It doesn't seem that out-of-the-ordinary in how horrible it is, but there is something really unsettling in the "yeah, this is going to be terrible" attitude of the job poster. There's an arrogance there that I don't think is earned by being part of an only sometimes funny publication.
I'm glad someone spoke up about it. I was rather insulted as a developer myself who feels undervalued that a business is doing nothing to help improve conditions for developers, this is why the industry is plagued with mental health issues; we aren't sleeping, we are drinking a lot of coffee, we have no time to socialise or even spend time outside in the air/sun. Workplace conditions as highlighted in the job ad for Penny Arcade are what is wrong with the industry as a whole.
Don't get me started on the ridiculousness of expecting someone with a computer science degree for such a job. After spending tens of thousands of dollars on a CS degree, I'm sure said developer would love nothing more than to get a job that underpays, has no perks or offers real value. Surprised they didn't list they wanted someone with knowledge of plumbing and performing complicated electrical work with experience working in a commercial kitchen and being able to cook 500 meals in the space of a couple of hours...
There aren't many developers out there who would meet even half the requirements Penny Arcade listed in their job ad as a self-taught web developer with no qualifications, I would be on that list as well.
The idea is to produce a book programmers can give to whomever is making their lives miserable and teaching said person about keeping programmers happy and productive. I'm also adding practical advice for programmers themselves because I feel that we bring a lot of these problems on ourselves.
That said, if you're in the Bay Area I'd love to buy a drink and talk about the state of the industry. My book needs more material :)
I like the premise. But as a developer who recently walked out Friday night from doing any more work, another developer was there to pick up my work. We have to change developers (and employers) mindset in order to make a change in the industry. Aside, the developer was upset at me for walking out--not the employer.
This sounds really good. I think the issue definitely needs more attention, because these kind of toxic environments are becoming the norm for the software and web development industries. I remember a conversation a manager had with me once because he felt I wasn't putting in enough overtime (being salaried and not being paid for overtime, I felt this was wrong). His issue was that the other developer who I worked with, who had no girlfriend or wife or kids to spend time with was staying until 9/10pm every night of the week and he lived a 2 hour drive away whereas I lived 45 minutes away by train or 20 by car.
The problem is if you refuse to put in the overtime, there will always be someone else who is willing and able to put the overtime in, as a result they are presented with more opportunities. The mentality in every development industry is if you are the first to leave, you'll most likely be the first on the chopping block if the business hits a rough spot. You are perceived as not being a team player, not working hard enough and putting pressure on your peers.
I understand overtime is part of the job. We as developers know when we signed up to be developers that there will be late nights, but when companies expect overtime as part of the normal job for no good reason other than to get more for less, that's not right. People are afraid to leave at 5.30pm on the dot at most companies, especially as the economy gets worse.
Sadly I'm in Australia, otherwise catching up and discussing the state of the industry would have been awesome. I'll most likely be in the US sometime next year though, my partner and I are currently trying to get some funding for an ambitious idea.
Marco's not forcing them to change it, either. They can post a shit job offer if they want, and Marco can ridicule it and call them immature losers, if he wants. The fact that a business is not literally enslaving someone doesn't mean nobody can criticize them!
People comparing this job to the work in gaming QA have no idea how bad gaming QA is, generally, compared to even the worst possible interpretation of this posting. Let's start with working for minimum wage, with no guarantees of regular hours, not a salary. Forget about 401(k) or anything else like that.
I feel like this isn't terribly demanding position. How hard can it possibly be? They're websites aren't very complex and the system is already in place. Sounds like a full-stack-engineer-gone-maintenance position.
Honestly, sounds like a fun ride for about a year, I wouldn't mind, even if the pay is a bit low. If it's really that bad of a position, then quit. We're pretty much immortal when it comes to finding jobs anyways so it's not like you're putting your life on the line, especially if you're a single, young bachelor.
I suspect you are right, and the high qualifications just serve to filter out anyone who has compunctions about boldly lying to a small organization about what they've done and what they're capable of.
The ideal candidate is a dedicated, single 20 year old sysop/developer/con artist aspiring to turn a fake resume into a real one in 18 months.
Do you really think they're going to get enough applicants that fit that ideal profile and have a difficult time choosing?
There's likely only going to be a small pool of candidates that fit your environment, not to mention the salary let alone work responsibilities.
The ideal candidate is a young student who has tinkered with web development since he was in high school and maybe if you're lucky, one of those guys has some experience scaling websites.
Oh cmon. There are thousands of tech jobs that don't pay that well and require all those skills. The difference is that when those companies go to find someone, they lie in the ad. How is being honest insulting?
I'll bet there's plenty of young developers out there who don't mind working long hours and would love to spend their time flying around with the Penny-Arcade crew keeping everything running - admittedly they won't be hiring the best applicants in the industry with the rates and conditions that they're offering, but I doubt they'll have much trouble finding someone who fits the bill.
> This is everything wrong with tech-startup culture
In my experience, this isn't really tech-startup culture, it's entertainment industry culture. If you know anyone who has ever worked in film, music or videogames, it's a fairly typical thing.
Those controversies are over-analyzed. People tend to forget that these two guys are, like all of us, human and don't have some sort of fancy PR machine to soften the blowback. Krahulik suffers from chronic anxiety and so when the threats started piling up, he responded in kind the way an animal gets backed into a corner. There's no denying he fucked up, but curiously his critics seem to gloss over his attempts to apologize.
I've been at PAX. These guys are approachable, they're kind and funny and do not carry an air of superiority. I know their failings as well as I know my own.
In its history as a comic, the strip has covered topics such as bestiality, suicide, torture, a juicer that "fucks" oranges, among others. There wasn't a similar outcry. Why is that?
I read more into it and you're right; they posted the comic, then posted a passive-aggressive "apology" comic, then started selling the shirts. They took down the shirts and apologized, and then Krahulik later said that taking down the shirts was the biggest mistake he's made. So it's actually worse than I originally thought.
Also the Fruit Fucker does not rape PEOPLE, it rapes fruit. There has been outcry, but pretty balanced by the fact that it "takes advantage" of an inanimate object.
My question stands. the strip has covered topics such as bestiality, suicide, torture, a juicer that "fucks" oranges (note, I didn't say people, in case you were correcting me), among others. There wasn't a similar outcry. Why is that?
One of the few things to make me audibly laugh today. They expect you to know everything(to be THE MOST CRUCIAL person in the company), but I let it go thinking there was some perk I was going to read next which justified it.
Perks include:
on call 24/7
low pay
work is your life
But I guess we're not the people they're looking for, and when they do find someone they give them a high-five, a latte, and scratch their hipster beards and laugh at how materialistic we are needing money and free time.
I'm not defending PA's job listing, because I do agree that it's absurd, but it's also important to remember that job listings tend to be for "ideal" candidates. Actual hired candidates are often far less qualified than the ideal candidate listed in the job requirement.
