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 who can overcome or workaround issues independently" - Don't bother telling us we are asking for something impossible, that's your problem.
"Flexibility to travel up to 30% of the time." - Not only should you be able to do four jobs, but you should be able to do them from an airplane/car/hotel room with permanent availability.
"Should have no problems working in a creative and potentially offensive environment." - Note this doesn't apply to you, only we will be insulting prima donnas. You will conform.
"Flexibility adapting to deadlines, changing schedules, priorities and unpredictable events in a fast paced environment." You should be able to meet deadlines that are assigned arbitrarily. You'll have no control over your own schedule, but you'll be expected to give highly detailed attention to whatever the project of the day is.
"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." - We'll cheap out at every opportunity, buying shitty hardware and cheap services, because it's not us that has to fix it when it's 2am Christmas morning. If you keep shit running, then we were right to be cheap. If it fails, then you're a bad IT person. That you recommended a different option is irrelevant.
"we are not money-motivated group" - We aren't motivated to give you any money.
PA will surely find someone who meets their requirements and accepts their level of compensation. PA will be lucky to hang onto them for more than a year. Anyone who has accumulated all of the skills that this post requires, will also not stay in this position for longer than it takes to put it on their resume.
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-starter' - I don't want someone who's going to run to me to get every decision made. If you are able to identify things that are part of your job, decide how to do them, and do them, that makes my life much easier, and your job more efficient.
'Flexibility to travel' - 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?
'creative and offensive environment' - Well, they can certainly be offensive; sometimes intentionally offending stupid people, sometimes unintentionally offending normal people. I won't get into this (but I've railed against them in the past for shitty comments).
'flexibility with deadlines, schedules, etc…' - This is project management. Anyone who's managing projects (either their own or someone else's) needs to do this. This is entirely normal.
'on-call 24/7' - Again, this is normal. Ideally, you set things up so that they don't break in the middle of the night, or if they do you don't have to deal with it immediately. Shit breaks, that's life.
You seem to assume the absolute worst of every possible thing they say, even though all of this is part of most senior IT jobs.
What about most folks who work for not for profits? Often their wages are below what they could make in other positions but they value they derive from their work has merit. I am not claiming that working for PA has a feel good social cause but by the same token they may offer other value to those who want to work there.
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 guy” image that hasn’t been accurate for at least five years, and probably more. That’s one of Khoo’s many gifts — he has figured out exactly how to sell this company, even if the image they’re peddling is a load of horseshit.
This confuses me, because its as if the author tries to force his valuation of the opportunity onto all prospective applicants. He recognizes that a position at Penny Arcade has a level of cachet, but doesn't recognize that that level of cachet is transitive: if someone "can work somewhere “cool” and feel like a part of something big", then good for them. It's up to each person whether or not to decide if those benefits outweigh the costs of eschewing different employment.
Also, lots and lots of ad hominem. I'm not super familiar with Penny Arcade -- having never attended PAX and having not read the comic in a few years -- but a lot of this post seems to be conjecture which hinges on Robert Khoo being a villain.
(I would never apply for this job, because I value salary and work-life balance too much. But I recognize there are people who don't, which is why early-stage startups can thrive.)
I have the opposite reaction to this posting: Penny Arcade are being abundantly clear and transparent about the requirements and drawbacks of the role.
It's not exploitation; it's a trade, and Penny Arcade have listed out their terms. Everyone is free, or not, to go along with what they want.
The author mixes two messages: (1) the merits of the offer, and (2) the ethics of the offer. The author may be right about (1) -- I am not qualified to say -- but this does not imply that he's also right about (2). A poor job offer is not an unethical one; and in this sense I think Penny Arcade are living up to higher standards by being transparent about where they may fall short.
You can take precisely the same position about walmart; Their jobs are shitty, but they're an offer, and working it is up to you. Whether this validates walmart or damns PA is up to you.
Personally, I take the former opinion, though I'm saddened that walmart is able to continue to exist despite their bad proposition. Many people see their options as "Work for walmart" or "starve", and in many cases, they're right (Or they might end up with both anyway). Basic income might fix this, though I doubt it.
