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This post confirms that the job posting is exactly what it looks like: an exploitative horror-show * He speculates whether the job is worth a "lower salary" (a

by hapless 13y ago

This post confirms that the job posting is exactly what it looks like: an exploitative horror-show * He speculates whether the job is worth a "lower salary" (and, given his admitted inexperience in the workforce, he probably has no idea what a market salary looks like) * "The ping-pong table is NOT a benefit" * He's on the "bottom of the goddamn ladder" and "reminded every day" edit: I'm getting a lot of flak for taking this out of context. This is a post on his employer's public forum, that they tweeted out on their corp accounts. It's not a stretch to read between the lines because this "joke" is so awkward and forced. I cannot imagine that it didn't have a double meaning. In other words, "ha ha only serious" * He wears "four hats," and does the job of "two people" so they can run "lean." * At some point his burnout was so bad (and so visible), his employers asked if they could "send [him] anywhere" It's really a little strange to read this post. It's obvious that he really, really likes his coworkers and really, really hates his job. He describes horrible things with soft, feel-good terms. The author seems to hope applicants go into it with open eyes: the new hire will be crapped on and underpaid while he keeps a laptop next to the bed to handle early-AM change requests. But your coworkers are really fun!

DannoHung 13y ago
The ladder comment is about the Ping-Pong tournaments regularly held in the office. From the comment it's pretty obvious this is a two person job and getting a single dev is a business mistake.
- hapless 13y ago
  Given that this is posted on his current employers' public forum, I take the "bottom of the ladder" and "not a benefit" juxtaposition as a "ha ha only serious" kind of joke. There's no way that wasn't intended to have a double meaning.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - DannoHung 13y ago
    There is a way. The way in which you're completely misreading a joke about an office ping pong tournament.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Or you know, maybe others missing this are not very good at reading obvious stuff between the lines and need everything spelled out...
- TWAndrews 13y ago
  I think this is the key thing here. This guy came on and grew into the job. He's obviously skilled and motivated, and because he built the systems from the ground up, can keep them maintained with way less effort than someone coming in will be able to. Even if they find someone who's just as skilled and motivated, that person won't have the key experience of "I built all this" and will have to spend a much larger fraction of time on maintenance/extension. Ultimately PA will have to hire multiple people to do all this stuff. If they're smart they'll recognize it now, rather than when the smart, motivated person they do hire starts to fail.
cnlwsu 13y ago
I think your reaching a little, taking things outta context and spinning what he says to reinforce what you want to believe. The bottom of the ladder is takin outta context, I am pretty sure he is referring to his position in the ping pong standings and joking about the ping pong table. Salary is poor may also be considered "fair" based on his comment: It is true that I am paid below market value, but not so significantly as folks on the internet assume. Stick with any company from right outta college until 5 years in and your probably below market value unless they give you amazing raises each year.
- saalweachter 13y ago
  Paying someone "near market value" for a regular developer at a normal company, but leaving them on call 24/7 for 5 years is paying them "way below market value". I say this as someone who went through that exact situation: I worked at a small company for five years out of college, and was on-call for 24/7 for most of that. Someone called me on my goddamn honeymoon (which was basically the only real vacation I took during the interval) to troubleshoot a minor issue I had left explicit instructions for before I left. They were very good with salary increases, and I didn't get more than a 5% raise out of switching jobs. But I went from working 50-60 hours a week, plus perpetual on-call, to working 40 hours a week. I loved working there, loved the people, had a lot of fun but ... I wish I'd left years earlier. It wasn't worth it. It's hard to admit it, when you love a job that doesn't love you back. But I will never go back to working the job of two people unless I'm getting paid the salary of two people.
  - mhurron 13y ago
    > Paying someone "near market value" for a regular developer at a normal company, but leaving them on call 24/7 for 5 years is paying them "way below market value". I say this as someone who went through that exact situation: I worked at a small company SOP for small companies, except the market value bit, you'll usually get less.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
AlexEatsKittens 13y ago
My thoughts exactly. You see this all over the place; people talk about their job requiring passion and sacrifice as if it's a good thing. If your job requires you to do the work of two people and keep a laptop by your bed it's because your boss doesn't value your time and wont bother to hire the second person needed to do the job correctly. You aren't helping your coworkers by meeting ridiculous expectations, you're perpetuating exploitation.
- mhurron 13y ago
  Ya, I'm surprised to see so much outrage here over this. You see sometimes people here taking work/life balance seriously, but work yourself to death seems more the norm here. They rationalize it because they are working for themselves (read: their VC) to death.
Lewisham 13y ago