For instance, ideally, I'd love to hire a dev that has 5+ years of professional PHP experience building web apps and has experience with machine learning systems specifically relating to fraud. But in all likelihood I'll be lucky to hire someone with 3+ years of professional PHP experience with zero experience doing machine learning. The hired candidate will likely be simply interested in machine learning. The hired candidate will likely have no experience with fraud-related topics.
I can train you. I can teach you those things. But ideally, I wouldn't have to.
Likewise with PA's job listing, ideally, they want someone who can do all of those things. Practically, they'll hire someone who can do a very small subset of those things.
That said, it's a bit unrealistic to expect one person to do the job of four people (which is what this listing wants), especially for low salary, so... yeah, it's a bit ridiculous.
Yeah, but unicorn ads usually have a “please, please, please” hopeful tone. This one specifies that you literally have to do the job of 4 people and are expected to be the technical epi-center.
Also, my first impression, like Marco’s, was “Is this a joke?” Especially this line: It’s rarely we call on it, but if something breaks in the middle of the night, you are expected to be on call to address that issue 24/7.
This is the ... third (maybe fourth?) article on this topic today to get up into the top few posts on HN before disappearing into oblivion. Some people really don't want to have a conversation about how young tech folks are being exploited.
Wow, I'm really divorced from the real world. The Penny Arcade ad, other than the edgy snark, reads like virtually every developer position I've ever read in the media/news business.
(yes, this is an indictment of the already troubled news industry)
The job posting looks an awful lot like the usual videogame programmer job: it's bound to attract some people just because of the nature of the job, so they don't bother adding good money or perks. In this case it's a little more blatant and there seems to be some boasting from the employer, but in the end it's the same.
And the saddest of all this is that the job will get covered. In fact, I'm sure that there will be a lot of applicants. Just like for videogame programming.
Yes, we need to fight this. It's good that there are people complaining publicly. By the way, I believe that a few details from the job posting would be illegal in my country, although probably not in the US.
I'm reminded of the movie MoneyBall. Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt are employed with what outsiders would consider horrible jobs, but each stick with it because they enjoy it.
As an outsider you may think Penny Arcade's offer is bad, but someone, somewhere would love nothing more to work with the people behind that legendary comic and expo, no matter how rough it is.
Edit - I would also like to make an analogy with MMO guilds, particularly World of Warcraft. There are players who spend 4+ hours a night with their guild hardcore raiding (especially after the release of a content patch). These hardcore guilds have very strict enlistments. Unless you're as hardcore as them you're not in. An outsider would think they're insane, but there is no shortage of people applying to these guilds because they enjoy the experience of hardcore raiding. Some of these guilds have a very family-like bond toward each other, so you have to consider community/culture fit.
I don't think a hobby is comparable. They do the raiding thing because it is fun. They have only a social obligation to stay, and they can quit anytime that it doesn't fit into their life anymore.
I assume you're being sarcastic when you write legendary, right? Peanuts, Pogo, Calvin and Hobbes, Krazy Kat, Little Nemo... those are legendary comic strips. Penny Arcade is a comic strip focused on a narrow subculture (man children) within a subculture (video game fans) that largely consists of jokes on videogame news cycle topics. It's the sort of thing that will be entirely without value in 40 years.
That being said, I'm sure someone out there really does believe it's a legendary comic strip and will want to be a part of that.
Brutal and incisive comment. Both in terms of the (non) value of the comic (I would extend this to every web comic I've personally ever seen), and in terms of its audience.
Remember that as general manager, the Brad Pitt character would be making $Nx10^6 per annum. Didn't look like such a horrible job to me. My rough salary estimate is based on the fact that at the end of the movie he turns down the equivalent job at the Boston Red Sox for $12.5 million.
I feel like I have been living in a cave. I have never heard of Penny Arcade but people are referring to them as legendary. Visiting their site feels like going back to 2006. What am I missing?
> somewhere would love nothing more to work with the people behind that legendary comic
Yes, and exploiting somebody like that is wrong. They could hire them and treat them well, but because they're famous, they couldn't be fucking bothered.
This shitty behavior goes on all the time in fashion [1] and in the movie industry. I'm sad to hear it's coming to tech.
A lot of companies out there are run by total morons or psychopaths, this doesn't surprise me at all. This sounds like a combination of both.
I was recently introduced to a job by a recruiter and they wanted me to do a "programming assignment" which would take at least 20 hours, before I could even talk to them and see who they were. I was like, "Cool story bro".
The reason why I bring that up is because I noticed the same pattern here; this job ad is screening for desperate people lacking a spine. I can't imagine any decent developer with a good job applying for this. Only someone desperately looking for work and having relatively low skills would willingly take this job, assuming he's not an idiot.
Recruiting for a company that has fans (actual, fanatic fans) can be tricky. Sometimes you can play the candidate's enthusiasm against them. Sometimes they come in with unrealistic expectations and burn out in six months. Sometimes you do the sane thing and just hire somebody who has never heard of you.
The big problem is going to be too many applicants. Suggesting the job will be shitty and low paid seems to be a great way to filter out competent applicants.
I applied for a job a few years ago, which had two interviews.
The first interview was to determine my technical ability and character.
The second interview was for them to gauge my reaction to all the crap parts of the job. They told me about the level of social life, the tedious tasks I will have to do, and so on.
They said that, previously, they had talked-up the position to attract someone only for them to leave once they realized the reality wasn't quite so great. So, if I took the job, I would not be shocked once I got to my desk.
In the end I didn't get the job, but this is the only interview I have been in that didn't try to hide the bad bits or to over-hype the good bits.
So, yeah, unrealistic expectations are an issue. But, I mostly blame the hiring company for talking out of their backsides in order to recruit.
PA isn't a software company though. "Competing" against PA means having a web comic (or other artistic content) of your own, it doesn't mean doing software somewhere else.
You could do software that meets their needs, and offer to sell it to them and others. Not competing with their actual business, but competing with their would-be internal development processes.
Before resorting to ad hominem attacks you may want to do some research on who you're attacking. Robert Khoo is neither a moron nor a psychopath. I disagree with his job posting, but it helps no one to attack the person behind it (with false insults) instead of attacking the posting itself and what it represents.
What about someone who values honesty enough to actually list the accurate job posting, which honestly doesn't sound that different than a lot of jobs in this industry. The biggest difference is those jobs didn't actually list the bad conditions in the job posting.
Just because accepting a job is voluntary doors not give license to employers to exploit their employees. 100 years ago, that same argument was advanced by people opposed to worker safety laws and child labor laws. People use that argument to justify jobs where you have to sleep with the boss to get the job. The fact that some people are desperate doesn't give an employer endless license.
So a job that advertises terrible working conditions is suddenly morally upstanding and ethical just because you know what you're in for? What if you need money to feed your family and the job ad says that as a precondition to getting hired you need to give them one of your kidneys?
This is exactly why labor law exists and why libertarian/extreme capitalist societies could never function. The argument "it's a free market" doesn't hold water. Without a system of checks and balances exploitation will always take place because there are always people desperate enough to do anything to make a living. No matter what you say about "free markets" and "voluntary agreements", you can't convince me that it's right and ethical and a good idea in any capacity.
