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About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

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Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#11

Post by cnlwsu »

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 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.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#12

Post by roel_v »

How much money does this company make? Does their corporate structure require them to file balance sheets? I mean if you're doing something like this to support the site you love, I can understand (still not agree, but understand). But if it's just to make some owner/investors rich...

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#13

Post by AlexEatsKittens »

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…

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.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#14

Post by wvenable »

Nothing seems to contradict what anyone has said about this job:

* "It is true that I am paid below market value"

* "If I had had to apply for the job with the presently listed requirements, I might not have gotten the offer."

* "Depending on the project load, I might spend 8 hours at the office and call it good, or I might stay til 10-midnight consistently for a couple weeks."

Just because the person who currently does the job feels this is a great thing and all the people applying for the job feel it's a great thing doesn't make it great.

I guess I'm old and tired of my peers devaluing their own skills and time.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#15

Post by hapless »

DannoHung wrote: post #10
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…

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.

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.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#17

Post by [deleted] »

hapless wrote: post #15
DannoHung wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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]

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#18

Post by thomasz »

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.

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.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#19

Post by beachstartup »

the job he describes is at LEAST $125k/year + benefits + location and schedule flexibility i.e. work from home if you want, and you can leave to pick up the kids at 2pm. as long as the work gets done. possibly stock or options - depends on the company, but quite honestly i don't even view that as 'real' compensation for 90% of all cases.

i can't even begin to know what the fuck a 'volunteer' Enforcer is, especially for a profitable company. quite frankly it sounds like the typical 20 foot pile of horse shit that only the games industry could come up with. and i've seen some really mind-bendingly exploitative behavior after being based here in LA for a decade.

anything significantly less than the above salary + benefits, and you are being ripped. off. by. people. who. know. better.

i know this because i have several senior devops guys on my staff who fit that description and have been with us for over 3 years. this is also what I used to make as a senior engineer before i started up my company as an owner/executive.

people should be FAR AND AWAY your most expensive resource. with a few notable types of exceptions, if you pay your people less than your hosting provider or your rent or marketing, you're doing something very, very wrong, and it will catch up to you in some way or another. see: penny arcade job post.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#20

Post by Lewisham »

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…

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.

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