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

http://cwbuecheler.tumblr.com/post/68163195864/on-penny-arcade-exploitation-and-the-myth-of-the

by hoonose • 13 years ago

243 178 13 years ago

cwbuecheler.tumblr.com

tehwalrus2• 13 years ago

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.

[1] https://twitter.com/jephjacques << at the moment, the posts are about 4 hours old and the first 5 or so.

gcb0• 13 years ago

It is only sarcasm if half the people that reads it will wonder if it is serious. otherwise it is just slapstick humor.

Also, while this is sarcasm in the tech industry, this is the life blood of non-profits.

tehwalrus2• 13 years ago

Sufficiently convincing parody, the internet, etc..

The salary you'd consider for a for-profit and for a mission you believed in are two different domains, though. (I speak, from the heart, as one who finds the idea of believing in money incomprehensible - I am aware that not everyone's brain has the same bug/feature.)

tvladeck2• 13 years ago

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.

methodover2• 13 years ago

He makes an explicit case for both (1) and (2). He doesn't try and merely imply (2).

Also, a transparent trade can still be exploitive. If I were to advertise for a slave, that would be an advertisement for an exploitive "offer."

The real question is if this offer, in particular, is exploitive or not. I think he makes a solid case that it is.

tankbot2• 13 years ago

He makes an explicit case for both (1) and (2). He doesn't try and merely imply (2).

You read wrong. tvladek did not say Buecheler implied anything, only that being correct about one thing does not imply being correct about another.

And if you advertised for a slave you would presumably be dealing with the owner of said slave, so if you were offering a reasonable price, then no that would not be an exploitative offer.

Khoo's job posting offers value and leaves it up to the applicant to decide if that is inline with their requirements. For some it will be a dream job. For others it will not.

Slaves do not choose to be slaves, that is part of the definition of the term. The introduction of hyperbole and apples to oranges comparisons does not further conversation.

GauntletWizard• 13 years ago

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.

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

Right, that's kind of a difference between the WalMart offer and the Penny Arcade offer. Anybody who gets the job at Penny Arcade has many other good options.

coldtea3• 13 years ago

I have the opposite reaction to this posting: Penny Arcade are being abundantly clear and transparent about the requirements and drawbacks of the role.

Given what the requirements and the drawbacks are, that's just marginally better than not being clear.

To give an extreme example to make this clear, I'm not going to be lauded by putting up an ad like: "I'm a old-style racist, and want a black person to serve as my personal assistant. No salary given. Must do as told".

eridius2• 13 years ago

You say that like the Penny Arcade job listing is somehow rare. It actually sounds like an accurate description of a lot of startup jobs out there. The only thing unique here is that they're actually being upfront about expectations, instead of letting the new hire find out over time about the true expectations of their role.

grecy2• 13 years ago

Everyone is free, or not, to go along with what they want.

But in America, with no social safety net, the alternative is not pretty.

Reading about unpaid internships, Wal-mart having food drives for their employees and McDonald's recommending employees get a second job makes me sick to my stomach.

The very fact that people even take these jobs is proof they don't have another choice - what sane person would work these jobs if they had a viable alternative - any alternative.

jdminhbg2• 13 years ago

But in America, with no social safety net

I'm starting to doubt that this kind of thing is hyperbole and starting to think people actually believe it.

scarecrowbob• 13 years ago

Being up front about your unethical behavior just makes you more culpable, because not only _should_ you know better, you do in fact know better but will proceed anyhow.

mncolinlee2• 13 years ago

So to extend your argument-- as long as a worker is fully informed that he may die working in a dangerous factory, it's not unethical to lock the doors and windows?

Are you redefining ethics to suit your argument? Consent does not voids ethics. It's only a single component of ethical behavior.

tvladeck2• 13 years ago

How does that bear any relationship to my argument?

gaius3• 13 years ago

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".

jonlucc• 13 years ago

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.

