After we got the order to work from home back in March 2020, I took the second Thunderbolt display I taken to the office back home again (taking it to the office in the first place was part of a plan to teach myself to work with one monitor only in hopes of eventually transitioning from a MacBook to an iMac for personal use).
Almost a year and a half later I’m not only loving working on two monitors again (three if you count the laptop), but I’m dreading the eventual return to the office. The last 17 months of peace and quiet have been a godsend for productivity, and I can’t help but wish plague and pestilence upon those who keep touting the wonders of “collaborative, open, and exciting” office space for software development (have you ever noticed that the people who think those environments are great all have doors that they can close?).
Anyway, this is my humble work/personal computing space as of August 2021. The laptop is my work computer and Mac mini is beneath the desk. Switching from one to the other is pretty much disconnecting and connecting a single Thunderbolt cable.
Nice setup. Seeing the pictures of your 2 monitors got me to wondering: Have you or has anyone else using multiple monitors used a panoramic picture that goes across both screens?
What a warm, peaceful working environment you have created @Luekutus. Thank you for sharing. I enjoy seeing the maps on the wall. For some reason there is always something soothing about maps. It underscores the importance of a workplace that is as thoughtful about what you see when working there as how it the place is set up.
Nice maps! I’m by no means a cartographer but I do love geography and maps in general. I have several in my office. My favorite being the collection of USGS maps I spliced together for my backpacking trips when I lived in Idaho.
I’m late to the party but — What’s the ring light that you use? Is it bright enough to light up your face evenly during daylight? I can’t find any that are bright enough to balance uneven light from a side window.
I use an Elgato Key Light Air to balance the light from a window to my left. It’s not a small ring light — I don’t think those have enough oomph to do the job. And you don’t use a ring light to do side lighting, anyway (ring lights are to allow you to put a camera in the center).
This is exactly the sort of setup that I would hate to use (I am a single-monitor person), but I wish that I could use because it’s just so gorgeous. Lovely, lovely lovely.
It was a cheapie from Amazon. I actually stopped using it because a) the switch was on the cable so I had to reach behind the monitor to turn it on and b) because I am apparently one of those people who looks better with as little lighting as possible.🫢
Update to my post one year later. As [I] predicted, the powers-that-be have decided that any employee who lives within an hour and a half from our office needs to start coming in. After weighing (a) the wasted 2+ hours I’d spend on the road each day for no one’s benefit, (b) the seeming arbitrariness of who does and does not “earn” the privilege of working remote, and (c) the fact that our cubicles haves now been replaced with plain-old lunch tables, I’ve decide to end my 20+ years run. I loved what I did, but I just can’t go back to that giant playroom aesthetic that the millennial crowd seems to embrace, certainly not for tasks that require any sort of focus.
Time to take some time off, learn how to program for macOS and iOS, and try something different for a few years.
We are currently on hybrid set up with two days each week on-site. But lugging in your gears everyday and against the comfort of my standing desk, ergonomic chair, and additional display—I requested a permanent work from home set up. They’re not paying me enough to spend 4 hours to and from work and gas prices are not helping. They want to pay me a pandemic-size salary, then I should be able to keep my work-from-home arrangement.
I know what it’s like to have a job you don’t like. I changed jobs a few times and I changed careers more than once. As a former H.R. manager I would say, IMO, it is easier to get a new job when you are still employed. And as someone who had their net worth reduced to zero in the recession of 1980 I say life is full of surprises.
From what I’m reading, a lot of employers are finding the same thing. They’re trying to force people to return to the office, but now that everyone has had a taste of working from home, they’re getting a lot of push back about it.
Good for you for making the best choice for you and yours, and good luck finding a more accommodating employer.
Also - lunch tables? My 55-year-old back is protesting on your behalf. Good grief.
