Regarding penny-pinching: at Amazon in 2013, the rule was that a sw dev could have one 24-inch monitor, but any second monitor had to be 19 inches or smaller. My manager gave me a second 24-inch monitor, and so I went to the hardware support guy to get an appropriate DVI cable. The support guy refused to give me a cable because I had an unapproved excessively large monitor. He could only give me the cable if he came to my desk to confirm that my second monitor did not exceed 19 inches.
All this haggling and wasted time over a monitor that cost about $100 more. I just bought my own cable (from Amazon!)
I guess they had a pile of ancient 19-inch monitors from years ago and were determined to "used them up" before spending more money buying new monitors. If that means that highly paid SW devs are less productive because they're squinting at late 1990s monitors, then so be it.
In my experience this was typical of the penny-pinching Amazon mindset. As a result, I did not work there for very long.
I was working as a contractor for AT&T years ago. The issued me the same laptop that everyone got. Of course, it doesn't have much RAM and I'm somehow lassoed into supporting the current implementation of Business Objects. It literally took long enough starting up BO that just 2 starts (let alone any actions) would have paid for upgrades in RAM. Over the course of two years, I was paid literally a couple thousand watching my computer load Business Objects.
They could approve overtime on a contractor, but couldn't approve a couple hundred for a RAM upgrade, what with it being non standard and all.
It’s possible they do other things as well, but is it _really_ true that a Dev is more productive with a second monitor that’s 24” as opposed to 19”? I used to be a huge fan of multi monitor setups but have gone through years of having 2 4K 27”, as single 4K, or just plain old MacBook screen only. I can definitely attest that a laptop screen alone is not good, but am honestly not sure about the added benefit of a second large monitor, leave alone due to its size. If anything I probably was less productive when I had two large screens! Furthermore the most prolific engineers I know of rarely has more than one large monitor if even that.
However, does having two large monitors make me feel good? Heck yes! So in terms of engineer morale it might help but I doubt you were measurably less productive due to this handicap on actual non emotional basis.
> So in terms of engineer morale it might help but I doubt you were measurably less productive due to this handicap on actual non emotional basis.
Except they probably were measurably less productive (if anyone bothered to measure), because software engineering runs on emotion and engineering morale. If you're doing anything more complicated than retyping code from printouts, how you feel will determine your speed and ability to focus. So even if the only thing a 24” screen did for GP was to not constantly annoy them, that's a real productivity improvement.
The point is that the discussion costs more than the purchase, so the only reasonable answer to a request to buy anything useful is "Yes, immediately, I'll buy one for every colleague who wants one". A manager who wants to save money on hardware is unprofessional (because they don't understand what is useful or not), an idiot (because they don't understand arithmetic and psychology), or both.
Being unexpectedly denied, through a three-person meeting, a $30 software upgrade was a significant factor in my last job change.
I think they were determined to squeeze as much "value" as possible out of those obsolete tiny monitors, by having someone use them for a few more years. Getting rid of them was not the problem.
All this haggling and wasted time over a monitor that cost about $100 more. I just bought my own cable (from Amazon!)
I guess they had a pile of ancient 19-inch monitors from years ago and were determined to "used them up" before spending more money buying new monitors. If that means that highly paid SW devs are less productive because they're squinting at late 1990s monitors, then so be it.
In my experience this was typical of the penny-pinching Amazon mindset. As a result, I did not work there for very long.