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 -- planting a field, fixing a tractor, feeding livestock -- they got it done. They didn't quit working when the work was done, because the work was never done. They momentarily paused when they were too exhausted to continue. If there was an emergency at three AM -- livestock escaped, water main broken, building on fire -- they got out of bed and dealt with it without delay. They were partners.
Occasionally, mostly during harvest, these farmers employed a few farm hands. These farm hands were contracted to do a specific job, like buck hay. They bucked hay for a certain number hours, and then went home. If something went wrong outside their purview, like a tractor breaking down, they informed one of the four farmers, who dealt with it. If there was a disaster at three AM, they were not summoned. They were employees.
It would have been easy for these farmers to expect the farm hands to act like farmers. After all, the farmers worked all day and some nights, did anything that needed to be done. But the farmers were partners in their business, and the farm hands were employees. Expecting employees to behave like partners just makes you a bad boss.
I think it is important for a small business, when growing, to remember the difference between partners and employees, and if you're hiring employees -- and not adding a partner -- to remember to treat them as employees, and not expect them to act like a partner in a business they have no interest in.
This is the dirty little secret of startups too. As an early hire you will work as hard as the founders, and take at least as much personal financial risk as them if it doesn't work out, yet with minimal exposure to any upside - so the sane options are, full co-founder, or double market rate salary to offset the risk. Not pennies and "stock options".
If you believe this then you have never run a company. Being responsible for a company is categorically different from being an employee at a company, even if that employee is very hard-working.
I thought it was standard at startups to offer company stock in exchange for small salaries for the first set of employees. If so, those employees with stock have at least some upside for the risk.
I understand that pain of seeing someone in an abusive relationship, like a talented programmer working at a game studio on a crappy legacy codebase because it was once touched by some personal hero of theirs. Or the killer VLSI chip designer writing shell scripts any system administrator could write because its "working at Google." But the author here isn't in the place.
He is arguing that this job offer is a setup for entering into an abusive relationship with the folks behind Penny Arcade.
So all of that I understand and I pretty much agree with it, people will ask you to work for peanuts and spin it in such a way that they try to make you feel good about it.
But where it gets confusing for me is the whole 'I'm a unicorn and I know these guys personally' rant. What that reads like is "Gee I'm perfect for this job, know these guys, and would could totally do it but they won't compensate me 'fairly' to do it." The angst of wanting something but not willing to pay the price of getting it.
I don't know what Chris is trying to say there.
Perhaps for some people it is the same reason they take 'production assistant' jobs for minimum wage in Hollywood, so they can 'make contact with' the folks in the industry they want to be a part of. What I do know is that monetary compensation is only part of the value for some people, I know I've been in jobs that the fact they paid me was just icing on the cake, they were that fun to do [1]. Clearly the job posting is looking for someone for whom part of their compensation is that they are part of the 'Penny Arcade' family. I don't see the issue there that Chris does, hence the confusion.
[1] Ok not completely, I do need to eat and live somewhere, but sometimes felt I was being paid more than I needed to be paid to stay, just because it was so interesting/fun.
I didn't get that reading at all--it seemed very much a straightforward "folks, don't be starstruck: this job is a set-up."
A story:
I was the technical cofounder (effectively) for a coworking space once upon a time. I did everything from build websites, handle mailing lists, run cable, deploy and design enterprise-class networking infrastructure, take out the garbage, and power-route through a blocked sewer drain.
It was a great job, and a good way of keeping myself in beer money while decompressing from my previous gig.
Except, at the end of the day, I wasn't a cofounder. I had no contractual stake in the company. I had no health insurance. I didn't always get payed on time. To replace me, they suddenly needed: an AV person, a networking person, a Rails developer, and somebody that could hawk their space to other developers (they were biz bros through and through, and the only developers we had at the space were basically due to my networking on their behalf).
I don't regret the time I spent there, and I still help put out fires from time to time, but it was an easy trap to fall into, and could've ended really badly for all parties involved.
In these little businesses, especially when you start taking on the technical risk, you need a stake in the company. Otherwise, you're just some schlub that was recruited to do the work.
