7 ms·

It's almost as if people with no knowledge of the situation didn't know what they were talking about and speculated angrily instead.

by mkr-hn 13y ago

theorique 13y ago
On the Internet? Nonsense. Next, you'll be telling me that I'm not really getting a 10% finders fee from the $75M fortune of Oil Minister Louis N'Kornongo of Nigeria for helping him transfer the money to the USA. As if.
acheron 13y ago
Gotta drive those ad eyeballs somehow.
- acheron 13y ago
  Downvotes? Come on. Manufactured controversy based on uninformed speculation to drive hits to ones blog is the entire business model of half the "news" sites out there. Is it impolitic to point that out?
  - icebraining 13y ago
    What news site are you talking about in this case?
  - asdasf 13y ago
    I'm still not sure if you are talking about PA or whatever blog pointed out what an exploitive job posting they put up.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
justinsteele 13y ago
Nothing he wrote has changed my opinion about the ad or the position, except for the parts regarding his depression and lung issues, and how they handled it (well). Overall, it reinforced that they are interested in someone who is willing to take a below market rate, is a generalist in many arenas, and is willing to work 60-80 hours a week, including 24/7 on call. Honestly, breaking the job into 2 positions (no, they would not be reading r/aww all day, and if they were, you hired the wrong people) would make this SO much more enticing. It would eliminate the 24/7 on call (you could do every other week), you'd have someone to bounce ideas off, and if you hired the right 2 people, their expertise in the 4 'jobs' would likely be much higher than whoever is going to get the gig currently.
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  I'm going to trust that he understands his desires, ambitions, and capabilities better than anyone reading that thread, the discussion around the Internet, or the job posting. This is not some naive kid fresh out of college being abused by a powerful corporation.
  - wvenable 13y ago
    Absolutely nothing he has said in this post has contradicted anything said about this position. He flat out states he is underpaid and has no work/life balance. The fact that he's ok with that is the problem!
    - Lewisham 13y ago
      It sounds like you are surprised that there are people who are not like you. There are lots of people in lots of companies that prefer working longer hours and maintaining their social circles at work. The author of the post says he's one of those guys, and he took a pay cut to work there. He worked at Amazon, he's not dumb and he's not being willfully exploited. So one must assume that he did it because he wanted to. He could have left long before now. Saying that he somehow has a problem because that's what he wants in life is pretty judgmental. Do I want to work that way? No. Do you? No. Does it mean he has a "problem" because that's what he wants? No.
      - wvenable 13y ago
        If you work long hours, you should be paid accordingly. If you want to volunteer your time to make a company profitable that's your choice but I reserve the right to believe that's dumb/wrong. It also devalues the work of every other developer.
  - Iftheshoefits 13y ago
    Yes, actually it is somebody being abused by a corporation. His attempt at sugar coating it is a decent one, but is not convincing. The clincher is how he ends his post: "There is this notion that work/life balance is some kind of sacred goal. I’m sorry, but it’s ludicrous. That’s like saying everyone would be fulfilled by getting married and having 2.5 kids. If you want to work 40 hours and never think about your job after 5pm, great! Find something that does that for you. If you want to work 80 or more hours at something you truly enjoy, in fact you don’t want to stop working ever because you love it so much, shouldn’t that be okay too? Shouldn’t we be so lucky as to have a job that we are so invested in?" He has set up a false dichotomy and left out a whole lot of other possible options out of his little attempt at rationalizing selling oneself to a rich person for less than his efforts are worth. Dismissing an abusive employment environment with a statement about people "choosing" to work there while ignoring all the context around such "choices" is just runny icing on that crap cake.
thomasz 13y ago
Let's see, we have a job posting that promises you that your job will have founder level responsibilities that will destroy your social life, for an interns pay. And now we get a forum post from the poor sucker who confirms that the reality of this job is as brutal and exploitative as promised. But that's totally cool because he never felt taken advantage of because of the smooth atmosphere , the cool tech and the friendly colleagues. Looks like the Penny Arcade guys took a page from the game industries playbook.
jonknee 13y ago
... And they got it right. The employee confirmed what was in the job posting and what people had issues with (so many different roles, ridiculous hours, low pay, etc). It's not that hard: Want a programmer? Hire one. Want a web developer? Hire one. Want a system administrator? Hire one. Hire two if you have any type of 24/7 on call requirement (it's not remotely reasonable to expect one individual to be on call 24/7 365). Then unless you want to get sued, set reasonable expectations of hours (2x full time is not reasonable).
- wvenable 13y ago
  I disagree. In a small company, everyone takes on multiple roles -- so why can't a single person be a programmer, web developer, system administrator? I've done that job many times. The only issue is if the workload is more than one person can handle. In this case, the work sounds like it's only slightly more than a one-person job and it's unfortunate he's not paid accordingly.
  - Avshalom 13y ago
    Penny Arcade is not a small company, it just plays one on TV.
    - mkr-hn 13y ago
      The company is small. It's a handful of people in a small office. Influence is not closely tied to size with a business like PA.
  - itsameta4 13y ago
    Penny Arcade is not a small company - at least it shouldn't be. That's what people are saying.
  - swang 13y ago
    Generally you are required to take on multiple roles at a small company because there is no other choice. There are no funds to hire the proper people to do it. It's either do it or go bust. Penny Arcade is not a small company in that sense. They definitely _could_ hire the right 4 people to work there, but instead they want to just pay 1 person to do that job. While I am sure you were competent enough to do 3 jobs, you are probably not as good at all 3 as someone who focuses primarily on one of those roles. But you forget this is for 4 jobs, and they want 1 person to do all that within their regular bounds of a job where they expect you to be on call 24/7. Oh and they want to pay you below market rates to do all 4 of them. I think that is what every is angry about.