Labor laws? Holy crap, you are deluded. We're talking about a cushy white-collar job here. Yes, the expectations sound pretty bad, relatively speaking. But it's a far cry from exploitative labor.
Calm down, go back and re-read the sub-thread. We are talking about general principles behind the practice, not necessarily about this concrete example.
So the dude who writes the exploitative job description is fine, while the average business owner is an asshole because you assume their job sucks and they're lying. Totally reasonable logic.
I am sure some people would find many things about you that make you deserve to be insulted, too. Empathy is not optional even for people you disagree with.
I don't really get critiques like this. Because this guy was once a respected guy, he is totally allowed to hire workers to work under terrible conditions and exploit people and if you call him any names while he does so it is YOU that has the problem? Seems like a reasonable standard...
Ad hominem is attacking the person rather than their position on the topic at hand. This guy has played his hand and shown us his position.
Now what you want is us to take your personal view of this person as read and ignore his clearly laid out position. So really you're the one being ad hominem, though unusually being supportive (I prefer 'enabling') rather than attacking.
Let's forget who this is and discuss this person's job ad.
EDIT: A pre-emptive clarification: The fact that one could do research on this person makes no difference. The ad is the ad, the details of the person who wrote it are actually irrelevant here.
Discussing an accusation of ad hominem inevitably involves you discussing that person's ad hominem-ism, which is ironically meta-ad hominem. Unavoidable I think... though strangely comical I must say!
To be more clear, ad hominem is attacking the person making an argument as an illogical response to said argument. It's attacking the argument by attacking the person making it.
Merely attacking someone does not an ad hominem make; since ad hominem is based in the study of logic, calling a personal attack such as the comment up-thread "ad hominem" makes no sense. The person posting the job is not entering into an argument.
Yes, you're right, other than the idea that the job posting isn't entering into an argument - I'd say that it is, the person is taking a position that they feel this is a reasonable and justifiable job to advertise.
We can reasonably consider this implicit position and draw conclusions, and yes absolutely, because something happens to be a personal attack, it isn't necessarily ad hominem. Saying 'ignore what this person has done and listen to me telling you he's a great guy' very much is.
>The reason why I bring that up is because I noticed the same pattern here; this job ad is screening for desperate people lacking a spine. I can't imagine any decent developer with a good job applying for this. Only someone desperately looking for work and having relatively low skills would willingly take this job, assuming he's not an idiot.
Hey, 17 year old kids, and people who have been out of work for years need jobs too, you know. (actual skill correlates... much less than it ought with employment desperation, in my opinion.)
And it looks to me (and apparently, to you) like the penny-arcade folks are being pretty clear about what they want. And that's fine. Some people (usually very inexperienced people) really like the "hero ninja rockstar" rhetoric, and that's fine. I think many intern level folks respond better to thinking of themselves as rockstar ninjas than as interns. And as we're all clear on what that actually means, hey, if it makes them feel good, who am I to complain?
The other thing you need to understand is that most of the rhetoric about 'heroic work schedules' is empty. My experience has been that the people I know who actually work the most, I mean, once you take out all the time on hacker news and facebook? they don't talk about how much they work. In fact, they usually worry that they aren't working enough.
When I hear people crow about a ridiculous work schedule? I hear "I put in 45 hours a week at the office, but half that time is on facebook or chatting with co-workers" People who actually work a lot are constantly concerned that they aren't working enough.
Hey, 17 year old kids, and people who have been out of work for years need jobs too, you know.
Yeah, they and similarly desperate people may indeed fall pray to this kind of thing. See below.
And it looks to me (and apparently, to you) like the penny-arcade folks are being pretty clear about what they want.
In this economy, ads saying "we're looking for someone to suck dry till we leave their bleached bones on the beach somewhere" can pull people in because ... desperation. See, your above.
But I don't care, such vampires need to be called on their antics regardless of this free choice.
>In this economy, ads saying "we're looking for someone to suck dry till we leave their bleached bones on the beach somewhere" can pull people in because ... desperation. See, your above.
Yeah... but like I said, I don't believe people who claim heroic hours. I don't believe companies who say that '50-60 hours' is normal. they mean that /claiming/ 50 hours a week is normal.
Yes, some people do actually work brutal hours, but they don't brag about it. They worry that they aren't working enough. Some employers really pressure people to work brutal hours, but they brag about that even less.
In fact, the places that claim heroic hours more often have beer Fridays and unfiltered internet access (and a culture that makes it okay to hang out on facebook and HN on work hours.) Generally, they also let you come in when you want, meaning that you can show up before your boss (It doesn't matter how much before your boss) /or/ show up after your boss (it doesn't matter how much after your boss) and plausibly claim crazy hours.
There is /extreme/ resistance to any sort of actual time tracking for this reason.
It's like the coaches who say "give 110%" yeah, they are irritating, and the rest of us look down on them, but there is a group of people who eat that shit up.
I'm sorry, but even if you are spending 45 or even 50 hours a week in the office (and the number of folks who go beyond that, ninja rockstar or not, is vanishingly small[1]) if half of that time is spent socializing or screwing off on the internet? it's not really that brutal. It's basically the same thing as being at home, except you have to wear pants.
The study I cited measured actual hours in the office, not productive hours, so I stand by my point that most claims of hanging out in the office significantly more than 45 hours a week are bullshit.
>Uh, the question of exploitation isn't really about how many hours about productive but about how many hours are taken from you.
Also, I am not sure I agree with this taken as a context-free statement. I mean, certainly, I think that the 'mandatory fun times' that are so popular are even more bullshit than "you can read reddit, but you have to be in this chair" - but not really because it's "exploitation" - it's not, except in the sense that every profitable exchange of money for labor is exploitation.
Comparing folks who make more than $60K/year and only have to sit in front of computers to people who work at McDonalds or Wall-mart or worse for 1/3rd that is... kinda insulting, I think.
A modern valley company is trying to be a social club. And, if you are the sort who goes in for that sort of thing? they do pretty okay at it. Not great, but pretty okay. For a "cultural fit" it's really not work, it's social time. I know I usually enjoy that sort of thing.
But, that's the problem. It is rough on those who are not a "cultural fit" - and I think that's a very bad thing, I think that a business is at a severe disadvantage if they can only hire from the group of people they want to party with. but most people disagree with me on that.
Are people really that desperate? I don't know how the job market is in the US, but yesterday I saw an article explaining that the US was still the best place for programmers. In Netherland, I don't know any programmer who is unemployed. The job market is very good here. There's no reason to accept a crappy, rotten, underpaid job, unless you suck.
So what is it, US? Is it great over there, or does it suck so badly that PA might actually find someone?
>Hey, 17 year old kids, and people who have been out of work for years need jobs too, you know.
Yes, so let's take advantage of them... And if the market comes to that point that we can expect them to work for food, let's do that too... (while we're making tons of money from our business).
>And it looks to me (and apparently, to you) like the penny-arcade folks are being pretty clear about what they want.
Transparency is not a virtue in itself. Charles Manson was pretty clear about what he wanted too.