And when the web site is updated a little late, or a power outage kills a switch because the owners cheaped out on your spec (and they will, because they think in the small), or some other damn thing, it'll be you swinging in the breeze.
And they'll shitcan you, and find the next person foolish or desperate enough to go in for it.
There are a lot of people who would like you to grind your life into dust in exchange for the glory of having made them richer. If you want to do that, there are a lot of ways, and this is one. I agree that they are trading on their name to find some gullible nerd to do all this stuff. The terrifying thought is, there are people who will read this and mostly agree with it, and still be willing to take the job. I can't really explain that.
I really scoff at the notion that any sort of white collar programming job is exploitative. I know there is some controversy over interns in some industries (not tech), Wal-Mart workers, overseas child slaves, and other real problems in the workforce. But to call out Penny Arcade for what amounts to a very honest job listing, for one of the most high-paying jobs in the country and the world, is just absurd.
So what if the blogpost describes a myth, and they'll settle for someone who does a bit of each? That's not a crime, that's a strategy.
I understand the frustration with the disconnect between the particular complaint and far worse problems.
That said, if a rushed Bill Gates pays you $500 for a Starbucks coffee and you bring him instant coffee instead, it doesn't matter whether he drinks it: you still exploited him. These are all examples of exploitation, just of relative degree.
I can't agree more. They're not going to find someone who can do 4 different jobs each as well as if they hired 4 people who were experts in their fields, but what people seem to be missing is the fact that hiring a jack of all trades is probably what they're aiming for.
I've been in positions where I was in charge of developing software, building servers from scratch (which was a ton of fun, since I got to play with tens of thousands of dollars worth of hardware that I wouldn't have otherwise), doing desktop support, creating a build/deploy/test strategy, planning projects, and on and on. I wasn't the best guy to be in charge of building servers, and I'm sure I got some things wrong (looking back, I definitely got some things wrong!), but it got the job done and was a hell of a learning experience. And it all worked. And the company made some decent money off it.
So as a fellow "Jack of All Trades Master of None", I say good luck to PA. :)
"you know what’s even more rare? A guy who can write excellent code in several disparate languages, manage multiple different server installs, administrate databases, and configure office firewalls."
Is that really so hard to find? I might be selling myself short... (I actually thought I'm worth less on the marketplace by being a "generalist")
Is it really that difficult to run a handful of LAMP stack sites?
The job posting is designed to discourage people not confident in their abilities. They'll ask pointed questions in the interview process that will expose any lie on your CV. Do you need to be a "Do-Everything Rock Star" to do the job? Not likely. Do they want someone who will work their ass off for less than industry standard pay? Probably. Will it really be that hard? Probably not. They've survived for 15 years without a dedicated resource. While the job posting may speak of an incredibly intimidating position, I sincerely doubt that the person that gets it will be up all night troubleshooting complicated python scripts.
I get that it's super cool to shit on Penny Arcade. It drives a lot of traffic to website and sometimes they deserve the vitriol. If they were a start up promising a new social media blah blah blah bullshit I'd have a big old hate hard on too. They're not. They're an established 15 year only internet media company that's looking to bring talent in house. The expectations of the job posting are absurd for sure. I think it's only meant to weed out fan boys that run their own CounterStrike server and think they could be the PA IT guy.
There are many comments here launching off into discussions of objective reality, what ad-hominem is and various other topics, trying to discern why people are taking so much offense to this ad, but I think that it boils down to two simple things, greed and hypocrisy, which are things that we are pretty hard-wired to take offense to. I don't think it is much more complicated than that.
In terms of greed, the blog post above correctly points out that Penny Arcade is at this point a large outfit that is making a ton of money. The founders are at this point millionaires and will, baring extravagant spending, never have to worry about money again. So when they come out with a job posting such as this one people look at it as they would seeing a wealthy investor hiring an unpaid intern as an assistant, or something similar. This person has more than enough money to satisfy almost every desire, and yet rather than pay competitive wages, or work to spread some of that wealth out to the people who help them obtain their success they have deliberately chosen to keep as much of it as possible even to the point of paying people far less than they are worth, instead talking up nebulous terms like "access", "experience", or "work environment". This strikes most people as the definition of greed (taking more than you could possibly need even if it means exploiting other people) and we generally react negatively.
