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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

#91

Post by Dylan16807 »

taeric wrote: post #23
coldtea wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 b…

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

That seems like circular logic to me. It assumes that being subjective blocks objective arguments, based on the subjective opinion of some people.

>The second point is lost on comparing the job to illicit drugs.

It's just an example of a tempting but harmful habit.

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

#92

Post by asdasf »

jblow wrote: post #39
asdasf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Differing expectations doesn't mean one set of expectations is wrong. If someone claims they can do database administration, and then I ask them a basic question like what indexes would you need to create for an example query, and they have no idea, they are not capable of database administration. They mean "I can type apt-get install mysql-server" when they say they can admin databases.

I would say that said applicant is very clearly wrong. Sure, there are a lot of people out there who exaggerate on their resume, but this has nothing to do with the existence of people who actually do know things.

I would say they are wrong too. But the PA ad is almost certainly looking for exactly that level of skill, while using words that sound like they are looking for someone who actually knows what they are doing. So when the guy writes a response to it acting like their requirements are absurd, he isn't crazy, he is just getting a different mental picture of the requirements than the PA people had in their head when they wrote it.

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

#93

Post by dpcheng2003 »

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…

I think the author skates between praise and criticism as they are different sides of the same coin--Robert is a great businessman.

I find this type of knee-jerk response to the job posting disappointing. When did we become so sensitive or insecure or helpless that we need to shame this person or this job posting?

It's been said multiple times over in this comments thread that Robert is actually being uniquely transparent, that the candidates who apply have lots of other options and no one is being forced to take this job given those two factors. If this was a Craiglist ad for some deviant act, would we jump on our horse and say, "How dare this person ask someone to do [deviant act]?" No, we'd probably just ignore it because we're adults and we get to make our own decisions. That [deviant act] is not for us.

You can say Robert should follow best practices and be more competitive in his offer, and to some extent, this post does that. But to use colorful and aggressive language, presuming that the founders of Penny Arcade are cashing in "trade show checks" is not productive. Robert isn't breaking any employment laws. The best you can do to show your disapproval as a great developer is to not apply.

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

#94

Post by dllthomas »

nerfhammer wrote: post #79
dllthomas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I think I'm above average, I'm good?

No, people tend to think they are above average at any task they spend time on. That's a different cognitive bias.

But my point, reinforced by the numbers I gave, is that there is overlap in the distributions between "how good I think I am" for those actually at the bottom and those actually at the top. There may well be other cognitive biases at play.

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

#95

Post by taeric »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #91
taeric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

>Since not everyone is objectivist, the first is sort of contradictory. That seems like circular logic to me. It assumes that being subjective blocks objective arguments, based on the subjective opinion of some people. >The second point is lost on comparing the job to illicit drugs. It's just an example of a tempting but harmful habit.

The contradiction was "the author believes in an objective reality" but might not be trying to "force his valuation" on others. My point is that not only is this forcing a valuation, it is assuming an objective view on things in order to do so.

And there is a huge difference between heroin and "just an example of a tempting but harmful habit." I mean, sure I can see what you are getting at. But I go back to saying it is a terrible rhetorical style. Any point there is lost by it just being off in scope.

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

#96

Post by ceol »

danudey wrote: post #77
johngalt wrote: post #38

Par for the course for IT/Sysadmin type jobs. "We expect you to build the hospital while running the emergency room and operating room." They are just being up front about it. There are a few areas where they glossed over it. I will translate: "You need to have a crazy-person level of attention to detail" - We will judge you based on anything you've overlooked, rather than what you've done. "A motivated self-starter…

I wrote a huge long reply to this comment, but by the time I got to the end I realized you were just making cynical, shitty comments because you're upset with them for whatever reason. 'attention to detail' - If I hire someone I want them to have a good attention to detail and not just do whatever works. It's the little things that make the difference between a good server admin and a great one. 'motivated self-start…

> They run conventions. Obviously they want their IT guy around to help set everything up. The wifi at PAX Prime 2012 was unusable the majority of the time. How do you mitigate that?

Their website developer is supposed to be in charge of their convention networking?

> 'on-call 24/7' - Again, this is normal.

Not if there's only one person handling everything. Normally, you have the main developer and someone who is on-call. However, PA wants a developer, a sysadmin, a DBA, and an IT guru all rolled into one, and they want this unicorn to be on call for all four of these jobs 24/7. That's not normal. That's horse shit.

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

#97

Post by coldtea »

solarmist wrote: post #31
gaius wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Nope, but that's not the cachet it would add too. Their cachet is pure geek cred.

"Their cachet is pure geek cred"

If by "geek cred" you mean "the scorn of savvy geeks who can see through cheap employer tactics to get suckers to work for less that they are worth"

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

#98

Post by criley2 »

danudey wrote: post #77
johngalt wrote: post #38

Par for the course for IT/Sysadmin type jobs. "We expect you to build the hospital while running the emergency room and operating room." They are just being up front about it. There are a few areas where they glossed over it. I will translate: "You need to have a crazy-person level of attention to detail" - We will judge you based on anything you've overlooked, rather than what you've done. "A motivated self-starter…

I wrote a huge long reply to this comment, but by the time I got to the end I realized you were just making cynical, shitty comments because you're upset with them for whatever reason. 'attention to detail' - If I hire someone I want them to have a good attention to detail and not just do whatever works. It's the little things that make the difference between a good server admin and a great one. 'motivated self-start…

I feel like his cynicism is closer to reality than your painful rationalizations.

The fact is, he's right: if you have that skillset, chances are they're not paying well enough for what they're asking for, and you'll likely not stay longer than it takes to make the resume look good before you move into a position where you're paid well.

Or maybe they're paying near the top of the industry, seeing as they're asking for near the top of the industry in terms of one-man-team talent.

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

#99

Post by eshvk »

saalweachter wrote: post #87

I think this job posting is running up against the difference between an employee and a partner . This isn't really unique to software, so I'll use the example of the dying American family farm. I grew up on a small farm, for most of the time it was owned by four men, all related by blood. They each individually took full responsibility for the business, and were never off the clock. If something needed doing -- plan…

But but but stock options, 'generous equity' etc

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

#100

Post by ceol »

danudey wrote: post #66
jmduke wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 frien…

I took a pay cut of $20k/yr to work at my current job. I'm glad I did. I made a shitload of money before, and even if I'm sometimes discontent with my current position due to the occasional fit of stress, it's much healthier of an environment for me to be in. Actually, looking at the job post for PA: - 'Code in multiple front-end and back-end languages' - well, I can do that. In fact, I do a lot of backend work at my…

We have no idea what your office is like or how much they make. We do have an idea how much PA makes, and it's enough to hire at least two people to handle these tasks.
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