Did you actually read the post? The ladder is about the ping pong league they run, and he's joking that it's not a benefit because he's not winning. He decided he preferred to get a lower salary for a job he enjoyed more. He said he can wear four hats because "The reality is that one highly motivated, highly skilled person can handle all of this. You do not need to be constantly working IT, or constantly managing servers or writing code. There’s a lot there, yes. This is a job that will keep one person fairly busy. Two people might find themselves spending a lot of time on /r/aww." So either you're really reading a lot between the lines to see what you want to see, or you didn't read it.
- hapless 13y ago
  I don't have to read much between the lines to interpret a strangled reference to losing at pingpong as a more literal expression of his status. He posted this on his current employer's public forum, after all.
  - santoshalper 13y ago
    You are totally and completely full of shit and a serious troll.
  - arcosdev 13y ago
    I don't think you're full of shit. I think you're onto something.
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    I know him, you are 100% dead wrong.
- niuzeta 13y ago
  > The ladder is about the ping pong league they run, and he's joking that it's not a benefit because he's not winning. I did not get that after re-reading the post. While I thank you for clarifying the point which changed the tone of the post dramatically(bad juxtaposition if you ask me, really), I'd also like to point out allegations of did you read the post are, in general, not constructive ad hominem(that whoever you're replying to is incapable of reading and etc.) and uncalled for.
QuantumGood 13y ago
He fairly specifically says that interpretations such as yours are wrong. He specifically says: * No, the conditions are not awful...I love this company * No one here has been scammed into working as hard as they do, and the implication that we’re all blind fools with low self esteem for being here is honestly insulting. * There won’t be any taking advantage of starry-eyed young twenty-somethings. He explains why he's leaving directly and clearly, (including "No, I did not burn out.") and that he likes working there. You're assuming he's lying, which you can't know.
- hapless 13y ago
  He says the conditions are not awful, then describes awful conditions. He says he's not leaving because he burned out, and then describes when he burned out. He very obviously loves the company, but it's not a healthy love.
  - santoshalper 13y ago
    Awful conditions for you.
    - brianwawok 13y ago
      For a human being
      - nbouscal 13y ago
        Yes, because you know what is best for all human beings. This line in the post was directed at you: > That’s like saying everyone would be fulfilled by getting married and having 2.5 kids. Not everyone has the same utility function.
        kelnos 13y ago
        I tend to be a fairly relativistic, each-to-his-own person, so when things like this come up, I generally nod my head in agreement. I don't think I can do that here, though. You're totally right in that people have different utility functions, but I believe that there are some things that are just objectively bad and unhealthy, and whether or not you think you enjoy them or "like" them, they are still bad for you, and possibly bad for others. I don't want to live in a world where it's ok for a company to create a position like this guy was in, and have that be the norm. No, it's not like that, but the more we apologize for companies that do that, and the more we say, "oh, it's ok for that person to work in those conditions; if you don't like it then pick another job", the easier we make it for companies to think that those kinds of things are ok for everyone. And then there's the wage issue. Bottom line: if you are working the jobs of more than one people, you should be paid more than one person. This guy took a pay cut to do more work. That's certainly a reasonable thing to do if compensation comes from other (healthy) angles, which appears not to be the case. The job posting for his replacement explicitly says they're cheap-ass bastards who aren't going to pay what you are worth or what the job duties merit. That's not just a company I don't want to work for. That is a company with staffing practices that are actively harmful to individuals and the industry as a whole. edit: @wvenable puts it so so so well a bit below: "I guess I'm old and tired of my peers devaluing their own skills and time."
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nooneshome 13y ago
Ping pong is Serious Business at Penny Arcade. They have an intraoffice league where the top players play other companies. They are always giving each other shit (jokingly) when they don't play well. http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/screenlife-part-1 http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/screenlife-part-1 http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/screenlife-part-2 http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/screenlife-part-2
zoips 13y ago
Have you ever worked at Amazon? He did. For 3 years (I did for 4). I very much doubt PA is any worse than Amazon with regards to it being the job from hell. Everything in the PA job description is practically a carbon copy of what should be in every job description from Amazon. "he probably has no idea what a market salary looks like" Amazon doesn't pay as well as Google, but Amazon salary is really far better than you'll get at anything other than the four big tech companies for a normal SDE.
- asdasf 13y ago
  Amazon is infamous for being a terrible place to work that drives people away in a few years (notice how everyone works there for 2-4 years?). Saying "this is no worse than amazon" is about as damning as you can get.
johngalt 13y ago
The whole post made me think of someone defending an abusive spouse. 'Yeah I'm not allowed to go anywhere ever, but he takes care of me. I probably wouldn't even meet the requirements for the job, I'm sure lucky he chose me.'
TWAndrews 13y ago
Wow. It's like we didn't read the same post at all.
coldtea 13y ago
Spot on. It would be like a textbook case of the Stockholm syndrome -- only, despite trying quite hard, he doesn't come off as that keen about his captors or his environment anyway...

