I don't think this question should be downvoted. There's a lot of unsexy infrastructure stuff that just needs doing. If people can really do whatever they want, what happens to the stuff that nobody wants to do? Lightbulbs are a great example.

This is a common "issue" in design studios and the like. I've always been the kinda guy who enjoys using a lunch break to clean/fix up/replace the small things, because it's just what I'd do at home. Obviously there are places where people feel like they're dumb tasks, but I'd imagine that as the quality and mutual respect goes up (as in a place like Valve) there are more people likely to behave similarly.

I would like to imagine that. But you run up against the "neatest roommate" problem.

Suppose you share a house with a half-dozen people. You are all good people, so whenever something seems messy to you, you clean it up. Problem solved, right?

In my experience, definitely not. Because the person who's best at perceiving mess tends to clean things up before other people notice anything. That person feels like they're doing more of the work. Because they are. And they feel unappreciated, because people generally don't notice the messy-to-clean transition.

I'm a recovering sysadmin; I burnt out because I grew so very tired of caring about things that people never noticed until they were broken. What they said then wasn't, "Gosh, I really appreciate how well the printer has worked these many months." They said, "God damn it! The printer's broken just when I need it the most!" I'd love to know how stabby Valve's sysadmins and IT people feel.

If I can do whatever I want, I would change lightbulbs when broken. Why would I want to work under a burned-out light bulb. (Pedantic note: light bulbs are pretty much illegal now, so I assume you mean fluorescent tube or something.)

Do you hire a light bulb changing contractor to change light bulbs in your own home?

My time is too important to spend time hiring light bulb changing contractors.

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