and yet... if it's a company that's a bit slack on security, the right command in the right place by someone with 2 monitors can kill the company dead.
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2025
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Kinda reminds me this Game one plays in Theatre which is to Play The Status (you're given a number between 1 and 10, with 1 having the lowest social status and 10 the highest, and you try and act as such a person).
Alongside the whole chin-down to chin-up thing, people tend to do more fast and confident moving the higher the status, but the reality is that whilst indeed up the scale in professional environment the higher the status the more busy and rushed they seem, the trully highest status people (the 10s) don't at all rush: as I put it back then (this was the UK) "the Queen doesn't rush because for everybody the right time for the Queen to be somewhere is when she's there, even it it's not actually so, hence she doesn't need to rush".
There was also some cartoon making the rounds many years ago about how people on a company looked depending on their social status, were you started with the unkept shabbily dressed homeless person that lived outside the vuilding, and as you went up the professional scale people got progressively more well dressed and into suits and such, and then all of a sudden a big switch, as the company owner at the top dressed as shabbily as the homeless person.
Compensation is inversely proportional to productivity.
Apparently I'm off the end of the chart. My last workplace set up had:
- primary 15" laptop with two external monitors (so 3 screens in use simultaneously)
- secondary 15" laptop with external monitor (so another 2 screens) when the primary one was tied up doing heavy processing (I was lucky and managed to hold onto my previous laptop when we did the usual rounds of device upgrades whereas most people just returned them to IT to be retired, so I had a spare that I could readily take home for WFH days without messing with my main office setup)
- a standalone PC monitor (for automation stuff, so the screen was there just for monitoring as needed)
You are actually the chart itself.
The all-too-common Load bearing IT
Damn, according to the chart, I bet you were working over time and logging in on weekends.
I avoided overtime like the plague since my employer didn't like to deal with it (so if circumstances required me to work overtime my supervisor was pretty good about allowing me to take it as time in lieu the following week), but unfortunately there were definitely times where I had to log in on the weekend (the challenge of having customers that require support 7 days a week).
I must be some sub Spartacus worker. I have three monitors on my desk and two on the management network workstation behind me.
This is so accurate, it hurts.
Oh fuck, I have 5 27-32” monitors, phone, 2 laptops and a wall TV. Based on this I’m half fired already.
Why would anyone fire someone who works so much for so little?
That's at least 9 separate jobs right there!
Are you sure you're not a NOC?
Wait.... What should I be then with my jelly star? Should i be running the world rather than being a dev?
The CEO also has the big screens. Their peons have two why would they only have one? What screens they're on the most is a different question.
Importance, or lack of work contribution? Smaller screen = works less.
Well, if the company gets fined for mismanaging or committing fraud, who do you think they will fire?
A scapegoat is very important.
who do you think they will fire?
10 to 20 percent of the workforce, so the CEO still can get a bonus.
Exactly. This is America. 40% and install AI if it's 2025 or later.
Yuuuup. My last company let go of 20% in a single round of layoffs
They'll say that their work is mainly talking to other people
Which is why they believe AI is the future.
It does everything they do.
Produce slop
Disgusting.
Importance as in payment, probably
True for the phone and tablet, but for any sort of computer that is not true
I work on a laptop with virtual desktops and I am much more productive that way than with a big screen... Or two big screens.
Everything is in the center of my field of view, I know which VD of my 3x3 grid holds what. It's much more efficient for me than bigger screens could ever be. And that is not for lack of trying!
It just depends on the person.
Exactly, this is why the most 'important' person just uses a phone they are the most efficient with the smallest screen
VDs arranged in a grid ? Why ?
Faster switch. Think each column being 1-3 and each row as A-C
B2 is my terminals, B3 is my IDE, B1 is a secondary IDE (for instance, DataGrip), C row is browser windows, A1-2 is temporary, not often used windows, A3 is communication apps. I mostly use A3, B2-3 and C2-3. It's all mapped in my head so I can instantly switch to whichever VD I need.
That's impressive
Personally I never needed more than 5 desktops, and I don't think I could remember what I put on more desktops
Haha that's fair
Although it's a habit thing. Most of these are fixed, I never switch them to a different position. So the only ones I have to remember is A1-2 if I am using them, the rest is as easy as knowing where your glasses are stored in your cupboards.
The job of people around the CEO is primarily to make decisions. All this huge chain of managers is needed only to aggregate information so that the CEO can make an informed decision. This is how many large companies operate. I would even say that there is a direct correlation between the size of the campaign and the number of monitors at the bottom.
The flip side of sitting behind a huge monitor is that you won't stay outside with a huge number of your employees if you make the wrong decision. It's just a different job.
Your description is basically of a "spherical CEO in a vacuum", ie. the ideal and abstract version of how corporations should operate. It has very little to do with reality
Have you worked with very many CEOs at SMEs? Based on my experience it seems to match the description, by and large.
I've been a C-suite executive, and I've worked with executives (incl. CEOs) at public companies.
Not only is there often a thermocline of truth that stops "bad" information going up the chain, CEOs more often than not make decisions based on nothing but their own opinions, and they will more than happily discard any information that doesn't already fit that opinion, and even if negative things do manage to reach them from the other side of the thermocline, they often discount it or explain it away
I'm at "iPad and enormous curved monitor connected to a laptop" so I guess I average out to upper-middle management. Which is shockingly accurate.
"Importance™"
I feel wrong.
I have an iPhone, and a laptop and 2 screens.
Hello my brother/sister/velociraptor/etc in screens. We're worthless together 💖
That's four screens total. You're first on the chopping block.
Nah, actually, in a typical company the lower down the ranks you are the less likely you are to be fired, statistically speaking (to a point, of course you're more likely to be fired while on probation or something).
Fact is, in my company, higher ups have more screens than me. Like phone, desktop, couple monitors and huge wall monitor.
Maybe your company is a statistical outlier
I have a laptop, mobile, and two monitors. Jack of all trades.
Except russian CEOs get a large screen with a handle.