So, My Company Did It Again. They Annoyed Me by Purchasing a Monitor

Photo by Joshua Aragon on Unsplash

Sometimes The Secret Developer can’t believe the situation they are in. When the anti-developer environment The Secret Developer works in repeats itself things can feel even worse for a hard-working (if grumpy) software developer.

Repeating Repetition

Longtime readers of this blog might remember The Secret Developer’s story of working in a software company where *gasp* they bought a new Macbook Pro for the developers. 

My Company Told Me They Don’t Care About Me by Buying Me a New Macbook Pro
Make a Fussmedium.com

”The point here is that they didn’t ask about my requirements as a developer. I feel like I’m working in retail and the store just bought a new computer system. 

The corporation seems to me to be saying: ‘Here is a tool, get on with things.’ 

It doesn’t feel good.”

This situation this time

“There is a difference in today’s situation. I applied on our internal corporate systems for a monitor as I’ve been using my own since joining the company. 

I didn’t expect anything particularly exciting.

I didn’t expect to get asked what monitor I wanted. In this assumption, I wasn’t disappointed.

Then I got it. A 2k monitor. Since Apple stopped using sub-pixel rendering the developer’s experience isn’t great. I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have preferred to use a top 1080p monitor. Or a cheaper 4k monitor.

I didn’t have the option though”

Respect

“I’d love it if people thought about the developer’s experience. Sometimes it feels that the business owns us. Then it feels like DevOps owns us.

I remember in the past we thought of coding jobs as ‘knowledge’ workers. Yet I don’t feel appreciated for my knowledge of opinions.

That can’t be good for anyone, can it?”

Conclusion

Another day, another complaint from The Secret Developer who is getting the support they require to get the job done. I think we can all agree it would be nice if developers had the tools they want to perform their jobs yet at the same time devs should not feel this level of entitlement where they think every trivial decision should be run by them.

“I’m not entitled. I just should be paid more in terms of money and respect. I just should. OK?”