In terms of hypocrisy, there is right up front the spectacle of a businessman and salesperson telling you with a straight face that they are "not money-oriented" despite the fact that this is a complete description of their job. But more than that, you have an organization that has spent years taking potshots at the "big guys" ostensibly standing up for the "gamer", aka the little guy, the consumer, etc, etc. Hell they even run a comic about QA work in the game industry, ostensibly a satire about the terrible conditions, accompanied by writeups from people doing QA talking about the terrible exploitation they have faced. But apparently, when push comes to shove (or paying market wages), Penny Arcade is just as comfortable taking advantage of naive young people, willing to grind themselves down for their "heroes" as their heroes gaze on and pocket millions.
Given those two things, I think the only surprising thing is that apparently the powers that be at Penny Arcade are too sheltered to not immediately understand that this would be the reaction they would receive.
Firstly, take a job posting to it's logical extreme and you'd get something similar to the linkedin post[1].
"We want a ninja rockstar coder+sysadmin in the top 99.999th percentile of skill/ability/knowledge. A successful candidate will give their heart and soul to the company, for very little money. Fringe benefits: pong pong table, a beer fridge, and limited 401k matching"
[1] Speaking as someone currently looking for work.
Secondly, this is par for the course at Penny Arcade who has historically gone to great (and borderline abusive imho) lengths to find the best candidates. Their television show PATV did two fascinating arcs on hiring, the first episode of which is here: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/new-hire-part-1
Robert Khoo will no doubt get a lot of applicants, whom he will ruthlessly cull until he has the perfect fit for his organization. And if he can't find a perfect fit, he'll start over until he does.
I greatly admire his accomplishments at Penny Arcade and have no strong desire to work for him.
Wait, the (linkedin) post isn't sarcastic? I heard Jeff Jaques (QC) mocking the idea on twitter earlier[1], and thought he was joining in a wider joke.
If they are satisfied with hiring "a jack of all trades who has mastered very few or none of them, and who will have to scramble like crazy just to meet the base requirements of the job, let alone excel at them." (which I agree is the likely applicant profile), why not?
However hard it may be for some here to believe, there are many people who are most efficient -- and most satisfied -- in an environment of constant and unpredictable variety in both type and intensity of work, just as there are people who find it more entertaining being jacks of all trades rather than mastering one.
Implying that all jobs should accommodate your personal preferences (e.g. specialization, predictability, or work-life balance) is not doing them any service, and their skills are already discounted too far in this marketplace.
This job posting kinda reminds me of the mental calculus I did when deciding to work for Spümcø for a while. John Kricfalusi's studio did not pay well, and the work was gruelling - but you were working for John fucking Kricfalusi, the guy responsible for Ren and fucking Stimpy. And yeah, there was definite cachet in that. Even if you burnt out on the animation industry like I did, you were still gonna be able to draw rings around most people after a stint there. Working at Spümcø taught me a lot, and I think ultimately I am glad I made the trade of shitty pay with a demanding boss for a few years. I got paid in a hell of a post-graduate education from a man who changed the face of the animation industry, as well as in money.
But... you know, honestly, I think the closest thing to an industry-changing genius Penny Arcade has is Robert Khoo, and this job ain't gonna have you getting your hands dirty in such a way that lets you learn Khoo's ways.
I had thought that the general IT/AV person was a dinosaur, but judging from comments here, the position is alive and well. And all too common. Avoid these jobs if you can. If you have the talent and energy to do them, your energies will be dissipated and misdirected, and your talent wasted. You may end up too discouraged to develop it. And you will get old fast.
[+] [-] johngalt|12 years ago|reply
"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 who can overcome or workaround issues independently" - Don't bother telling us we are asking for something impossible, that's your problem.
"Flexibility to travel up to 30% of the time." - Not only should you be able to do four jobs, but you should be able to do them from an airplane/car/hotel room with permanent availability.
"Should have no problems working in a creative and potentially offensive environment." - Note this doesn't apply to you, only we will be insulting prima donnas. You will conform.
