Erin Hoffman's Inside Job

Inside Job: No, Really: What Is Quality of Life, Anyway?

As with any complex issue, with sufficient time and energy, a comprehensive approach is possible but rare. We know the lodestars; so where do we go from there?

We start small. Ask simple questions. Ask how you can improve quality of life in your environment - whatever that environment is - using less than $10 per head. But ask. As Wolfgang Hamann found with Critical Stage Analysis, buy in is critical, and the ability to make decisions and be heard is an improvement in quality of life in itself. Start having these discussions, and lives get better. It really does just happen.

I'll close with one last quote from a developer at Motorola. We know what's important to us; the next step is acknowledgment of our ability to achieve it.

"A bit frivolous, but here we go:

"A real office, with walls. This is so A) I can turn the lights down to the level I prefer; and B) I won't bother anyone else with my music (which almost no one else likes).

"Lots of flat surfaces, where all the paper and reference books will accumulate. (Note: This accumulation happens whether the flat surfaces are present or not, so best to have them in place ahead of time.)

"A comfy chair. Yes, this is a subjective measure. However, if you spent less than $75, it's almost certainly not a comfy chair.

"Lots of power outlets, with a lot of Amps behind them (for the PCs, prototypes, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, electric tea kettle, etc.).

"As many network drops as I need/want. In other words, I don't want to hear static from the IT department about plugging in an unmanaged ethernet switch so I can get more ports.

"Internal NNTP and/or Wiki server, for those long, drawn-out group discussions that make people hate their email in-box.

"No Windows requirement by IT. This means all company-wide "intranet" services must fully support IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Lynx, etc. (Yes, that includes NetMeeting-style Webcasts.)

"Senior and executive management personnel should be accessible to employees. A certain amount of transparency in decision-making is also greatly appreciated."
- Leo Schwab, Senior Staff Software Engineer at Motorola"

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Erin Hoffman is a professional game designer, freelance writer, and hobbyist troublemaker. She moderates Gamewatch.org and fights crime on the streets by night.

A new Inside Job will appear in this space every other Friday.