Awesome Benefits: Beyond Beer and Pinball
Just about every person that tours the Don’t Panic Labs office points out the great perks that jump out at them. The great open space concept, the stocked kitchen, the beer fridge, the pinball machines, etc. While all of these things are great, the greatest benefit we have here at DPL is not as easy to spot: our coworkers. Having everyone around you focusing on what they do best helps you do what you do best, and that keeps the company running at a high level of efficiency. We keep engineers coding, testers testing, managers managing, and interns fetching coffee (not really, they’re coding right alongside us; but that would be nice).
Personally, I came to this realization when I was due for the dreaded Windows 8 upgrade. To an engineer, getting a new box usually means a day or two of installing software, downloading updates, finding licenses for commercial libraries, etc. When I was told that I was due for the upgrade, both our project manager and I assumed that nothing productive would come from me that day.
This is where awesome coworkers come in. Our IT guys reached out to me, letting me know they would be imaging my hard drive in the background while I worked in the morning and that they would bring up my new box in the afternoon.
The new box arrived around 2:00 pm. I fired it up, launched Outlook to begin pulling down my inbox, received a few pointers about the Windows 8 environment, and that was it. A quick peek through the Start menu showed that every app and tool I use regularly was already installed and on the latest version. I’m not talking about just MS Office. VS2012, SSMS2012, Notepad++, Snoop, CloudXplorer, Chrome, GitHub for Windows, MapDotNet. All there. A “Git pull” later and I was back to work.
It was 2:30pm.
If you ever find yourself writing a job description for an opening, make sure to go beyond describing your awesome perks and laid-back company culture. Be sure to talk about who a prospect may work with. A dedicated, efficient, and talented team may be just the best benefit you can offer.
