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Comment by Aloisius | Hacker News Reader

Not really sure why the vending machine is a bad idea. It sounds like they just automated part of their IT department.

Vending machine is a bad idea because it destigmatizes requesting equipment.

If you knew you could just go to a vending machine and get equipment, what would stop you from just requesting extra for your personal use? Since any new equipment comes out of my personal returns, I don't get a new keyboard just because the keyboard doesnt feel like it did out of the box -- I clean it.

If you knew that you could request a new keyboard every time you spilled coffee on your keyboard, what would keep you from carelessly placing drinks on your desk? I know that my desk was paid for with my money, so I'm very careful with regards to stuff like coasters and tall cups.

If you have to look a person in the face, you feel a greater sense of accountability (as if that person knows you requested it) and you will be less likely to frivolously request stuff.

De-stigmatizes? Why would there be any stigma against making company requests to a department that you don't report to?

Look the person in the face? If you're in any company over a hundred employees, you email IT to ask for your equipment and it appears. There is no face to face.

In small companies like mine, we just have a cabinet. You walk over and take out what you need. We don't worry about people reselling equipment because we don't hire thieves.

"We don't worry about people reselling equipment because we don't hire thieves."

It's very hard to scale that. It's easy when you have 5 or 10 people, all of whose incentives are aligned, but its much harder when you have many more.

My point, though, gets back to a general sense of wastefulness. In my experience, people who are wasteful in one area tend to be wasteful or not particularly rigorous elsewhere.

As I understand it, the vending machines were actually introduced as a way to track employee consumption of equipment[1] (at Facebook anyways). They were a response to an open kiosk where you could swing by and pick up hardware at will without any externally-enforced tracking of what you've taken. Assuming you use your own badge to dispense equipment, the vending machines are able to track your equipment usage. This allows IT departments to respond to consumption problems as needed, rather than putting a process in place that keeps you from being productive when your keyboard dies & the requisition personnel have gone home for the day.

I work at a small company--we don't have vending machines or IT departments. Instead, each employee has a company credit card and we submit receipts for our IT purchases. I'll admit that, knowing I can buy new stuff as needed, I'm less careful about my equipment. However, I also know that someone's looking at the receipts I submit & that knowledge has kept me from being wasteful. I'd imagine that the vending machine tracking motivates similarly.

[1] http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/06/facebooks-vending-mac...

"However, I also know that someone's looking at the receipts I submit & that knowledge has kept me from being wasteful. I'd imagine that the vending machine tracking motivates similarly."

Now, if they presented a bill to each employee with each item they've taken, then I'd agree that the vending machine tracking is similar.

The vending machine has prices posted.

I think your point is unlikely to be accurate. The person that, by their presence in the transaction, is stigmatizing frivolous requests costs money too. Probably a lot more money than whatever minor percentage increase in equipment requests also happen. (Also if their system is anything like Google's, all requests are tracked by your employee badge, so abuse is easily caught).

You are also conveniently forgetting the cost of somebody who did accidentally spill coffee on their keyboard. Every hour they cannot work because there isn't a functioning input device to accept their keystrokes is just productivity being wasted. Obviously I don't think the fact that Zynga has these vending machines makes them a great company, but I can certainly say that having them doesn't make Zynga a bad company.

"The person that, by their presence in the transaction, is stigmatizing frivolous requests costs money too."

That person also keeps up with the latest technologies and, ideally, would be able to advise on the appropriate type of keyboard or mouse or whatever.

"You are also conveniently forgetting the cost of somebody who did accidentally spill coffee on their keyboard."

If the spilt coffee results in keyboard damage, no qualm there. I'm referring to cases where you have a slight drop and decide to get a new keyboard rather than wiping it.

" I can certainly say that having them doesn't make Zynga a bad company."

I don't think the vending machine by itself impugns a company but it certainly matches a sense of wastefulness from other anecdotes.

You're really stretching the point here.

First, having vending machines for hardware doesn't mean that an IT department doesn't have any say on what gets ordered to go inside.

And really, is there any measurable amount of theft by employees who get a drop of coffee on their keyboard, and either just throw it away and get a new one, or go home and sell it? And would this in any way cost more than what the company saves by streamlining the basic IT hardware procurement that goes with any large company?

Quite far-fetched scenarios you're tossing out at this point.

It's not the cost of the particular item that matters, and I think you miss the overall point.

You may think it's trivial, but the same behaviors are reflected in software development (wastefulness of resources) and from what I've seen there's a strong correlation between wastefulness in life and wastefulness in work output.

And you may think it's trivial, but treating employees like inmates in a prison harms productivity. (Gee, my left sift key still works, but right shift is broken, do I want to argue with my manager about whose fault is was and make he and I both go through the paperwork for justifying a purchase over my standard allocation? I mean, if I waste his time with his, that costs money at his high salary, and won't ensure me to him...")

