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About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

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Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#31

Post by saalweachter »

cnlwsu wrote: post #11
hapless wrote: post #8

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 tak…

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 signific…

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.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#32

Post by wvenable »

jonknee wrote: post #25
mkr-hn wrote: post #2

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

... 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/…

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.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#33

Post by deletes »

doe88 wrote: post #29

blah blah blah. I'm leaving because I'm underpaid. blah blah blah.

I downvoted you. I think completely justifiably. Is your type comment really appropriate for HN?

Quote from the post: >>First things first - you may wonder, how could this job possibly be so good if I'm leaving it behind? No, I did not burn out. No, the conditions are not awful. I am leaving because I have always wanted to teach.<<

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#34

Post by wvenable »

Lewisham wrote: post #30
wvenable wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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…

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.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#35

Post by doe88 »

deletes wrote: post #33
doe88 wrote: post #29

blah blah blah. I'm leaving because I'm underpaid. blah blah blah.

I downvoted you. I think completely justifiably. Is your type comment really appropriate for HN? Quote from the post: >>First things first - you may wonder, how could this job possibly be so good if I'm leaving it behind? No, I did not burn out. No, the conditions are not awful. I am leaving because I have always wanted to teach.<<

This is a free country you can downvote me as much as you want but you cannot distort facts by quoting half paragraphs. And facts are that that if he was paid enough he would have stayed longer at Penny Arcade in order to later fulfill his dream of teaching.

> Doing so comfortably requires that before then, I need to put away a lot of money to support myself when I’m getting paid a truly ludicrous wage. It is true that I am paid below market value, but not so significantly as folks on the internet assume. I live quite comfortably on this salary, and while it’s less than I could make elsewhere, it’s not out of the bounds of reasonable expectation. But I want to accelerate my plans for teaching. So here we are. I love this company, but I have goals that won't be fulfilled by working there, so it's time to move on.

TL;DR I'm leaving because I'm underpaid.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#36

Post by agentultra »

So you like working for less-than-market rates and have no life other than work? Want to work for me?

I suspect the answer is a flat, "No." Unless I was running a successful media company like PA there's nothing in it for you. What about it being PA makes it okay then?

Unfortunately I'm not surprised by the job posting. In non-unionized media companies the labor relations are generally very poor. A friend of mine used to work in such a post-production audio studio as a junior engineer. They paid him practically nothing and waited as long as they could to pay his invoices. In return he lived to work for them and never received credit for anything.

In contrast his sister worked in a larger post-production effects studio where the workers were unionized. She still has a job there afaik and is quite happy. Her brother left his gig when he was up to his eyeballs in debt and couldn't handle the hours anymore.

It sucks but that's the free market for you.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#37

Post by nooneshome »

hapless wrote: post #8

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 tak…

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-2

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#38

Post by deletes »

doe88 wrote: post #35
deletes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted you. I think completely justifiably. Is your type comment really appropriate for HN? Quote from the post: >>First things first - you may wonder, how could this job possibly be so good if I'm leaving it behind? No, I did not burn out. No, the conditions are not awful. I am leaving because I have always wanted to teach.<<

This is a free country you can downvote me as much as you want but you cannot distort facts by quoting half paragraphs. And facts are that that if he was paid enough he would have stayed longer at Penny Arcade in order to later fulfill his dream of teaching. > Doing so comfortably requires that before then, I need to put away a lot of money to support myself when I’m getting paid a truly ludicrous wage. It is true th…

He is leaving because:

-I want to accelerate my plans for teaching

-I have goals that won't be fulfilled by working there

-I need to put away a lot of money to support myself when I’m getting paid a truly ludicrous wage ||-> indicating he is getting paid well at PA( compared to the teching job ) and was able to amass money for the low paying job when he will be teaching.

Reading is tech.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#39

Post by Iftheshoefits »

mkr-hn wrote: post #9
justinsteele wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

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