> Their unreasonable, immature expectations are a damaging message to send to their huge audience of young software developers.
Two things:
1. The intent of their hiring specification isn't to send a message to their audience, it's to hire someone to service their audience. I'm not sure why the two are assumed to be mutually exclusive? Don't want to apply? Then don't apply - let market forces weed them out.
2. In all of my years of applying for jobs and hiring people, not once has a candidate ever met exactly the profile nor eventually fulfilled every responsibility in a hiring specification. This sounds a bit overdramatic and too pedantic. Let it go.
Robert Khoo, the business manger of Penny Arcade and the one who wrote this job ad subscribes to the "work is family" level of cultural fit. He looks at hiring as adding a new member to the family rather than just filling a position. This is why his job ads and hiring methods are so harsh. The three seasons of Penny Arcade's video show paint a good picture of what it's like to get hired and work at Penny Arcade: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/pa-the-series.
Anyone who has been in the industry for more than 2 months knows that the "work is family" thing is a nonsensical feel good catchphrase thrown around by manipulative managers.
Your boss will not feel bad for you if you have a personal emergency which requires your absence and costs the company money (parent dying, spouse or children having medical problems, etc.).
Your company will not hesitate one second to fire you if the output you produce is deemed less valuable than the input you need to function.
Seriously, this is why Penny Arcade can get away with shit like that - because there are people out there who blindly believe that "work is family" and eat up the whole "it's not for everyone, others don't want to do it because they're not hardcore enough, but you're hardcore enough spiel". Statistically speaking, any argument that rests on the premise that you are better than 99% of the population is bullshit.
If you really subscribe to the whole "work is family" thing, go ahead. Then in 6, 12, 18 or 36 months, when you inevitably get fucked over, you'll complain about how you wish you had been warned ahead.
Sure, I love making work pleasant and grabbing beers with my boss and co-workers as much as the next guy- but at the end of the day, work is work, and anyone who tries to convince you otherwise has ulterior motives.
I won't try too hard to convince you otherwise, because you certainly seem set in your opinions. But I think it's a shame that such an overwhelmingly negative tone is thrown around so much. There are companies (small and otherwise) made up of good people that do not operate on this horribly cold impersonal calculus. There are bosses that will genuinely go out of their way to help you through a family crisis. There are co-workers and organizations that feel like family. I'm sorry you think it doesn't exist and that you've never had a relationship with a boss that was anything other than evil, but don't be so quick to tell everyone that that's all there is.
My opinions are formed by witnessing friends getting fired/being pressured to quit because their company had run out of money, or because they had to take care of an ill relative and the company felt that their performance wasn't as good as what it used to be, or because of some BS office politics. Those companies include small trendy startups and big fortune 500 companies alike.
At the end of the day, no matter how wonderful everything is, if the company is having a hard time and they need to fire you, they'll do it. Your boss is not going to sell his car or house to pay your salary.
If the company is doing well and offers a nice work environment, it can be fantastic, as you described- in which case, enjoy the ride while it lasts. But don't delude yourself in thinking that the wind won't turn if bad times hit. Believing anything else is setting yourself up for major letdown when it happens.
Anecdotal n=1 response, but I worked for a civil engineering firm where the owner of the company did mortgage his house to keep as many people as possible on staff during the housing market crash.
I don't expect that level of commitment to employees from my employers, but it does exist.
I broke my hip. The team rallied around and handled it until I was back. Both my parents died. The team rallied around and handled it until I was back. One of the team got close to burnout - the company provided him with unsolicited paid time off provided he took it now, so he could chill and get back to being productive.
My good experiences don't invalidate your bad experiences - but that sentence applies vice versa too.
A bunch of bad data points proves that bad exists, but it doesn't prove that bad is prevalent. That sentence also applies vice versa.
I have a suspicion that for larger companies, it's more a question of which teams are like that than which companies are, since the line manager's attitude has a huge influence on the results (for example, one bent the HR system substantially for me to enable me to house hunt effectively - a personal act rather than an organisational one).
As for what percentage? I'm not really sure. Shadowcat is how it is because it was baked into the culture from day one because that's how things should be done, so I'm not sure I can extrapolate usefully from it.
I had to take care of an ill relative, and my startup was immensely supportive throughout. I've seen similar things happen at a variety of companies.
You're creating a false dichotomy here. I agree that places that push the "we're just like a family" line often do so because some boss means "I want to act like an abusive dad". And I agree that no place is perfect.
But there's plenty of room for compassion and human feeling in the workplace. Companies are human institutions, and executives ignore that at their peril.
The plural of anecdote is not data. Ever heard of 'your mileage may vary'? We can throw opinions around all night, but it's clear that either people are looking through rosy and 'cynic' glasses at the same companies... or there truly are different workplaces than you've come to know.
> There are bosses that will genuinely go out of their way to help you through a family crisis. There are co-workers and organizations that feel like family.
Sure, I know such people. The difference that these people won't write a psychopathic job ad, and they certainly won't expect me to work >40hours a week for below market salary.
If you believe work is family, do you think your family would be OK with you working 60 hours a week for below market salaries? Of course not! Your family doesn't want to screw you over while selling you shitty psychobabble. They'll actually pay you what you're worth and make sure you work reasonable hours.
100% agree. I wasn't saying anything in support of the PA job posting. And seeing as it's just about 5pm here, I'm signing off from work for the day :)
Penny Arcade really isn't the same as a "normal company" though. Most of them there are minor celebrities just by proxy of the number of viewers that read the comics and watch the videos. I think it's safe to say there are a lot of people that can get a sense for what it would be really like to work there. It's more like a reality TV show (which they have actually done) than an enterprise business.
That said, there's no way I would apply for that position, and I hope nobody else does, so that they finally realize that they need to hire more than one person for all that stuff. I'm just saying the Penny Arcade company really is different than nearly any other technical gig, and that when they said "work is family", it's not "a nonsensical feel good catchphrase". It's them trying to weed out as many people as possible so they aren't flooded with 100,000 resumes at once.
And if your philosophy is truly "work is family" then this kind of job posting is exactly the thing you need to weed out people that aren't passionate about the things PA is doing. A point that seems to go over many peoples' heads in this thread (though not some of the others).
Yes, in that sense a developer wishing to work for PA is no different than the young actor who wants to work with his Hollywood idols and is willing to do anything for even the smallest chance at making it big. I get that if you're really into video gaming and love PA, you may be willing to work like crazy for a low salary just to be with your idols and be a part of it.
The fact remain that if you do that, you're doing yourself a major disservice as a professional.
That's an interesting paper, but GOD why are people so motivated toward using absurdly dense jargon in their papers? What does one accomplish by couching their ideas in convoluted words?
For example:
Labor hoarding is a widely believed empirical behavior of
firms and a prominent explanation for procyclical labor
productivity. Conventional wisdom attributes labor
hoarding to labor adjustment costs. This paper argues that
the conventional wisdom is inadequate for understanding
labor hoarding because it ignores the role of inventories.
Since idle labor can be used to produce inventories, why
do firms hoard labor when inventory is an option?
