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A supply of South Indian filter coffee, instead of some exotic foreign flavour.
Especially, since my workplace is in Southern India.
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Realistic: Move my desk from its current location (middle of a 60-cube farm) to a lab, along with the rest of my group. It would be nice to have peace and quiet. Purchasing is next to our current location in the middle 40 acres, and they're always on the phone.
Idealistic: Having software engineering concerns and priorities given the same credence as mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering. When you work for a hardware company, software is always free, quick, and easy. "Can't you just add a popup?" is everyone's favorite solution to every problem  . It comes down to a simple matter of respect, which we don't get.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Unfortunately I'm not kidding. I've got a well-rehearsed temper tantrum I throw whenever some hardware moron suggests I do that to solve their problem, at least once a month.
We build commercial ink-jet printers. We can move paper at up to 17 feet per second. I throw up a message box, by the time the operator notices it, we've printed a mile or two of unusable crap.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary Wheeler wrote: Unfortunately I'm not kidding
I know and can sympathize. We were developing a mostly embedded system with 'some' portions being relagated to being apps on a PC. The phrase "jeez, can't we just make that a PC app?", became too frequent, very quickly we ended up with man years of development time, which was a complete surprise to all, except us. Our usual response of "you know, this will take a good bit of development time to complete" fell largely on deaf ears.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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The secret story behind our current product's code name "Delta" goes something like this:
The hardware's code name was that of a certain large, well-known river in North America. Our software provides overall control of the hardware. Given the priorities and the relative importance of the hardware over the software, we're the last ones to know anything new, and the last ones to finish. Hence, the code name "Delta" for our software.
It also fits because we get to deal with all of the sh!t that comes down the river.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Well, if you wanted to keep the river metaphor going but make a point, you could make the name more interesting: Swamp, Alligator Food, River Blindness, Eerie Banjo Music... 
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Yeah, but it takes so long to type MudSuckingBottomFeeder...
Software Zen: delete this;
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Like you but no cubes. Also the tech support often has to speak out VERY loud because the technicina on the other side is in a production environment with 100-130 dB of noise. Doing serious assembler stuff while two techs are shouting on the phone and three administratives are loudly speaking about soccer or how much of a moron is <insert random="" coworker="" absento="" or="" working="" on="" another="" floor=""> means headache, violence and general dissatisfaction.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
"When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey
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kmoorevs wrote: Elimination of personal cell phones.
Agreed!
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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We are not allowed to even bring our cell phones into the building (government facility, secure room). It's great, except when you need to check personal email and can't from your work PC because all mail websites are blocked.
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move it 31 miles to the south-west of its current location
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1. Closed space
2. Brains for the management
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: 2. Brains for the management
C'mon now, he asked for something reasonable!
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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He also asked for one! So I added a second...Everyone have dreams that can't come true...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: 2. Brains for the management
But then they wouldn't be management... 
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And that would improve the place like nothing else...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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I think I've got it pretty good... Laptop, car, study budget, phone, any study book I need for free, free coffee, tea, water, soda, juices, a pretty good €1 lunch on Wednesday and snacks on Friday (I usually don't join either lunch though, I prefer to bring my own lunch), free fruit, free snacks, two big-ass monitors (since today), five minute drive from home (we moved last week, it was a 15 minute drive) and a decent salary. I can work from home whenever I want, but I don't because I can get along with my coworkers pretty well.
So is there really NOTHING that could make it better?
Yeah, stop sending ALL mail to my entire team.
I get about 50 mails a day (on average) that I have nothing to do with, but that are directed to someone in my team 
I complained about it, but my team lead (very nice guy by the way) told me it was nice to get all those mails to keep up to date with other projects...
I already created a rule to move all those mails to another folder to keep my inbox clean, if 1/50 mails is directed at me there's a good change I'll miss it
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Money for nothing and chicks for free.
I see in other answers the downfall of the open space trend. I am glad my company was old fashioned when open spaces were considered 'cool'.
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CPallini wrote: downfall of the open space trend
My employer is still in the process of converting offices from tall cubes to short (and smaller) cubes. My building hasn't been converted yet, but probably within a few years.  I think they are actively trying to get more workers to work from home so they can then reduce square footage. I also think it was a "long term" decision that was made years ago, and now they don't want to change course regardless of any reviews of success or failure so far.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: I think they are actively trying to get more workers to work from home
I wish we could, I'd save 110 km each day of commuting. Our open space is designed so that the overseer can watch each monitor at a moment's notice and any people enterning the office can see every monitor. Guess if they would be prone to let us work from where nobody can keep us under surveillance...
Extracts from the work regulations include: prohibition of talking from desk to desk, prohibition of getting up and walking to colleauges, prohibition of speaking to colleagues over the internal phone line. E-mails between coworkers are prohibited, for every communication should include the overseer. I think they missed the big writing "ARBEIT MACHT FREI"...
Luckily my boss doesn't give a flock about all of this but the other departments of the company are terrible.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
"When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey
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Quote: I think they are actively trying to get more workers to work from home
Like den2k88 that would be good news for me.
Quote: I also think it was a "long term" decision
I know, such long term decisions are really bad.
Quote: they don't want to change course regardless of any reviews of success or failure so far
And that's even worse, my sympathy.
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chriselst wrote: What would be the one, reasonable, change that could be made to your place of work to make it better?
Friday Beer !!! Reasonable ??? 
Zen and the art of software maintenance : rm -rf *
Maths is like love : a simple idea but it can get complicated.
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