Work environment matters quite a bit to me.  Work is where I spend
the majority of my life these days, and I would like to enjoy as much
of my life as possible.  I had thought that the most important
aspect of a job was the people that you work with.  I now have a
different belief.  To go along with the people that you work with,
I really think that the environment must suit your personality,
also.  I think that it takes some career moves to get a good
understanding for the type of environment that suits you. 

For me, the environment means the physical work environment,
flexibility with that environment, as well as tools to get the job
done.

I am currently having an internal conflict with my job.  They hire
people as salary, but then they treat the people as children.  The
fact that I have to keep track of every minute I work pisses me
off.  I could see if I was a contractor and my time was billable,
but I’m a full time employee working on a single project.  Give me
the benefit of the doubt and put some faith in your decision in hiring
me.  I know that I work more if I have more freedom… I have
proved this with prior jobs.  But lock me into strict hours (8-5)
and I will only put in that much time.  When I have to worry about
how much time I put into the work, I find it hard to do things related
to the job, outside of work.  Another thing bothers me with the
current hours that I work is that if I take off to go to see a doctor
or some other appointment, I have to submit that I wasn’t at work for
that short period and I don’t get paid for it.  But if I would
stay a couple hours later, I also wouldn’t get paid for that.  It
would just be a bonus to the company.

I think a lot of this comes as a culture change for the company. 
The company is trying to start a software business, but they’re
neglecting the talent that they’ve hired.  They’re used to
providing a work environment that suited office workers from the
70s-80s.  I personally don’t see that the work culture will change
enough to suit me.  I have to admit that I get jealous when I see
the work environments of other tech companies.  We always hear
that change is on the way, but I have yet to see anything beneficial to
our work environment.  Again, if I were in this business as a
contractor, I woudn’t be bitching about these types of things.

So currently… I’m not happy when I go to my job.  It’s not that
I’m totally unhappy either, but rather I am somewhere between the
two.  Unfortunately, I feel that it’s getting to the point where
my current situation is draining the joy of working with
computers.