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On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

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Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#21

Post by jmduke »

coldtea wrote: post #16
jmduke wrote: post #7

I think the thing that frustrates me the most about it is: they’ll probably get a thousand applicants. A bunch of 25 year-old kids with a ton of talent and stars in their eyes are going to try to get this crap job for crap pay so they can work somewhere “cool” and feel like a part of something big. The Penny Arcade “machine” (their term) will roll on, making its millions of dollars while somehow retaining the “little…

> This confuses me, because its as if the author tries to force his valuation of the opportunity onto all prospective applicants. Perhaps it's rather as the author believes in an objective reality, where there is one true valuation of a thing, and he's not so much trying to "force his valuation onto all prospective applicants" as trying to "communicate the real valuation to all prospective applicants". > He recognize…

Perhaps it's rather as the author believes in an objective reality, where there is one true valuation of a thing, and he's not so much trying to "force his valuation onto all prospective applicants" as trying to "communicate the real valuation to all prospective applications".

I strongly disagree with this, though. I'm young, but I'm confident people can have different experiences at the same position -- I have friends who would happily take a salary hit to work at startups or smaller businesses. They value the opportunities and cultures of those jobs to be worth more than the additional $X,000. That doesn't mean they disagree with a "one true valuation" -- it means their valuation has different factors and weights.

Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#22

Post by dllthomas »

asdasf wrote: post #19
GFischer wrote: post #6

"you know what’s even more rare? A guy who can write excellent code in several disparate languages, manage multiple different server installs, administrate databases, and configure office firewalls." Is that really so hard to find? I might be selling myself short... (I actually thought I'm worth less on the marketplace by being a "generalist")

Yes. And of the small number of people who believe they can do that, 99% of them can not.

How do I tell?

(nod to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#23

Post by taeric »

coldtea wrote: post #16
jmduke wrote: post #7

I think the thing that frustrates me the most about it is: they’ll probably get a thousand applicants. A bunch of 25 year-old kids with a ton of talent and stars in their eyes are going to try to get this crap job for crap pay so they can work somewhere “cool” and feel like a part of something big. The Penny Arcade “machine” (their term) will roll on, making its millions of dollars while somehow retaining the “little…

> This confuses me, because its as if the author tries to force his valuation of the opportunity onto all prospective applicants. Perhaps it's rather as the author believes in an objective reality, where there is one true valuation of a thing, and he's not so much trying to "force his valuation onto all prospective applicants" as trying to "communicate the real valuation to all prospective applicants". > He recognize…

This rhetorical style reads terribly.

Since not everyone is objectivist, the first is sort of contradictory.

The second point is lost on comparing the job to illicit drugs. This is more like comparing it to an intern where you may not get as high of a salary as you could possibly demand, but you will get to work with people you likely view as celebrities. Would be closer to a roadie position with a very established band. Probably not the most lucrative position ever, but is it really comparable to heroin?

Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#24

Post by jblow »

GFischer wrote: post #6

"you know what’s even more rare? A guy who can write excellent code in several disparate languages, manage multiple different server installs, administrate databases, and configure office firewalls." Is that really so hard to find? I might be selling myself short... (I actually thought I'm worth less on the marketplace by being a "generalist")

What is described is something toward the top end of basic competence. The only reason someone would think this is crazy is if they have been hanging around bad engineers and / or administrators. That said, most engineers / administrators are pretty mediocre, especially these days now that so many more people are doing it. So.

I mean, if "managing office firewalls" is on someone's list of things that are impressive, maybe that person does not have a clear view of the problem space.

But I should not even be giving the article so much attention as this. It's clear the author is confused. At first he talks about how rare and crazy it is to find someone who can do this, but then, contradictorily, he laments that PA will get tons of applicants who can do the job. Well, guy, which is it? They can't both be true.

All that is going on here is that someone had a negative reaction to the job posting and is trying to express and rationalize their reaction, regardless of how that rationalization really matches up to reality. Happens all the time, why am I even replying?

Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#25

Post by andrewingram »

saraid216 wrote: post #12
GFischer wrote: post #6

"you know what’s even more rare? A guy who can write excellent code in several disparate languages, manage multiple different server installs, administrate databases, and configure office firewalls." Is that really so hard to find? I might be selling myself short... (I actually thought I'm worth less on the marketplace by being a "generalist")

Most tech companies have an entire engineering department with sub-divisions in order to get each of these roles done. If you can fulfill four jobs by yourself, then you should be getting paid for four jobs. In Seattle terms, that should be north of 200k annual.

There's a difference between being able to do 4 jobs well, and being able to do 4 jobs well at the same time. I can design and code, but I rarely attempt to do both on the same day, because context switching is hard work.

Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#26

Post by gaius »

coldtea wrote: post #16
jmduke wrote: post #7

I think the thing that frustrates me the most about it is: they’ll probably get a thousand applicants. A bunch of 25 year-old kids with a ton of talent and stars in their eyes are going to try to get this crap job for crap pay so they can work somewhere “cool” and feel like a part of something big. The Penny Arcade “machine” (their term) will roll on, making its millions of dollars while somehow retaining the “little…

> This confuses me, because its as if the author tries to force his valuation of the opportunity onto all prospective applicants. Perhaps it's rather as the author believes in an objective reality, where there is one true valuation of a thing, and he's not so much trying to "force his valuation onto all prospective applicants" as trying to "communicate the real valuation to all prospective applicants". > He recognize…

Quite. Imagine you are a hiring manager (or perhaps you don't have to imagine). Would you make a candidate a higher offer seeing Penny Arcade on their CV? Then what is the cachet exactly?

Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#27

Post by saraid216 »

jmduke wrote: post #7

I think the thing that frustrates me the most about it is: they’ll probably get a thousand applicants. A bunch of 25 year-old kids with a ton of talent and stars in their eyes are going to try to get this crap job for crap pay so they can work somewhere “cool” and feel like a part of something big. The Penny Arcade “machine” (their term) will roll on, making its millions of dollars while somehow retaining the “little…

> a lot of this post seems to be conjecture which hinges on Robert Khoo being a villain

I didn't get this sense from the post. He disagrees with what Khoo is doing. That kinda necessarily means he'll be talking about Khoo negatively.

Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#28

Post by jessedhillon »

truantbuick wrote: post #11

I'm not qualified to discern the quality of most of this post, but its tone disturbed me, and I agree that I find most of the ad hominem stuff really distasteful.

At no point does he structure his argument thus: {Khoo, Penny Arcade, anyone} is {immoral, stupid, lacking in some way} therefore they are wrong.

Absent that, there is no ad hominem. What you have is a discussion of the personalities involved in the enterprise and a speculation as to their motives, methods and the means available to them. All of that is relevant in answering some questions which need to be asked of any job offer: Who will I be working with? Will I be a valued team member? What will the team and workplace dynamics be? How do these people operate?

The term ad hominem means a specific thing. It's not a blanket term for "some people were spoken of in an unflattering way." If you don't like that some personal qualities are discussed and conclusions drawn therefrom, say that you simply dislike discussions which include value judgments about the actions of specific people.

Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#29

Post by ChuckMcM »

This is a confusing post.

I understand that pain of seeing someone in an abusive relationship, like a talented programmer working at a game studio on a crappy legacy codebase because it was once touched by some personal hero of theirs. Or the killer VLSI chip designer writing shell scripts any system administrator could write because its "working at Google." But the author here isn't in the place.

He is arguing that this job offer is a setup for entering into an abusive relationship with the folks behind Penny Arcade.

So all of that I understand and I pretty much agree with it, people will ask you to work for peanuts and spin it in such a way that they try to make you feel good about it.

But where it gets confusing for me is the whole 'I'm a unicorn and I know these guys personally' rant. What that reads like is "Gee I'm perfect for this job, know these guys, and would could totally do it but they won't compensate me 'fairly' to do it." The angst of wanting something but not willing to pay the price of getting it.

I don't know what Chris is trying to say there.

Perhaps for some people it is the same reason they take 'production assistant' jobs for minimum wage in Hollywood, so they can 'make contact with' the folks in the industry they want to be a part of. What I do know is that monetary compensation is only part of the value for some people, I know I've been in jobs that the fact they paid me was just icing on the cake, they were that fun to do [1]. Clearly the job posting is looking for someone for whom part of their compensation is that they are part of the 'Penny Arcade' family. I don't see the issue there that Chris does, hence the confusion.

[1] Ok not completely, I do need to eat and live somewhere, but sometimes felt I was being paid more than I needed to be paid to stay, just because it was so interesting/fun.

Re: On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star

#30

Post by jblow »

jblow wrote: post #24
GFischer wrote: post #6

"you know what’s even more rare? A guy who can write excellent code in several disparate languages, manage multiple different server installs, administrate databases, and configure office firewalls." Is that really so hard to find? I might be selling myself short... (I actually thought I'm worth less on the marketplace by being a "generalist")

What is described is something toward the top end of basic competence. The only reason someone would think this is crazy is if they have been hanging around bad engineers and / or administrators. That said, most engineers / administrators are pretty mediocre, especially these days now that so many more people are doing it. So. I mean, if "managing office firewalls" is on someone's list of things that are impressive,…

Really I guess the reason I am replying is that I am disturbed by this repeatedly-brought-up notion that highly productive people do not exist. I am not sure why it disturbs me so much, I think maybe because if potential highly-productive people read these things and believe them, they may be demotivated from reaching their potential. Maybe, I don't know.

If you don't believe that highly-productive programmers exist, it is only because you haven't yet met one.

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