"Flexibility adapting to deadlines, changing schedules, priorities and unpredictable events in a fast paced environment." You should be able to meet deadlines that are assigned arbitrarily. You'll have no control over your own schedule, but you'll be expected to give highly detailed attention to whatever the project of the day is.
"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." - We'll cheap out at every opportunity, buying shitty hardware and cheap services, because it's not us that has to fix it when it's 2am Christmas morning. If you keep shit running, then we were right to be cheap. If it fails, then you're a bad IT person. That you recommended a different option is irrelevant.
"we are not money-motivated group" - We aren't motivated to give you any money.
PA will surely find someone who meets their requirements and accepts their level of compensation. PA will be lucky to hang onto them for more than a year. Anyone who has accumulated all of the skills that this post requires, will also not stay in this position for longer than it takes to put it on their resume.
[+] [-] danudey|12 years ago|reply
'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-starter' - I don't want someone who's going to run to me to get every decision made. If you are able to identify things that are part of your job, decide how to do them, and do them, that makes my life much easier, and your job more efficient.
'Flexibility to travel' - 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?
'creative and offensive environment' - Well, they can certainly be offensive; sometimes intentionally offending stupid people, sometimes unintentionally offending normal people. I won't get into this (but I've railed against them in the past for shitty comments).
'flexibility with deadlines, schedules, etc…' - This is project management. Anyone who's managing projects (either their own or someone else's) needs to do this. This is entirely normal.
'on-call 24/7' - Again, this is normal. Ideally, you set things up so that they don't break in the middle of the night, or if they do you don't have to deal with it immediately. Shit breaks, that's life.
You seem to assume the absolute worst of every possible thing they say, even though all of this is part of most senior IT jobs.
[+] [-] WettowelReactor|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmduke|12 years ago|reply
This confuses me, because its as if the author tries to force his valuation of the opportunity onto all prospective applicants. He recognizes that a position at Penny Arcade has a level of cachet, but doesn't recognize that that level of cachet is transitive: if someone "can work somewhere “cool” and feel like a part of something big", then good for them. It's up to each person whether or not to decide if those benefits outweigh the costs of eschewing different employment.
Also, lots and lots of ad hominem. I'm not super familiar with Penny Arcade -- having never attended PAX and having not read the comic in a few years -- but a lot of this post seems to be conjecture which hinges on Robert Khoo being a villain.
(I would never apply for this job, because I value salary and work-life balance too much. But I recognize there are people who don't, which is why early-stage startups can thrive.)
[+] [-] tvladeck|12 years ago|reply
It's not exploitation; it's a trade, and Penny Arcade have listed out their terms. Everyone is free, or not, to go along with what they want.
The author mixes two messages: (1) the merits of the offer, and (2) the ethics of the offer. The author may be right about (1) -- I am not qualified to say -- but this does not imply that he's also right about (2). A poor job offer is not an unethical one; and in this sense I think Penny Arcade are living up to higher standards by being transparent about where they may fall short.
[+] [-] GauntletWizard|12 years ago|reply
Personally, I take the former opinion, though I'm saddened that walmart is able to continue to exist despite their bad proposition. Many people see their options as "Work for walmart" or "starve", and in many cases, they're right (Or they might end up with both anyway). Basic income might fix this, though I doubt it.
[+] [-] saalweachter|12 years ago|reply
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 -- planting a field, fixing a tractor, feeding livestock -- they got it done. They didn't quit working when the work was done, because the work was never done. They momentarily paused when they were too exhausted to continue. If there was an emergency at three AM -- livestock escaped, water main broken, building on fire -- they got out of bed and dealt with it without delay. They were partners.
Occasionally, mostly during harvest, these farmers employed a few farm hands. These farm hands were contracted to do a specific job, like buck hay. They bucked hay for a certain number hours, and then went home. If something went wrong outside their purview, like a tractor breaking down, they informed one of the four farmers, who dealt with it. If there was a disaster at three AM, they were not summoned. They were employees.
It would have been easy for these farmers to expect the farm hands to act like farmers. After all, the farmers worked all day and some nights, did anything that needed to be done. But the farmers were partners in their business, and the farm hands were employees. Expecting employees to behave like partners just makes you a bad boss.
