The highs and lows of my job

These are the highs and lows of my job working at Altep Inc.

Lows

Food

I’ve heard of many companies supplying snacks for their programmers. It’s a small cost to a company, but has a huge effect on the programmers. Most people don’t realize the stress on having a 1.5 year project due in 5 months. Having those snacks laying around will not only keep you from leaving your desk for long meals, but will also help employees WANT to stay and work there. Say I eat 2 things of Pringles a day. That’s $600 for the company a year per developer. Not a huge amount of money, but I’m not willing to pay for it, so I sit and am hungry, and leave earlier than I would if I had food here.

Considering the number of hours I put in sometimes, I think an unlimited amount of potato chips and soda should be required of employers! If I’m going to give more that the expected 40-50 hour week, I should get SOME benefit out of it, don’t you think?

Dressing Casually

I can understand people who work in an office that gets visited to wear business or business casual, but for programmers, why should we have to be uncomfortable to sit in front of a computer all day, when many people actually expect the best programmers to be very casual in dressing (If you don’t believe me, watch just about any show featuring prodigy programmers. They ALL are slobs. A good example is? Does what you wear actually affect your productivity.

When I was working from home, I usually went to work (a.k.a. my spare bedroom) in my pajamas. I wouldn’t get dressed at all unless I needed to go outside. Working in the office all I want is to be able to wear t-shirts and shorts. Flip-flops would be nice, but I’d be willing to let some things go. At least let me wear tennis shoes!

At my job they will actually send you home to change if the hr people catch you ‘bending’ the rules. (I try to disregard the rules completely as much as possible, and have only been sent home once.) For people on salary, this isn’t much of a punishment. You’re still getting paid the same, even if you have to go home and change for an hour (or two, depending on how ‘slow’ you are.)

I get tired of dressing myself up every day. Is it just me, or does everyone else hate dress codes too?

Gym Memberships

If they would only help us stay in shape. For a company with a bunch of people sitting in front of computers, they should offer a gym program for us to get some exercise in our days. If I’m going to sit in front of a computer working for you from dawn till dusk, help me stay in shape a bit, I’m going to get fat just sitting there, then the insurance costs are going to go up from diabetes, and we’ll all have to pay for it eventually. Prevention is the best medicine anyway.

Highs

iPod

I can turn my iPod on and ignore just about everyone around me without affecting my work. You cant do this at every job, but if there is a programmer out there who cant listen to music at work, he should quit, burn down the mean company’s building, and come to work for someone else.

2 monitors

I do get two monitors. It is only because they realized that having two monitors increases productivity a lot and is relatively cheap. It would be nicer if they were to get me a third monitor with a second computer attached to it, but I would rather have the food benefit listed above.

Internet

For a while, the internet was restricted on our computers. We could hardly visit any sites and it was the most frustrating thing I’ve had to deal with. After months of asking (and submitting massive lists of sites to take of the block list) we finally got them to take the restriction off of developer’s machines. Now I can take that few minutes break every now and then to get my mind off of work so I don’t go crazy.

Cubicles

Ok, so I actually like them. In fact I wish that my walls extended further. I like being able to keep my desk messy and not having anyone worry about it. When I’m programming, I like to be able to see nothing but the computer, otherwise my A.D.D. mind gets distracted too easily. If I could just block everyone out of my little cubicle, I would be the happiest camper ever. I only wish I was more creative so that I could customize my cubicle more that I already have.

Hot chocolate

Lots of offices will have a coffee machine, but mine offers unlimited hot chocolate for us Mormons who don’t drink coffee. Not only that, they offer 3 different types of hot chocolate, and French vanilla creamers for us to use.

Software

The company I work for is willing to get us the software we need to work. I’ve heard of places that don’t, so I’m grateful for that. I couldn’t imaging doing what we do only using freeware or cheapware stuff.

The Christmas Party

Every year we have a really fun Christmas party with really good food and big prizes. Everyone can enjoy that. (Especially those who get to enjoy the open bar; all I get is crappy water)

Gordon Tucker
Lead Developer
Avante Web Design