The whole paper reads like that. Repurposed words dumped obliquely in the middle of sentances, and then abandonded.
Why not:
Labor hoarding is defined as the retention of idle workers
during periods of low economic activity or slow business,
further reinforcing the impact of larger social trends.
The common perception is that retaining valuable workers
will prove less costly than rounds of lay offs, followed
by subsequent phases of recruiting and training new labor.
Observations have proven that businesses will choose to
idle their workers during these periods, instead of
producing finished manufactured goods and retaining an
expanded inventory of surplus product. This paper
questions the strategy of hoarding idle labor, and offers
improved strategies as potential alternatives to the
tendency of hoarding.
What is it about academia, where people feel obligated to contort their writing into an intimidating architecture of opaque jargon and garish vocabulary? Is it some form of group think? Is it a defense mechanism designed to ward off criticism? Why must new ideas be presented in such stark, frustrating words?
Theirs is half the length and more precise than yours. Maybe they had a word count limit? That, and they're writing for other people in the field - jargon is USEFUL as a time and space saver.
How stupidly self-centered are you? "All academic papers should be written in a way that I can understand no matter whether they would be comprehensible to the intended audience!" What a fucking egomaniac.
For someone trained in the field, the original version is more concise and easier to understand. They key "jargon" terms are very common in economics, in particular "procyclical", "labor adjustment costs", "labor hoarding" and "inventories".
So really it's just a matter of using a common technical language that is less ambiguous than ordinary language.
Your rewrite adds a lot that isn't in the original article. E.g. the last sentence doesn't reflect their meaning. They are looking for explanations for why firms hoard, not trying to make suggestions to firms.
> Anyone who has been in the industry for more than 2 months knows that the "work is family" thing is a nonsensical feel good catchphrase thrown around by manipulative managers.
That might be true in general but in this case it is not.
Your outlook on the world makes me sad. There's such a defensive attitude in this community — for some good reasons, I can understand — but it paints the world in black and white.
How do you know that's how it is? For most companies, "work is family" may be hyperbole, but how do you know it's that way at PA? I don't profess to know, but I don't find it unreasonable that there are companies out there that are different than the ones that I'm accustomed to. Just like I accept that there are people out there that have lives very different than how I've lived mine.
The irony is, this is a community based around the startup lifestyle. Often that means extra hours for a promise of equity (which, in my experience, isn't worth the paper it's printed on) and lower salaries. But for some reason, there's a huge outcry at this posting because it says you have to wear many hats and they don't have a ton of money to spend. Sound familiar? At least they're upfront about it.
Honestly, I'd rather spend time working for someone (or on something) that I believed in and make less money than the usual soul crushing 9 to 5 and make a boatload. I'm in that situation now, actually, and it's not great. I moved the the bay area earlier in the year to chase the almighty dollar, and my overall happiness level has gone down. Who'd have thought?
You shouldn't sadden yourself with my outlook on the world; I'm doing quite fine, thank you :)
Don't forget that when you sign a work contract in California, it says explicitly that your employer can get rid of you at any time (and they are certainly happy to exercise that right, especially in startups). This is legally true for any company here, no matter how different they are from the ones I've experienced.
Also don't forget that we live in a city where entire teams frequently get cut because they're deemed unnecessary by the new CEO of the day. This is the same city where when people (albeit not in the tech industry) go on strike because they don't get certain benefits promised to them in the past, they become almost universally hated by everyone.
The US is not exactly a reference when it comes to siding with workers in those matters.
I'm not saying that I treat work as a dull, impersonal affair, far from that. As I've said in another comment, I've happily socialized and made life long friends and partaken in office outings and activities in my life as a tech employee.
But I prefer to not cloud my mind with ultimately useless romantic notions such as "your work is your family" (I already have a family, and it's filling its role quite well- don't need another one). When the bad times come, it makes dealing with things much easier. And when employers try to push this angle a bit too much, it's a sign to me that the workplace might not be too desirable to be at.
Totally. I get it. All I'm saying is that it's not out of the question that there are people out there that would be absolutely happy to treat their work just like family.
And that there's an organization/group out there that treats it just like that.
It's sort of like jaded lovers. Certainly there are people that poo-poo the notion of "soul mates" or "love at first sight." Fair enough. But it's always a little bit sad when that dampens the mood for people who are caught up within potential romance, no?
I'm unconvinced that this is a suitable excuse. For a lot of small companies work is family. You spend an awful lot of time with these people, day in day out, and you share in triumphs and adversity together. Penny-Arcade is by far not the only organization in this boat.
Demanding, insane-o jobs are also common in those places. They may have poor work/life balance, but goddamn it, they pay their people, either with fat salaries or substantial equity or both.
It's hard to imagine the confusion under which someone would post a job that is three standard deviations more overworked than the norm, and then flippantly say "we're not money-focused" about the compensation.
You want insane-o crazy work? You pay for insane-o crazy work.
But maybe this isn't surprising. PA does come derive from an industry where talented, young people will drag themselves through broken glass just for a tiny sliver of the glory of making video games for a living.
Which is why I didn't say "child protective services".
Many states have adult/elder protective services, too, not to mention police involvement with general abuse cases regardless of age.
Obviously, PA isn't really doing something worthy of that sort of response, but I'd want to be treated better than "shit wages, shit work-life balance" by a family member.
"Work is family" is a line used by companies that want to pay their employees less money. Let's see how long you remain "Family" if you have an accident/stroke and your productivity goes down.
I don't know about you, but my mother and brother are still my family, regardless of their work output.
Right. Work is family until the minute they decide it is in their financial interest to lay you off. Then they are "forced to makes a difficult business decision." Don't buy into bullshit business rhetoric.
Sure, they say that money isn't important to them, but there's no reason to assume it wouldn't be slightly competitive.
Penny Arcade is in Seattle. If they want a chance of hiring anyone they would at least need to be in the ballpark of other job offers out there. Microsoft and Amazon pay pretty well, so I don't think this number will be as insulting as people are assuming it will be.
"Annual Salary: Negotiable, but you should know up front we’re not a terribly money-motivated group. We’re more likely to spend less money on salary and invest that on making your day-to-day life at work better."
They're about as clear as they can be without actually stating a number. It's gonna be low.
Low, but they have to know that if they want someone even halfway decent they'll have to be competitive.
I can't imagine they'd lowball you too much when a good developer can literally walk down the street from Penny Arcade and be at Google's or Adobe's offices in Seattle. Not to mention Amazon, Microsoft, or anywhere else in the area that pays well.
Personally, that job is not for me, but I don't see the harm in "shooting for the moon" in a job description if they think they can get a candidate that matches the criteria. Why wouldn't you try to get someone overqualified and then underpay them if you think you can? It's not PA's fault people will apply for the position or that they can sell themselves as a desirable destination for more reasons than balance and compensation.
> "Why wouldn't you try to get someone overqualified and then underpay them if you think you can?
Perhaps you have a basic sense of human decency and fairness? Just because someone is naive (or just plain dumb) doesn't make it ethical to take advantage of them.