by hapless 13y ago

DannoHung 13y ago

The ladder comment is about the Ping-Pong tournaments regularly held in the office. From the comment it's pretty obvious this is a two person job and getting a single dev is a business mistake.

hapless 13y ago
Given that this is posted on his current employers' public forum, I take the "bottom of the ladder" and "not a benefit" juxtaposition as a "ha ha only serious" kind of joke. There's no way that wasn't intended to have a double meaning.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- DannoHung 13y ago
  There is a way. The way in which you're completely misreading a joke about an office ping pong tournament.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Or you know, maybe others missing this are not very good at reading obvious stuff between the lines and need everything spelled out...
TWAndrews 13y ago
I think this is the key thing here. This guy came on and grew into the job. He's obviously skilled and motivated, and because he built the systems from the ground up, can keep them maintained with way less effort than someone coming in will be able to. Even if they find someone who's just as skilled and motivated, that person won't have the key experience of "I built all this" and will have to spend a much larger fraction of time on maintenance/extension. Ultimately PA will have to hire multiple people to do all this stuff. If they're smart they'll recognize it now, rather than when the smart, motivated person they do hire starts to fail.

cnlwsu 13y ago

I think your reaching a little, taking things outta context and spinning what he says to reinforce what you want to believe. The bottom of the ladder is takin outta context, I am pretty sure he is referring to his position in the ping pong standings and joking about the ping pong table. Salary is poor may also be considered "fair" based on his comment: It is true that I am paid below market value, but not so significantly as folks on the internet assume. Stick with any company from right outta college until 5 years in and your probably below market value unless they give you amazing raises each year.

saalweachter 13y ago
Paying someone "near market value" for a regular developer at a normal company, but leaving them on call 24/7 for 5 years is paying them "way below market value". I say this as someone who went through that exact situation: I worked at a small company for five years out of college, and was on-call for 24/7 for most of that. Someone called me on my goddamn honeymoon (which was basically the only real vacation I took during the interval) to troubleshoot a minor issue I had left explicit instructions for before I left. They were very good with salary increases, and I didn't get more than a 5% raise out of switching jobs. But I went from working 50-60 hours a week, plus perpetual on-call, to working 40 hours a week. I loved working there, loved the people, had a lot of fun but ... I wish I'd left years earlier. It wasn't worth it. It's hard to admit it, when you love a job that doesn't love you back. But I will never go back to working the job of two people unless I'm getting paid the salary of two people.
- mhurron 13y ago
  > Paying someone "near market value" for a regular developer at a normal company, but leaving them on call 24/7 for 5 years is paying them "way below market value". I say this as someone who went through that exact situation: I worked at a small company SOP for small companies, except the market value bit, you'll usually get less.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

AlexEatsKittens 13y ago

My thoughts exactly. You see this all over the place; people talk about their job requiring passion and sacrifice as if it's a good thing. If your job requires you to do the work of two people and keep a laptop by your bed it's because your boss doesn't value your time and wont bother to hire the second person needed to do the job correctly. You aren't helping your coworkers by meeting ridiculous expectations, you're perpetuating exploitation.

mhurron 13y ago
Ya, I'm surprised to see so much outrage here over this. You see sometimes people here taking work/life balance seriously, but work yourself to death seems more the norm here. They rationalize it because they are working for themselves (read: their VC) to death.