I think it is important for a small business, when growing, to remember the difference between partners and employees, and if you're hiring employees -- and not adding a partner -- to remember to treat them as employees, and not expect them to act like a partner in a business they have no interest in.
[+] [-] gaius|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jblow|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonlucc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
I understand that pain of seeing someone in an abusive relationship, like a talented programmer working at a game studio on a crappy legacy codebase because it was once touched by some personal hero of theirs. Or the killer VLSI chip designer writing shell scripts any system administrator could write because its "working at Google." But the author here isn't in the place.
He is arguing that this job offer is a setup for entering into an abusive relationship with the folks behind Penny Arcade.
So all of that I understand and I pretty much agree with it, people will ask you to work for peanuts and spin it in such a way that they try to make you feel good about it.
But where it gets confusing for me is the whole 'I'm a unicorn and I know these guys personally' rant. What that reads like is "Gee I'm perfect for this job, know these guys, and would could totally do it but they won't compensate me 'fairly' to do it." The angst of wanting something but not willing to pay the price of getting it.
I don't know what Chris is trying to say there.
Perhaps for some people it is the same reason they take 'production assistant' jobs for minimum wage in Hollywood, so they can 'make contact with' the folks in the industry they want to be a part of. What I do know is that monetary compensation is only part of the value for some people, I know I've been in jobs that the fact they paid me was just icing on the cake, they were that fun to do [1]. Clearly the job posting is looking for someone for whom part of their compensation is that they are part of the 'Penny Arcade' family. I don't see the issue there that Chris does, hence the confusion.
[1] Ok not completely, I do need to eat and live somewhere, but sometimes felt I was being paid more than I needed to be paid to stay, just because it was so interesting/fun.
[+] [-] angersock|12 years ago|reply
A story:
I was the technical cofounder (effectively) for a coworking space once upon a time. I did everything from build websites, handle mailing lists, run cable, deploy and design enterprise-class networking infrastructure, take out the garbage, and power-route through a blocked sewer drain.
It was a great job, and a good way of keeping myself in beer money while decompressing from my previous gig.
Except, at the end of the day, I wasn't a cofounder. I had no contractual stake in the company. I had no health insurance. I didn't always get payed on time. To replace me, they suddenly needed: an AV person, a networking person, a Rails developer, and somebody that could hawk their space to other developers (they were biz bros through and through, and the only developers we had at the space were basically due to my networking on their behalf).
I don't regret the time I spent there, and I still help put out fires from time to time, but it was an easy trap to fall into, and could've ended really badly for all parties involved.
In these little businesses, especially when you start taking on the technical risk, you need a stake in the company. Otherwise, you're just some schlub that was recruited to do the work.
And when the web site is updated a little late, or a power outage kills a switch because the owners cheaped out on your spec (and they will, because they think in the small), or some other damn thing, it'll be you swinging in the breeze.
And they'll shitcan you, and find the next person foolish or desperate enough to go in for it.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] badman_ting|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewljohnson|12 years ago|reply
So what if the blogpost describes a myth, and they'll settle for someone who does a bit of each? That's not a crime, that's a strategy.
[+] [-] thirdtruck|12 years ago|reply
That said, if a rushed Bill Gates pays you $500 for a Starbucks coffee and you bring him instant coffee instead, it doesn't matter whether he drinks it: you still exploited him. These are all examples of exploitation, just of relative degree.
[+] [-] SheepSlapper|12 years ago|reply
I've been in positions where I was in charge of developing software, building servers from scratch (which was a ton of fun, since I got to play with tens of thousands of dollars worth of hardware that I wouldn't have otherwise), doing desktop support, creating a build/deploy/test strategy, planning projects, and on and on. I wasn't the best guy to be in charge of building servers, and I'm sure I got some things wrong (looking back, I definitely got some things wrong!), but it got the job done and was a hell of a learning experience. And it all worked. And the company made some decent money off it.