It's almost as if people with no knowledge of the situation didn't know what they were talking about and speculated angrily instead.

by mkr-hn 13y ago

It's almost as if people with no knowledge of the situation didn't know what they were talking about and speculated angrily instead.

theorique 13y ago

On the Internet? Nonsense. Next, you'll be telling me that I'm not really getting a 10% finders fee from the $75M fortune of Oil Minister Louis N'Kornongo of Nigeria for helping him transfer the money to the USA. As if.

acheron 13y ago

Gotta drive those ad eyeballs somehow.

acheron 13y ago
Downvotes? Come on. Manufactured controversy based on uninformed speculation to drive hits to ones blog is the entire business model of half the "news" sites out there. Is it impolitic to point that out?
- icebraining 13y ago
  What news site are you talking about in this case?
- asdasf 13y ago
  I'm still not sure if you are talking about PA or whatever blog pointed out what an exploitive job posting they put up.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

justinsteele 13y ago

Nothing he wrote has changed my opinion about the ad or the position, except for the parts regarding his depression and lung issues, and how they handled it (well). Overall, it reinforced that they are interested in someone who is willing to take a below market rate, is a generalist in many arenas, and is willing to work 60-80 hours a week, including 24/7 on call. Honestly, breaking the job into 2 positions (no, they would not be reading r/aww all day, and if they were, you hired the wrong people) would make this SO much more enticing. It would eliminate the 24/7 on call (you could do every other week), you'd have someone to bounce ideas off, and if you hired the right 2 people, their expertise in the 4 'jobs' would likely be much higher than whoever is going to get the gig currently.