Is computer equipment really where companies are spending money? A $100 keyboard is nothing compared to a $95 million write-off on a failed company you bought.

(We have self-service supply cabinets at Google for things like laptop chargers or cables. The sign on the cabinet says "don't be evil" and I think most people treat it that way.

A recent change is that laptop chargers no longer come in boxes, so you can just return yours to the bin if you don't need it anymore and it will look the same as the "new" ones. Clever!)

It's not a loss center per se, but profligate treatment of company resources, to an extent, reflects poorly on other aspects of the business.

The best programmers I have had the pleasure of working with maintained a very orderly desk and were very disciplined with use of resources in real life. Interestingly enough, you could gleam that from the style of their codes.

I have a very disorderly desk but write very orderly code. I can't say I've ever met anyone with an orderly desk, actually.

disorder to a great extent is evidence of a lack of organization, and the best people generally keep everything in order (including their desks)

You are trolling, right?

Einstein's desk was this messy :-)

Einstein was also not a programmer :)

I had the great honor of working with Brian Kernighan (I would personally consider him one of the greatest programmers that the world has seen) and was taken aback by his organization skills. My conclusion is clearly based on my experiences.

Strictly regulating items whose cost is not significant to the company's bottom line is also a profligate treatment of company resources i.e. employees, it's just less visible.

This whole conversation sounds like one gigantic bundle of cognitive bias to me. People will naturally notice the companies that strictly ration their equipment and are also frugal where it counts, and the companies that give equipment away freely and also spend tens of thousands of dollars on statue repainting, while not noticing the companies that waste money that matters while also maintaining a tight regimen of equipment oversight, or the companies that are frugal where it matters but don't try to strictly control the dispensing of trivial office equipment.

I disagree. I think people can distinguish between running a tight ship and penny-pinching.

Which is entirely different from the conclusion that "tight ship" when it comes to office supplies and similar is actually related to a company's overall success.

The argument over a 50cent bag of potato chips contraindicates your conclusion.

Keyboards and mice? That's what you're concerned about? That's a rounding error compared to the cost of engineering time and product development.

I don't abuse my equipment. But if I spilled something on my MBP, oh well, accidents happen. IT will replace it, probably with a Retina. There isn't any "stigma" about requesting equipment. Nor should there be. Your penny-pinching concerns seem a) quaint and b) short-sighted.

"Your penny-pinching concerns seem a) quaint and b) short-sighted."

I'm not concerned about the cost of keyboards and mice, but I think it's endemic of wastefulness. In some sense, it's akin to the Van Halen brown M&Ms sentiment

Now you must be trolling. Look up the M&M story on snopes, and comeback when you have realized that you got the story completely backwards. Office staff "Running a tight (cheap) ship" against the wishes of the professionals kills people in the rock concert businesses.

Sir, I recommend you actually read it, because that is my exact point.

In the M&Ms case, it was to ensure the contracts were read. There were dangerous things going on, and attention to detail is very important. It's not that the bowl itself matters, but if a trivial detail like that is overlooked then it's not known what else is overlooked.

Likewise, you are a programmer. If you are careless in resource usage in some parts of your life, it's likely that you will be careless in your coding.

The analogy is apt, and i highly recommend you read that site you mentioned because it clearly explains the overarching philosophy.

> Likewise, you are a programmer. If you are careless in resource usage in some parts of your life, it's likely that you will be careless in your coding.

> The analogy is apt,

No man, I'm sorry, that analogy is shit. The fact that I don't think twice about getting new / upgraded / better equipment means that I care about not having my ability inhibited by something as absurdly cheap compared to my salary as peripherals and a new macbook.

I think you really are looking at the Van Halen analogy backwards: If you, the employer, are reluctant to spend a few more bucks to ensure your investment in my time is as enjoyable as possible, then what other corners are you willing to cut?

I heard people would take new equipment and do things like sell them.

Well, a company that doesn't follow up on reports of outright employee theft - or has the kind of culture where this thing is tolerated by other, non-stealing employees one bit - has serious problems.

Yes. Putting a dragon in front of the supplies cabinet doesn't fix the cultural issues. It just hides the symptoms.

Seems like it might actually be better to let employees run free, and just keep a mild watch out. That way, any employees with unethical/stupid tendencies to do things like steal office equipment and resell it will make themselves known rapidly, rather than potentially festering and worming their way into a position of trust before betraying it on a much larger scale.

I don't think stealing is the biggest concern. The implications in terms of firm culture are more damning than the actual act itself.

I'm not saying you make it easy so you can catch thieves and avoid having your stuff stolen. I'm saying you make it easy because, I figure, less ethical people are more likely to steal, so it lets you weed out bad people in general.

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