this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2025
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Importance, or lack of work contribution? Smaller screen = works less.
Importance as in payment, probably
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.
Well, if the company gets fined for mismanaging or committing fraud, who do you think they will fire?
A scapegoat is very important.
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
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.
You just changed how I think about virtual screens. I feel like Khan being unloaded on by Kirk.
I decided long ago that I liked the single monitor with multiple desktops. But in my head they have always been a line of desktops instead of a grid.
Somewhere there is a mathematician who uses a hyper cube array of desktops…
When I discovered it can be arranged in a grid, it made VDs so much more useful.
Cause a line of the same amount of VDs (9)... Ugh, not fun haha
Even though you can map each to a shortcut, it's still tougher to use than a grid with directional shortcuts!
How do you have your shortcuts set up for this? And if you don't mind me asking, what desktop environment / window manager are you using?
I am using KDE's Plasma 6 as a DE with Wayland. The compositor (window managers are a Xorg thing) is KWin
The shortcuts I use are Meta+Up/Down/Left/Right. I can't remember if they're default or if I set them this way.
Grid VDs club. Although I only use 2x2 because toggle up/down/righ/left is complicated enough for my brain.
Maybe a cross setup would work for you if you ever need a 5th VD :)
I'll often have documentation on another monitor, so I can full-screen my code and still reference the documentation without switching windows.
I prefer to switch down to the VD with the doc on fullscreen than noving my head to another monitor
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.
Exactly, this is why the most 'important' person just uses a phone they are the most efficient with the smallest screen
It's the same thing. The workers work, management just makes sure the workers work.
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
Well, I can only write from my own experience. I've worked for several major campaigns in my life. In banks, in telecom operators. And it's almost always been like this. And where there was none, the campaign collapsed. Not in a moment, of course, because campaigns, like people, do not die instantly, but age and degrade. But as a result, it was.
When you say campaign are you meaning company?
Yes. Sorry, I still don't speak English well, so I use Google Translate.
No worries! I thought I understood, but I just wanted to check.
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
Interesting, my experience has been quite different but then it has been more with executives of relatively small (<500) and private companies. I've also seen some cases of companies closer to dictatorships, but they have (at least from my external perspective) seemed like dictators with at least clear visions. A small minority have been loudmouthed assholes.
From my limited experience, it's the size/amount of monitors at the top that correlates with company size, not at the bottom. At my 5-person software company, almost everyone works with multiple screens, except one of the three founders who still works mainly on a laptop display at least