Lewisham 13y ago

Did you actually read the post? The ladder is about the ping pong league they run, and he's joking that it's not a benefit because he's not winning. He decided he preferred to get a lower salary for a job he enjoyed more. He said he can wear four hats because "The reality is that one highly motivated, highly skilled person can handle all of this. You do not need to be constantly working IT, or constantly managing servers or writing code. There’s a lot there, yes. This is a job that will keep one person fairly busy. Two people might find themselves spending a lot of time on /r/aww." So either you're really reading a lot between the lines to see what you want to see, or you didn't read it.

hapless 13y ago
I don't have to read much between the lines to interpret a strangled reference to losing at pingpong as a more literal expression of his status. He posted this on his current employer's public forum, after all.
- santoshalper 13y ago
  You are totally and completely full of shit and a serious troll.
- arcosdev 13y ago
  I don't think you're full of shit. I think you're onto something.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  I know him, you are 100% dead wrong.
niuzeta 13y ago
> The ladder is about the ping pong league they run, and he's joking that it's not a benefit because he's not winning. I did not get that after re-reading the post. While I thank you for clarifying the point which changed the tone of the post dramatically(bad juxtaposition if you ask me, really), I'd also like to point out allegations of did you read the post are, in general, not constructive ad hominem(that whoever you're replying to is incapable of reading and etc.) and uncalled for.

QuantumGood 13y ago

He fairly specifically says that interpretations such as yours are wrong. He specifically says: * No, the conditions are not awful...I love this company * No one here has been scammed into working as hard as they do, and the implication that we’re all blind fools with low self esteem for being here is honestly insulting. * There won’t be any taking advantage of starry-eyed young twenty-somethings. He explains why he's leaving directly and clearly, (including "No, I did not burn out.") and that he likes working there. You're assuming he's lying, which you can't know.

hapless 13y ago
He says the conditions are not awful, then describes awful conditions. He says he's not leaving because he burned out, and then describes when he burned out. He very obviously loves the company, but it's not a healthy love.
- santoshalper 13y ago
  Awful conditions for you.
  - brianwawok 13y ago
    For a human being
    - nbouscal 13y ago
      Yes, because you know what is best for all human beings. This line in the post was directed at you: > That’s like saying everyone would be fulfilled by getting married and having 2.5 kids. Not everyone has the same utility function.
      - kelnos 13y ago
        I tend to be a fairly relativistic, each-to-his-own person, so when things like this come up, I generally nod my head in agreement. I don't think I can do that here, though. You're totally right in that people have different utility functions, but I believe that there are some things that are just objectively bad and unhealthy, and whether or not you think you enjoy them or "like" them, they are still bad for you, and possibly bad for others. I don't want to live in a world where it's ok for a company to create a position like this guy was in, and have that be the norm. No, it's not like that, but the more we apologize for companies that do that, and the more we say, "oh, it's ok for that person to work in those conditions; if you don't like it then pick another job", the easier we make it for companies to think that those kinds of things are ok for everyone. And then there's the wage issue. Bottom line: if you are working the jobs of more than one people, you should be paid more than one person. This guy took a pay cut to do more work. That's certainly a reasonable thing to do if compensation comes from other (healthy) angles, which appears not to be the case. The job posting for his replacement explicitly says they're cheap-ass bastards who aren't going to pay what you are worth or what the job duties merit. That's not just a company I don't want to work for. That is a company with staffing practices that are actively harmful to individuals and the industry as a whole. edit: @wvenable puts it so so so well a bit below: "I guess I'm old and tired of my peers devaluing their own skills and time."

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nooneshome 13y ago

Ping pong is Serious Business at Penny Arcade. They have an intraoffice league where the top players play other companies. They are always giving each other shit (jokingly) when they don't play well. http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/screenlife-part-1 http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/screenlife-part-1 http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/screenlife-part-2 http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/screenlife-part-2

zoips 13y ago

Have you ever worked at Amazon? He did. For 3 years (I did for 4). I very much doubt PA is any worse than Amazon with regards to it being the job from hell. Everything in the PA job description is practically a carbon copy of what should be in every job description from Amazon. "he probably has no idea what a market salary looks like" Amazon doesn't pay as well as Google, but Amazon salary is really far better than you'll get at anything other than the four big tech companies for a normal SDE.

asdasf 13y ago
Amazon is infamous for being a terrible place to work that drives people away in a few years (notice how everyone works there for 2-4 years?). Saying "this is no worse than amazon" is about as damning as you can get.

johngalt 13y ago

The whole post made me think of someone defending an abusive spouse. 'Yeah I'm not allowed to go anywhere ever, but he takes care of me. I probably wouldn't even meet the requirements for the job, I'm sure lucky he chose me.'

TWAndrews 13y ago

Wow. It's like we didn't read the same post at all.

coldtea 13y ago

Spot on. It would be like a textbook case of the Stockholm syndrome -- only, despite trying quite hard, he doesn't come off as that keen about his captors or his environment anyway...