It might not be important to you, but I don't think the article is saying that it has to be. I think it's a good yardstick, though, for taking the 'temperature' of the sorts of policies and the kind of work environment you're about to be standing in if you decide to take a job.
As someone recently said to me when I asked if their e-mail address was "firstname.lastname@" -- "Please, we're still a startup; firstname@ is fine." It's a part of the corporate culture, no matter how small, and I suspect if you dig deeper you'll easily find other seemingly trivial but illustrative examples of how people think and work in a company.
In some large Silicon Valley companies, "firstname@company.com" is a badge of honor because it indicates that you were an employee back when the company was small. New employees don't receive that option at some point.
Yep, that's how it works with my employer. Typically, your email address and network ID are setup prior to your first day, which doesn't bother me much since what I got matches what I'm used to using.
As someone recently said to me when I asked if their e-mail address was "firstname.lastname@" -- "Please, we're still a startup; firstname@ is fine." It's a part of the corporate culture, no matter how small, and I suspect if you dig deeper you'll easily find other seemingly trivial but illustrative examples of how people think and work in a company.