No one is forcing them to apply though. Your point would be totally valid if they were tricking people into thinking it was going to be better than it is, but they are totally transparent.
You could almost make the exact same argument about volunteering. You are asking for people to work hard and not get paid with the upside being they feel good about what they are doing. This is virtually the same thing, they are saying if the environment and lifestyle is appealing to you, and you're willing to deal with the downsides, please apply.
I think there is an argument to be made that newer developers, who might not be familiar with hiring practises, and see this job from Penny Arcade might leave thinking that's the norm.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 232 ms ] threadWhut?
In any case Jason Scott says they did grab it. https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/405475303423619074
When I attempted to save it with:
http://web.archive.org/save/http://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/vi...
I get this error message:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gdacfodmvei0iku/Screenshot%202013-...
Don't get me started on the ridiculousness of expecting someone with a computer science degree for such a job. After spending tens of thousands of dollars on a CS degree, I'm sure said developer would love nothing more than to get a job that underpays, has no perks or offers real value. Surprised they didn't list they wanted someone with knowledge of plumbing and performing complicated electrical work with experience working in a commercial kitchen and being able to cook 500 meals in the space of a couple of hours...
There aren't many developers out there who would meet even half the requirements Penny Arcade listed in their job ad as a self-taught web developer with no qualifications, I would be on that list as well.
The idea is to produce a book programmers can give to whomever is making their lives miserable and teaching said person about keeping programmers happy and productive. I'm also adding practical advice for programmers themselves because I feel that we bring a lot of these problems on ourselves.
That said, if you're in the Bay Area I'd love to buy a drink and talk about the state of the industry. My book needs more material :)
The problem is if you refuse to put in the overtime, there will always be someone else who is willing and able to put the overtime in, as a result they are presented with more opportunities. The mentality in every development industry is if you are the first to leave, you'll most likely be the first on the chopping block if the business hits a rough spot. You are perceived as not being a team player, not working hard enough and putting pressure on your peers.
I understand overtime is part of the job. We as developers know when we signed up to be developers that there will be late nights, but when companies expect overtime as part of the normal job for no good reason other than to get more for less, that's not right. People are afraid to leave at 5.30pm on the dot at most companies, especially as the economy gets worse.
Sadly I'm in Australia, otherwise catching up and discussing the state of the industry would have been awesome. I'll most likely be in the US sometime next year though, my partner and I are currently trying to get some funding for an ambitious idea.
The Tales from the Trenches section is less hilarious in hindsight.
Honestly, sounds like a fun ride for about a year, I wouldn't mind, even if the pay is a bit low. If it's really that bad of a position, then quit. We're pretty much immortal when it comes to finding jobs anyways so it's not like you're putting your life on the line, especially if you're a single, young bachelor.
The ideal candidate is a dedicated, single 20 year old sysop/developer/con artist aspiring to turn a fake resume into a real one in 18 months.
There's likely only going to be a small pool of candidates that fit your environment, not to mention the salary let alone work responsibilities.
The ideal candidate is a young student who has tinkered with web development since he was in high school and maybe if you're lucky, one of those guys has some experience scaling websites.
I'll bet there's plenty of young developers out there who don't mind working long hours and would love to spend their time flying around with the Penny-Arcade crew keeping everything running - admittedly they won't be hiring the best applicants in the industry with the rates and conditions that they're offering, but I doubt they'll have much trouble finding someone who fits the bill.
In my experience, this isn't really tech-startup culture, it's entertainment industry culture. If you know anyone who has ever worked in film, music or videogames, it's a fairly typical thing.
"terrible at work-life balance"
"on call 24/7"
"potentially offensive environment"
"being pushed to your limit is part of the job"
"sometimes tedious work"
That, and Penny Arcade's history of avoidable and frustrating controversies (http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/21/download-code-p...), and their terrible responses to them?
Where do I sign up?
I've been at PAX. These guys are approachable, they're kind and funny and do not carry an air of superiority. I know their failings as well as I know my own.
Apologising is nice and all, but if no actual change in behaviour occurs (whether intentionally or unintentionally) there really is no point to it.
Also the Fruit Fucker does not rape PEOPLE, it rapes fruit. There has been outcry, but pretty balanced by the fact that it "takes advantage" of an inanimate object.
Perks include: on call 24/7 low pay work is your life
But I guess we're not the people they're looking for, and when they do find someone they give them a high-five, a latte, and scratch their hipster beards and laugh at how materialistic we are needing money and free time.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6803059
For instance, ideally, I'd love to hire a dev that has 5+ years of professional PHP experience building web apps and has experience with machine learning systems specifically relating to fraud. But in all likelihood I'll be lucky to hire someone with 3+ years of professional PHP experience with zero experience doing machine learning. The hired candidate will likely be simply interested in machine learning. The hired candidate will likely have no experience with fraud-related topics.
I can train you. I can teach you those things. But ideally, I wouldn't have to.
Likewise with PA's job listing, ideally, they want someone who can do all of those things. Practically, they'll hire someone who can do a very small subset of those things.
That said, it's a bit unrealistic to expect one person to do the job of four people (which is what this listing wants), especially for low salary, so... yeah, it's a bit ridiculous.
Also, my first impression, like Marco’s, was “Is this a joke?” Especially this line: It’s rarely we call on it, but if something breaks in the middle of the night, you are expected to be on call to address that issue 24/7.
Expectations are one thing, and they're very easy to state up front. Reality is quite another, and much more difficult to enforce.
(yes, this is an indictment of the already troubled news industry)
And the saddest of all this is that the job will get covered. In fact, I'm sure that there will be a lot of applicants. Just like for videogame programming.
Yes, we need to fight this. It's good that there are people complaining publicly. By the way, I believe that a few details from the job posting would be illegal in my country, although probably not in the US.
As an outsider you may think Penny Arcade's offer is bad, but someone, somewhere would love nothing more to work with the people behind that legendary comic and expo, no matter how rough it is.
Edit - I would also like to make an analogy with MMO guilds, particularly World of Warcraft. There are players who spend 4+ hours a night with their guild hardcore raiding (especially after the release of a content patch). These hardcore guilds have very strict enlistments. Unless you're as hardcore as them you're not in. An outsider would think they're insane, but there is no shortage of people applying to these guilds because they enjoy the experience of hardcore raiding. Some of these guilds have a very family-like bond toward each other, so you have to consider community/culture fit.
That being said, I'm sure someone out there really does believe it's a legendary comic strip and will want to be a part of that.
Yes, and exploiting somebody like that is wrong. They could hire them and treat them well, but because they're famous, they couldn't be fucking bothered.
This shitty behavior goes on all the time in fashion [1] and in the movie industry. I'm sad to hear it's coming to tech.
[1] e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_Wears_Prada_%28novel%...
I was recently introduced to a job by a recruiter and they wanted me to do a "programming assignment" which would take at least 20 hours, before I could even talk to them and see who they were. I was like, "Cool story bro".
The reason why I bring that up is because I noticed the same pattern here; this job ad is screening for desperate people lacking a spine. I can't imagine any decent developer with a good job applying for this. Only someone desperately looking for work and having relatively low skills would willingly take this job, assuming he's not an idiot.
