You lost me in caring about what the office looked like and what hardware you got. Who cares? I don't! I can hack on whatever; whenever; with whatever! PERIOD!
edw519's questions provoke conversation, where yours provoke sales talk.
edw519's questions provoke conversation, where yours provoke sales talk.
This... is actually kindof interesting. See, I would see it the other way around. Working conditions are real things that effect me day-to-day.
My experience? usually when you go work somewhere, your /actual/ job has absolutely nothing to do with what you got interviewed for. All this talk about 'the problem the company is trying to solve' is, well, marketing bullshit.
Hell, if you are hired on early, the people running the company don't (actually) know the answer to that question beyond "make enough money to cover payroll."
If you are hired on late, usually, your job is to do what your managers want, not to try to do what the company needs. Usually, if you do the latter, you will spend all your time in conflict with existing management structures.
I mean, part of that is that people are stupid, sure, and everyone wants to protect and grow their little kingdoms.
But part of that is that even if you really are as good as you think you are at your role (and most people aren't) you don't know everything.
I know that as a young sysadmin I got into a bunch of fights with my boss about how to do things. Now that I have my own company? my employees sometimes get into fights with me over the exact same things. I mean, now that I've gotta look at it from the business perspective as well as the technical perspective, I can see where my boss was coming from way back when.
So if you want me to code something for you, supply me the required hardware for it.
And no, you can't hack on whatever hardware.
So can everyone else, it's just not enjoyable for some people if they're stuck in a shitty office space with shitty hardware. Who wants to work at a place where they don't enjoy working?
I mean, as an employee, I don't care that much 'cause i'll bring in my own stuff if you don't provide me with hardware I like... but my experience? employers get itchy if you do this with more than, say, a keyboard. Most places don't want me supplying my own workstation/laptop, which is fine, so long as they buy me reasonable hardware to work on.
I'm reminded of one place I contracted at where they gave me a P3 windows box (this was in the mid-oughts) - I mean, they were paying me like $70/hr. They wouldn't let me bring my own hardware, either. I go to put linux on the thing, you know, make it usable; and the IT guy finds out (well, I ask him for a blank DVD) Anyhow, he goes all 'Mordak' on me and tells me that I should just sit there in front of my useless computer and "think about what I did" or something like that.
I mean, I understand that some places want me to use their hardware, and let their IT people handle it... which is fine, if they are wiling to do a competent job of it.
And if the company is stupid about something as fundamental as creating a productive working environment, you can be sure they'll be stupid about lots of other things as well.