mkr-hn 13y ago
I'm going to trust that he understands his desires, ambitions, and capabilities better than anyone reading that thread, the discussion around the Internet, or the job posting. This is not some naive kid fresh out of college being abused by a powerful corporation.
- wvenable 13y ago
  Absolutely nothing he has said in this post has contradicted anything said about this position. He flat out states he is underpaid and has no work/life balance. The fact that he's ok with that is the problem!
  - Lewisham 13y ago
    It sounds like you are surprised that there are people who are not like you. There are lots of people in lots of companies that prefer working longer hours and maintaining their social circles at work. The author of the post says he's one of those guys, and he took a pay cut to work there. He worked at Amazon, he's not dumb and he's not being willfully exploited. So one must assume that he did it because he wanted to. He could have left long before now. Saying that he somehow has a problem because that's what he wants in life is pretty judgmental. Do I want to work that way? No. Do you? No. Does it mean he has a "problem" because that's what he wants? No.
    - wvenable 13y ago
      If you work long hours, you should be paid accordingly. If you want to volunteer your time to make a company profitable that's your choice but I reserve the right to believe that's dumb/wrong. It also devalues the work of every other developer.
- Iftheshoefits 13y ago
  Yes, actually it is somebody being abused by a corporation. His attempt at sugar coating it is a decent one, but is not convincing. The clincher is how he ends his post: "There is this notion that work/life balance is some kind of sacred goal. I’m sorry, but it’s ludicrous. That’s like saying everyone would be fulfilled by getting married and having 2.5 kids. If you want to work 40 hours and never think about your job after 5pm, great! Find something that does that for you. If you want to work 80 or more hours at something you truly enjoy, in fact you don’t want to stop working ever because you love it so much, shouldn’t that be okay too? Shouldn’t we be so lucky as to have a job that we are so invested in?" He has set up a false dichotomy and left out a whole lot of other possible options out of his little attempt at rationalizing selling oneself to a rich person for less than his efforts are worth. Dismissing an abusive employment environment with a statement about people "choosing" to work there while ignoring all the context around such "choices" is just runny icing on that crap cake.

thomasz 13y ago

Let's see, we have a job posting that promises you that your job will have founder level responsibilities that will destroy your social life, for an interns pay. And now we get a forum post from the poor sucker who confirms that the reality of this job is as brutal and exploitative as promised. But that's totally cool because he never felt taken advantage of because of the smooth atmosphere , the cool tech and the friendly colleagues. Looks like the Penny Arcade guys took a page from the game industries playbook.

jonknee 13y ago

... And they got it right. The employee confirmed what was in the job posting and what people had issues with (so many different roles, ridiculous hours, low pay, etc). It's not that hard: Want a programmer? Hire one. Want a web developer? Hire one. Want a system administrator? Hire one. Hire two if you have any type of 24/7 on call requirement (it's not remotely reasonable to expect one individual to be on call 24/7 365). Then unless you want to get sued, set reasonable expectations of hours (2x full time is not reasonable).

wvenable 13y ago
I disagree. In a small company, everyone takes on multiple roles -- so why can't a single person be a programmer, web developer, system administrator? I've done that job many times. The only issue is if the workload is more than one person can handle. In this case, the work sounds like it's only slightly more than a one-person job and it's unfortunate he's not paid accordingly.
- Avshalom 13y ago
  Penny Arcade is not a small company, it just plays one on TV.
  - mkr-hn 13y ago
    The company is small. It's a handful of people in a small office. Influence is not closely tied to size with a business like PA.
- itsameta4 13y ago
  Penny Arcade is not a small company - at least it shouldn't be. That's what people are saying.
- swang 13y ago
  Generally you are required to take on multiple roles at a small company because there is no other choice. There are no funds to hire the proper people to do it. It's either do it or go bust. Penny Arcade is not a small company in that sense. They definitely _could_ hire the right 4 people to work there, but instead they want to just pay 1 person to do that job. While I am sure you were competent enough to do 3 jobs, you are probably not as good at all 3 as someone who focuses primarily on one of those roles. But you forget this is for 4 jobs, and they want 1 person to do all that within their regular bounds of a job where they expect you to be on call 24/7. Oh and they want to pay you below market rates to do all 4 of them. I think that is what every is angry about.