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Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

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Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#141

Post by shady-lady »

vecter wrote: post #127
dleslie wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_Never_ work longer hours than you would be willing to be paid hourly for given your salary. _Never_. I've been interviewed at companies where it was evident from my questions that I would make more working half time at my current employer than the hours typically worked at the prospective employer. Really, I don't see why overtime is so rare in our industry. Not having it is more often an excuse to over utilize and…

Never is a pretty bad rule. If you want to get ahead in life and advance your career, sometimes working more is the only way to do it. Everyone should decide at the end of the day how much they want to balance work vs. life, but for many people, working hard is the right choice.

> working hard is the right choice

working long != working hard

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#142

Post by ericdykstra »

gaius wrote: post #139
ericdykstra wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be callous, but the game industry is one where much of the benefit comes from the fact that one gets to work on games as opposed to B2B SAAS apps or other banal businesses. In exchange for getting to work on games, you are taking a lower salary, higher competition, and much less stable working environment. It's very similar to sports; there are many more people who want to work in sports than there ar…

much of the benefit comes from the fact that one gets to work on games as opposed to B2B SAAS apps or other banal businesses I’ve sometimes wondered if that’s true. I mean debugging a race condition in C++ is going to be the same in a game engine as in a trading engine right? Except the latter will be well paid and secure.

For some people, the mere fact that what they're working on produces joy rather than ??? is worth the pay/security difference, even if the everyday work itself is nearly the same.

I can imagine quite a few benefits, to be honest. You get to work with other people who decided to make the same sacrifice, meaning you have something more in common with your coworkers through your work than just picking the highest paying job. You get to say "I did this" and point to a part of a game that potentially millions of people are playing.

If I were evaluating two otherwise equal jobs, I could see myself taking a $5k or maybe even $10k lower salary for those kinds of benefits. The cost is much higher, though, (in terms of salary, job security, and overtime requirement) which is why I've never worked for a game company and probably won't in the future.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#143

Post by baud147258 »

This remind me that I've been meaning to pick up the Guardians of the Galaxy TT game, because I like the comics and the movies, but each time I Watch a gameplay video, I go completly meh, it just look so clunky and boring to play. I understand the appeal of those game is not supposed to be in the gameplay part of the game, but in that case, they should have done directly a visual novel instead.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#144

Post by pavlov »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #85
pavlov wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is something that can be fixed by law. At least my native country Finland has a sort of public bankruptcy insurance (“palkkaturva”) that extends automatically to all employees. In the event of a bankruptcy leaving you with unpaid wages, you file an application with the same office that handles unemployment benefits, and they will recompensate you. C-level managers are exempt.

This is something entirely different. And FYI a strong incentive for companies to never offer any kind of severance in these situations since it's all socialized. Better to just be transparent about things so employees can properly consider the risk in the situation.

The issue here is that a bankrupt company is breaking the contracts it made with employees — and you suggest it can be fixed by having employees enter into another contract with the same company. Do you see the problem?

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#145

Post by sonnyblarney »

pavlov wrote: post #144
sonnyblarney wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something entirely different. And FYI a strong incentive for companies to never offer any kind of severance in these situations since it's all socialized. Better to just be transparent about things so employees can properly consider the risk in the situation.

The issue here is that a bankrupt company is breaking the contracts it made with employees — and you suggest it can be fixed by having employees enter into another contract with the same company. Do you see the problem?

No. There's little that can be done when a company goes bankrupt.

I'm suggesting if people know that the company could go bankrupt, it helps them make decisions.

And that severance is a normal part of a contract otherwise

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#146

Post by sonnyblarney »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #123
sonnyblarney wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Severance can be put in a contract like anything else, so it's as 'guaranteed' as any other obligation so long as the company can pay for it.

If severance is in your contract, and the company is insolvent, you are SOL. It is not like any other obligation, as an example, unemployment: your company pays into unemployment funds every month (mandated by government), which is what allows you to collect if you're let go, regardless of their solvency situation. A severance agreement with a bankrupt company is worthless.

Yes, severance is like every other obligation, different only probably in seniority.

Obviously if the company is bankrupt they cannot pay.

Don't work for companies that are going, or could be going bankrupt. In the vast majority of the cases the writing is on the wall long before that happens.

Payroll taxes are just another form of income tax, the company doesn't really pay it, the employee does, economically speaking that money would go to the employee were those payroll taxes not to exist. The the co. does pay it is just an accounting issue.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#147

Post by HelloNurse »

vecter wrote: post #127
dleslie wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_Never_ work longer hours than you would be willing to be paid hourly for given your salary. _Never_. I've been interviewed at companies where it was evident from my questions that I would make more working half time at my current employer than the hours typically worked at the prospective employer. Really, I don't see why overtime is so rare in our industry. Not having it is more often an excuse to over utilize and…

Never is a pretty bad rule. If you want to get ahead in life and advance your career, sometimes working more is the only way to do it. Everyone should decide at the end of the day how much they want to balance work vs. life, but for many people, working hard is the right choice.

Far from "advancing" anything, unpaid overtime consolidates the employee's role as a slave. A company that demands unpaid overtime is a mismanaged and exploitative company.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#148

Post by pavlov »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #145
pavlov wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is that a bankrupt company is breaking the contracts it made with employees — and you suggest it can be fixed by having employees enter into another contract with the same company. Do you see the problem?

No. There's little that can be done when a company goes bankrupt. I'm suggesting if people know that the company could go bankrupt, it helps them make decisions. And that severance is a normal part of a contract otherwise

What company is going to advertise months in advance that they might be going bankrupt? That's the surest way to make it come true.

This seems like some kind of weird libertarian fantasy where companies and employees have access to the same information and use it to make rational economic decisions. In reality, almost any failing company will use its payroll obligations as a bank of last resort to squeeze out that last chance of turning things around, and there's no contract that would protect employees from that.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#149

Post by zemo »

ericdykstra wrote: post #101
zemo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

game industry workers don't have the same bargaining power that people in other industries have. > "Cash Up Front" ... or immediate stock ownership to offset your personal risk so a grant with no vesting schedule? please enlighten us as to what employers are actually giving out such favorable deals.

I don't mean to be callous, but the game industry is one where much of the benefit comes from the fact that one gets to work on games as opposed to B2B SAAS apps or other banal businesses. In exchange for getting to work on games, you are taking a lower salary, higher competition, and much less stable working environment. It's very similar to sports; there are many more people who want to work in sports than there ar…

of course it's not callous, you're describing purpose as a motivator. Most people in most industries in most societies in most parts of the world are at least partly motivated by purpose. It's the opposite that is callous: to see every C++ programming job as being equivalent. Seeing programming jobs only through the lens of "what programming problems am I solving" and "what tools am I using" is nihilist.

Callous would be working for a company that hurts people when your labor has enough optionality that you could work elsewhere.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#150

Post by zemo »

gaius wrote: post #139
ericdykstra wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be callous, but the game industry is one where much of the benefit comes from the fact that one gets to work on games as opposed to B2B SAAS apps or other banal businesses. In exchange for getting to work on games, you are taking a lower salary, higher competition, and much less stable working environment. It's very similar to sports; there are many more people who want to work in sports than there ar…

much of the benefit comes from the fact that one gets to work on games as opposed to B2B SAAS apps or other banal businesses I’ve sometimes wondered if that’s true. I mean debugging a race condition in C++ is going to be the same in a game engine as in a trading engine right? Except the latter will be well paid and secure.

If you view your work through a lens of pure abstraction and intellectual curiosity, what's to stop you from working on something that hurts people, just because the problems are interesting?
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