So as a fellow "Jack of All Trades Master of None", I say good luck to PA. :)
[+] [-] socalnate1|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GFischer|12 years ago|reply
Is that really so hard to find? I might be selling myself short... (I actually thought I'm worth less on the marketplace by being a "generalist")
[+] [-] jhjester|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jgon|12 years ago|reply
In terms of greed, the blog post above correctly points out that Penny Arcade is at this point a large outfit that is making a ton of money. The founders are at this point millionaires and will, baring extravagant spending, never have to worry about money again. So when they come out with a job posting such as this one people look at it as they would seeing a wealthy investor hiring an unpaid intern as an assistant, or something similar. This person has more than enough money to satisfy almost every desire, and yet rather than pay competitive wages, or work to spread some of that wealth out to the people who help them obtain their success they have deliberately chosen to keep as much of it as possible even to the point of paying people far less than they are worth, instead talking up nebulous terms like "access", "experience", or "work environment". This strikes most people as the definition of greed (taking more than you could possibly need even if it means exploiting other people) and we generally react negatively.
In terms of hypocrisy, there is right up front the spectacle of a businessman and salesperson telling you with a straight face that they are "not money-oriented" despite the fact that this is a complete description of their job. But more than that, you have an organization that has spent years taking potshots at the "big guys" ostensibly standing up for the "gamer", aka the little guy, the consumer, etc, etc. Hell they even run a comic about QA work in the game industry, ostensibly a satire about the terrible conditions, accompanied by writeups from people doing QA talking about the terrible exploitation they have faced. But apparently, when push comes to shove (or paying market wages), Penny Arcade is just as comfortable taking advantage of naive young people, willing to grind themselves down for their "heroes" as their heroes gaze on and pocket millions.
Given those two things, I think the only surprising thing is that apparently the powers that be at Penny Arcade are too sheltered to not immediately understand that this would be the reaction they would receive.
[+] [-] Sukotto|12 years ago|reply
Firstly, take a job posting to it's logical extreme and you'd get something similar to the linkedin post[1].
"We want a ninja rockstar coder+sysadmin in the top 99.999th percentile of skill/ability/knowledge. A successful candidate will give their heart and soul to the company, for very little money. Fringe benefits: pong pong table, a beer fridge, and limited 401k matching"
[1] Speaking as someone currently looking for work.
Secondly, this is par for the course at Penny Arcade who has historically gone to great (and borderline abusive imho) lengths to find the best candidates. Their television show PATV did two fascinating arcs on hiring, the first episode of which is here: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/new-hire-part-1
Robert Khoo will no doubt get a lot of applicants, whom he will ruthlessly cull until he has the perfect fit for his organization. And if he can't find a perfect fit, he'll start over until he does.
I greatly admire his accomplishments at Penny Arcade and have no strong desire to work for him.
[+] [-] tehwalrus|12 years ago|reply
[1] https://twitter.com/jephjacques << at the moment, the posts are about 4 hours old and the first 5 or so.
[+] [-] gcb0|12 years ago|reply
Also, while this is sarcasm in the tech industry, this is the life blood of non-profits.
[+] [-] xixi77|12 years ago|reply
However hard it may be for some here to believe, there are many people who are most efficient -- and most satisfied -- in an environment of constant and unpredictable variety in both type and intensity of work, just as there are people who find it more entertaining being jacks of all trades rather than mastering one.
Implying that all jobs should accommodate your personal preferences (e.g. specialization, predictability, or work-life balance) is not doing them any service, and their skills are already discounted too far in this marketplace.
[+] [-] johnyzee|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deletes|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eric_WVGG|12 years ago|reply
The mindset behind this job posting is quite similar to that behind unpaid internships.
[+] [-] davidgerard|12 years ago|reply
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us
The smartest people you will ever work with, doing good work on a seriously popular website, at charity rates of pay ;-)
[+] [-] egypturnash|12 years ago|reply
But... you know, honestly, I think the closest thing to an industry-changing genius Penny Arcade has is Robert Khoo, and this job ain't gonna have you getting your hands dirty in such a way that lets you learn Khoo's ways.
[+] [-] ChristianMarks|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] junkilo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thesimpsons1022|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nollidge|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsynnott|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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