If this were true I would be more at peace with the world than I presently am.
The first interview was to determine my technical ability and character.
The second interview was for them to gauge my reaction to all the crap parts of the job. They told me about the level of social life, the tedious tasks I will have to do, and so on.
They said that, previously, they had talked-up the position to attract someone only for them to leave once they realized the reality wasn't quite so great. So, if I took the job, I would not be shocked once I got to my desk.
In the end I didn't get the job, but this is the only interview I have been in that didn't try to hide the bad bits or to over-hype the good bits.
So, yeah, unrealistic expectations are an issue. But, I mostly blame the hiring company for talking out of their backsides in order to recruit.
How about being a decent reasonable human being/employer? Or is that just off the table altogether in this discussion?
With limbo-like justifications like this I'm not surprised these kind of diseased company cultures exist.
This is exactly why labor law exists and why libertarian/extreme capitalist societies could never function. The argument "it's a free market" doesn't hold water. Without a system of checks and balances exploitation will always take place because there are always people desperate enough to do anything to make a living. No matter what you say about "free markets" and "voluntary agreements", you can't convince me that it's right and ethical and a good idea in any capacity.
In the entire category of white-collar jobs the idea of requiring labor laws is ludicrous.
Now what you want is us to take your personal view of this person as read and ignore his clearly laid out position. So really you're the one being ad hominem, though unusually being supportive (I prefer 'enabling') rather than attacking.
Let's forget who this is and discuss this person's job ad.
EDIT: A pre-emptive clarification: The fact that one could do research on this person makes no difference. The ad is the ad, the details of the person who wrote it are actually irrelevant here.
Merely attacking someone does not an ad hominem make; since ad hominem is based in the study of logic, calling a personal attack such as the comment up-thread "ad hominem" makes no sense. The person posting the job is not entering into an argument.
We can reasonably consider this implicit position and draw conclusions, and yes absolutely, because something happens to be a personal attack, it isn't necessarily ad hominem. Saying 'ignore what this person has done and listen to me telling you he's a great guy' very much is.
Ad hominem: "Higher taxes are bad because you're the one suggesting them."
Personal: "You are an idiot for suggesting higher taxes."
See the difference?
Hey, 17 year old kids, and people who have been out of work for years need jobs too, you know. (actual skill correlates... much less than it ought with employment desperation, in my opinion.)
And it looks to me (and apparently, to you) like the penny-arcade folks are being pretty clear about what they want. And that's fine. Some people (usually very inexperienced people) really like the "hero ninja rockstar" rhetoric, and that's fine. I think many intern level folks respond better to thinking of themselves as rockstar ninjas than as interns. And as we're all clear on what that actually means, hey, if it makes them feel good, who am I to complain?
The other thing you need to understand is that most of the rhetoric about 'heroic work schedules' is empty. My experience has been that the people I know who actually work the most, I mean, once you take out all the time on hacker news and facebook? they don't talk about how much they work. In fact, they usually worry that they aren't working enough.
When I hear people crow about a ridiculous work schedule? I hear "I put in 45 hours a week at the office, but half that time is on facebook or chatting with co-workers" People who actually work a lot are constantly concerned that they aren't working enough.
Yeah, they and similarly desperate people may indeed fall pray to this kind of thing. See below.
And it looks to me (and apparently, to you) like the penny-arcade folks are being pretty clear about what they want.
In this economy, ads saying "we're looking for someone to suck dry till we leave their bleached bones on the beach somewhere" can pull people in because ... desperation. See, your above.
But I don't care, such vampires need to be called on their antics regardless of this free choice.
Yeah... but like I said, I don't believe people who claim heroic hours. I don't believe companies who say that '50-60 hours' is normal. they mean that /claiming/ 50 hours a week is normal.
Yes, some people do actually work brutal hours, but they don't brag about it. They worry that they aren't working enough. Some employers really pressure people to work brutal hours, but they brag about that even less.
In fact, the places that claim heroic hours more often have beer Fridays and unfiltered internet access (and a culture that makes it okay to hang out on facebook and HN on work hours.) Generally, they also let you come in when you want, meaning that you can show up before your boss (It doesn't matter how much before your boss) /or/ show up after your boss (it doesn't matter how much after your boss) and plausibly claim crazy hours.
There is /extreme/ resistance to any sort of actual time tracking for this reason.
It's like the coaches who say "give 110%" yeah, they are irritating, and the rest of us look down on them, but there is a group of people who eat that shit up.
I'm sorry, but even if you are spending 45 or even 50 hours a week in the office (and the number of folks who go beyond that, ninja rockstar or not, is vanishingly small[1]) if half of that time is spent socializing or screwing off on the internet? it's not really that brutal. It's basically the same thing as being at home, except you have to wear pants.
Edit: dug up the source for the article:
[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20130309155432/http://bls.gov/op...
Also, I am not sure I agree with this taken as a context-free statement. I mean, certainly, I think that the 'mandatory fun times' that are so popular are even more bullshit than "you can read reddit, but you have to be in this chair" - but not really because it's "exploitation" - it's not, except in the sense that every profitable exchange of money for labor is exploitation.
Comparing folks who make more than $60K/year and only have to sit in front of computers to people who work at McDonalds or Wall-mart or worse for 1/3rd that is... kinda insulting, I think.
A modern valley company is trying to be a social club. And, if you are the sort who goes in for that sort of thing? they do pretty okay at it. Not great, but pretty okay. For a "cultural fit" it's really not work, it's social time. I know I usually enjoy that sort of thing.
But, that's the problem. It is rough on those who are not a "cultural fit" - and I think that's a very bad thing, I think that a business is at a severe disadvantage if they can only hire from the group of people they want to party with. but most people disagree with me on that.
Honestly speaking I don't mind "giving 110%" provided I'm "paid 110%".
So what is it, US? Is it great over there, or does it suck so badly that PA might actually find someone?
http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/HardTimes....
Yes, so let's take advantage of them... And if the market comes to that point that we can expect them to work for food, let's do that too... (while we're making tons of money from our business).
>And it looks to me (and apparently, to you) like the penny-arcade folks are being pretty clear about what they want.
Transparency is not a virtue in itself. Charles Manson was pretty clear about what he wanted too.
Two things:
1. The intent of their hiring specification isn't to send a message to their audience, it's to hire someone to service their audience. I'm not sure why the two are assumed to be mutually exclusive? Don't want to apply? Then don't apply - let market forces weed them out.
2. In all of my years of applying for jobs and hiring people, not once has a candidate ever met exactly the profile nor eventually fulfilled every responsibility in a hiring specification. This sounds a bit overdramatic and too pedantic. Let it go.
Anyone who has been in the industry for more than 2 months knows that the "work is family" thing is a nonsensical feel good catchphrase thrown around by manipulative managers.
Your boss will not feel bad for you if you have a personal emergency which requires your absence and costs the company money (parent dying, spouse or children having medical problems, etc.).
Your company will not hesitate one second to fire you if the output you produce is deemed less valuable than the input you need to function.
