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About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

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Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#91

Post by asdasf »

deletes wrote: post #38
doe88 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your conclusion is quite bizarre. He wants to teach. He will get paid poorly when he does so. He needs to save up money first. So he is leaving PA to get a job that pays well so he can save up that money. He has not been able to amass that money, he is only able to "live comfortably". He is not taking a teaching job yet, he is taking a job to finance his future teaching career.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#92

Post by TWAndrews »

hapless wrote: post #26
QuantumGood wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He fairly specifically says that interpretations such as yours are wrong. He specifically says: * No, the conditions are not awful...I love this company * No one here has been scammed into working as hard as they do, and the implication that we’re all blind fools with low self esteem for being here is honestly insulting. * There won’t be any taking advantage of starry-eyed young twenty-somethings. He explains why he'…

He says the conditions are not awful, then describes awful conditions. He says he's not leaving because he burned out, and then describes when he burned out. He very obviously loves the company, but it's not a healthy love.

If I were a twenty-something with no family, I could very easily imagine really liking that work environment. There is a ton of responsibility and the sense of accomplishment you'll get when you're the person who is making everything work has to be really gratifying. Is it sustainable for a lifetime? Clearly not, but you'd learn a ton, make some great friends doing it, and eventually move on.

It's clearly not for everybody, but it's not at all difficult for me to imagine that it's very much for some people.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#93

Post by mhurron »

beachstartup wrote: post #62
mhurron wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the Enforcer system related in any way to technical roles? Since you didn't seem to get it, the Enforcers are people that 'volunteer' for parts of the event in exchange for free tickets to attend the rest.

no, i don't think you get it. a for-profit enterprise should not be asking for volunteers for anything. that is a moral position i take. second, the loss of dignity and monetary devaluation was referring to his day job. the one that he ostensibly makes a living from.

They're paying them in tickets to the event.

They are 'volunteers' in the sense they are not an event staff handled some company. Penny Arcade decided they wanted some event staff made up of people that were interested in making the event a success because they were also part of it.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#94

Post by [deleted] »

wvenable wrote: post #14

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 d…

[deleted]

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#95

Post by fennecfoxen »

beachstartup wrote: post #62
mhurron wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the Enforcer system related in any way to technical roles? Since you didn't seem to get it, the Enforcers are people that 'volunteer' for parts of the event in exchange for free tickets to attend the rest.

no, i don't think you get it. a for-profit enterprise should not be asking for volunteers for anything. that is a moral position i take. second, the loss of dignity and monetary devaluation was referring to his day job. the one that he ostensibly makes a living from.

A for-profit enterprise should feel free to ask for volunteers whenever they feel like it, and would-be volunteers should feel free to ignore them if it's a bad deal.

Why do you hate freedom? Think someone's going to steal your job? Are you one of those union members who freak out if someone is setting up at a convention center and plugs in their own laptop or moves their own chair? :P

(Now if they're fraudulent and misrepresent the volunteering, that's another matter.)

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#96

Post by TWAndrews »

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.

I think this is the key thing here. This guy came on and grew into the job. He's obviously skilled and motivated, and because he built the systems from the ground up, can keep them maintained with way less effort than someone coming in will be able to.

Even if they find someone who's just as skilled and motivated, that person won't have the key experience of "I built all this" and will have to spend a much larger fraction of time on maintenance/extension.

Ultimately PA will have to hire multiple people to do all this stuff. If they're smart they'll recognize it now, rather than when the smart, motivated person they do hire starts to fail.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#97

Post by TWAndrews »

beachstartup wrote: post #62
mhurron wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the Enforcer system related in any way to technical roles? Since you didn't seem to get it, the Enforcers are people that 'volunteer' for parts of the event in exchange for free tickets to attend the rest.

no, i don't think you get it. a for-profit enterprise should not be asking for volunteers for anything. that is a moral position i take. second, the loss of dignity and monetary devaluation was referring to his day job. the one that he ostensibly makes a living from.

That's a fine moral position to take. I don't agree, and haven't seen argument from you that would convince me. Volunteer work in exchange for admission tickets is a fine offer, and there are no shortage of people who agree. Some of those become Enforcers at the event.

Free work for a weekend seems quite different than systematic under compensation in your day-to-day job.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#99

Post by agentultra »

SheepSlapper wrote: post #90
agentultra wrote: post #36

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 use…

He says what made it okay in his case: "This job meant security, a huge opportunity to go out of my comfort zone and learn, and countless other 'soft' benefits I couldn't think of. And I got to work with people I truly enjoyed."

I can't really speak for him but my junior audio engineer buddy liked his job too. It's still a craptastic job that ultimately goes no where. You don't retire from a job like that: you quit, move on and tell people about your glory days down the road when you have a real job.

Re: About the Penny Arcade Job Posting

#100

Post by coldtea »

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…

Spot on.

It would be like a textbook case of the Stockholm syndrome -- only, despite trying quite hard, he doesn't come off as that keen about his captors or his environment anyway...

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