Seriously, this is why Penny Arcade can get away with shit like that - because there are people out there who blindly believe that "work is family" and eat up the whole "it's not for everyone, others don't want to do it because they're not hardcore enough, but you're hardcore enough spiel". Statistically speaking, any argument that rests on the premise that you are better than 99% of the population is bullshit.
If you really subscribe to the whole "work is family" thing, go ahead. Then in 6, 12, 18 or 36 months, when you inevitably get fucked over, you'll complain about how you wish you had been warned ahead.
Sure, I love making work pleasant and grabbing beers with my boss and co-workers as much as the next guy- but at the end of the day, work is work, and anyone who tries to convince you otherwise has ulterior motives.
At the end of the day, no matter how wonderful everything is, if the company is having a hard time and they need to fire you, they'll do it. Your boss is not going to sell his car or house to pay your salary.
If the company is doing well and offers a nice work environment, it can be fantastic, as you described- in which case, enjoy the ride while it lasts. But don't delude yourself in thinking that the wind won't turn if bad times hit. Believing anything else is setting yourself up for major letdown when it happens.
I don't expect that level of commitment to employees from my employers, but it does exist.
My good experiences don't invalidate your bad experiences - but that sentence applies vice versa too.
A bunch of bad data points proves that bad exists, but it doesn't prove that bad is prevalent. That sentence also applies vice versa.
Based on your experience in the field, how many software companies out there do you think are like yours? 20%? 10%? 1%? 0.1%? Less?
As for what percentage? I'm not really sure. Shadowcat is how it is because it was baked into the culture from day one because that's how things should be done, so I'm not sure I can extrapolate usefully from it.
You're creating a false dichotomy here. I agree that places that push the "we're just like a family" line often do so because some boss means "I want to act like an abusive dad". And I agree that no place is perfect.
But there's plenty of room for compassion and human feeling in the workplace. Companies are human institutions, and executives ignore that at their peril.
Sure, I know such people. The difference that these people won't write a psychopathic job ad, and they certainly won't expect me to work >40hours a week for below market salary.
If you believe work is family, do you think your family would be OK with you working 60 hours a week for below market salaries? Of course not! Your family doesn't want to screw you over while selling you shitty psychobabble. They'll actually pay you what you're worth and make sure you work reasonable hours.
That said, there's no way I would apply for that position, and I hope nobody else does, so that they finally realize that they need to hire more than one person for all that stuff. I'm just saying the Penny Arcade company really is different than nearly any other technical gig, and that when they said "work is family", it's not "a nonsensical feel good catchphrase". It's them trying to weed out as many people as possible so they aren't flooded with 100,000 resumes at once.
The fact remain that if you do that, you're doing yourself a major disservice as a professional.
Labor hoarding is well established empirically.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2005/2005-040.pdf
For example:
The whole paper reads like that. Repurposed words dumped obliquely in the middle of sentances, and then abandonded.Why not:
What is it about academia, where people feel obligated to contort their writing into an intimidating architecture of opaque jargon and garish vocabulary? Is it some form of group think? Is it a defense mechanism designed to ward off criticism? Why must new ideas be presented in such stark, frustrating words?So really it's just a matter of using a common technical language that is less ambiguous than ordinary language.
Your rewrite adds a lot that isn't in the original article. E.g. the last sentence doesn't reflect their meaning. They are looking for explanations for why firms hoard, not trying to make suggestions to firms.
That might be true in general but in this case it is not.
How do you know that's how it is? For most companies, "work is family" may be hyperbole, but how do you know it's that way at PA? I don't profess to know, but I don't find it unreasonable that there are companies out there that are different than the ones that I'm accustomed to. Just like I accept that there are people out there that have lives very different than how I've lived mine.
Honestly, I'd rather spend time working for someone (or on something) that I believed in and make less money than the usual soul crushing 9 to 5 and make a boatload. I'm in that situation now, actually, and it's not great. I moved the the bay area earlier in the year to chase the almighty dollar, and my overall happiness level has gone down. Who'd have thought?
Don't forget that when you sign a work contract in California, it says explicitly that your employer can get rid of you at any time (and they are certainly happy to exercise that right, especially in startups). This is legally true for any company here, no matter how different they are from the ones I've experienced.
Also don't forget that we live in a city where entire teams frequently get cut because they're deemed unnecessary by the new CEO of the day. This is the same city where when people (albeit not in the tech industry) go on strike because they don't get certain benefits promised to them in the past, they become almost universally hated by everyone.
The US is not exactly a reference when it comes to siding with workers in those matters.
I'm not saying that I treat work as a dull, impersonal affair, far from that. As I've said in another comment, I've happily socialized and made life long friends and partaken in office outings and activities in my life as a tech employee.
But I prefer to not cloud my mind with ultimately useless romantic notions such as "your work is your family" (I already have a family, and it's filling its role quite well- don't need another one). When the bad times come, it makes dealing with things much easier. And when employers try to push this angle a bit too much, it's a sign to me that the workplace might not be too desirable to be at.
And that there's an organization/group out there that treats it just like that.
It's sort of like jaded lovers. Certainly there are people that poo-poo the notion of "soul mates" or "love at first sight." Fair enough. But it's always a little bit sad when that dampens the mood for people who are caught up within potential romance, no?
Demanding, insane-o jobs are also common in those places. They may have poor work/life balance, but goddamn it, they pay their people, either with fat salaries or substantial equity or both.
It's hard to imagine the confusion under which someone would post a job that is three standard deviations more overworked than the norm, and then flippantly say "we're not money-focused" about the compensation.
You want insane-o crazy work? You pay for insane-o crazy work.
But maybe this isn't surprising. PA does come derive from an industry where talented, young people will drag themselves through broken glass just for a tiny sliver of the glory of making video games for a living.
Many states have adult/elder protective services, too, not to mention police involvement with general abuse cases regardless of age.
Obviously, PA isn't really doing something worthy of that sort of response, but I'd want to be treated better than "shit wages, shit work-life balance" by a family member.
I don't know about you, but my mother and brother are still my family, regardless of their work output.
Sure, they say that money isn't important to them, but there's no reason to assume it wouldn't be slightly competitive.
Penny Arcade is in Seattle. If they want a chance of hiring anyone they would at least need to be in the ballpark of other job offers out there. Microsoft and Amazon pay pretty well, so I don't think this number will be as insulting as people are assuming it will be.
They're about as clear as they can be without actually stating a number. It's gonna be low.
I can't imagine they'd lowball you too much when a good developer can literally walk down the street from Penny Arcade and be at Google's or Adobe's offices in Seattle. Not to mention Amazon, Microsoft, or anywhere else in the area that pays well.
Perhaps you have a basic sense of human decency and fairness? Just because someone is naive (or just plain dumb) doesn't make it ethical to take advantage of them.
You could almost make the exact same argument about volunteering. You are asking for people to work hard and not get paid with the upside being they feel good about what they are doing. This is virtually the same thing, they are saying if the environment and lifestyle is appealing to you, and you're willing to deal with the downsides, please apply.