Jemaclus• 13 years ago

True, but it's generally something like 0.25% equity (almost always <1%). So you're working roughly the same hours for a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the overall equity.

jblow7• 13 years ago

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.

angersock5• 13 years ago

I'm not sure that you two are in disagreement--they are saying that precisely because being an employee is different from being a founder, an employee needs to make sure that their interests are seen to.

(this is all said with respect to an engineering position)

In an early-stage startup, you are likely to be building the product and doing at least as much useful technical work as the tech cofounder from whom you are taking some of the burden.

Moreover, because you're in a small company, you probably don't get benefits, and you probably don't get good pay ("After the next round!"), and you probably don't get much gear, and so on and so forth. The options you're granted may well not pan out, and even if they do they probably will be diluted into something equal to a holiday bonus.

That being the case, it makes great sense to look after your own interests.

This equation, of course, changes once the company is large enough to actually take proper care of its employees and pay proper market rates.

MrZongle2• 13 years ago

Being responsible for a company is categorically different from being an employee at a company, even if that employee is very hard-working.

Yes, it is the difference between being a parent and being a babysitter.

Both are responsible for the health and welfare of one or more children, but the babysitter eventually gets to go home and be "off the clock".

Problem is, many small companies seem to think that the equivalent of calling up the babysitter at 2am to deal with a vomiting child is acceptable.

GFischer2• 13 years ago

"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")

saraid2162• 13 years ago

Most tech companies have an entire engineering department with sub-divisions in order to get each of these roles done.

If you can fulfill four jobs by yourself, then you should be getting paid for four jobs. In Seattle terms, that should be north of 200k annual.

andrewingram• 13 years ago

There's a difference between being able to do 4 jobs well, and being able to do 4 jobs well at the same time. I can design and code, but I rarely attempt to do both on the same day, because context switching is hard work.

yarou• 13 years ago

And yet, you'll find that the position probably pays less than even 1/4 of the value generated. Labor hasn't evolved much since the days of the robber barons. Employment should be a contract between equals, not an instrument of subservience. Unfortunately, the meme of exploitative employment reigns supreme today, globally.

jmccree2• 13 years ago

It's hard enough to find someone who can write excellent code in one language. If you can also manage servers, do DBA work, and configure firewalls/networking equipment, you are actually very valuable to the right team/client.

asdasf4• 13 years ago

Yes. And of the small number of people who believe they can do that, 99% of them can not.

dllthomas6• 13 years ago

How do I tell?

(nod to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

jblow7• 13 years ago

What is described is something toward the top end of basic competence. The only reason someone would think this is crazy is if they have been hanging around bad engineers and / or administrators. That said, most engineers / administrators are pretty mediocre, especially these days now that so many more people are doing it. So.

I mean, if "managing office firewalls" is on someone's list of things that are impressive, maybe that person does not have a clear view of the problem space.

But I should not even be giving the article so much attention as this. It's clear the author is confused. At first he talks about how rare and crazy it is to find someone who can do this, but then, contradictorily, he laments that PA will get tons of applicants who can do the job. Well, guy, which is it? They can't both be true.

All that is going on here is that someone had a negative reaction to the job posting and is trying to express and rationalize their reaction, regardless of how that rationalization really matches up to reality. Happens all the time, why am I even replying?

jblow7• 13 years ago

Really I guess the reason I am replying is that I am disturbed by this repeatedly-brought-up notion that highly productive people do not exist. I am not sure why it disturbs me so much, I think maybe because if potential highly-productive people read these things and believe them, they may be demotivated from reaching their potential. Maybe, I don't know.

If you don't believe that highly-productive programmers exist, it is only because you haven't yet met one.

asdasf4• 13 years ago

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

zanny• 13 years ago

They don't mention time requirements. While I have independently done all those things mentioned, nobody can do them all at average joe 40 hour a week level combined without having absurd burnout quickly or dying from sleep deprivation.

And even then, you aren't working at average levels, you would be far below it due to overexertion.

You can't have one guy write the website, maintain the servers, support the office IT, act as tech support, and manage all the site databases. Not on something as big as PA, at least. Maybe on a site with 100k views a month, where the server is just an ECS2 instance and your office firewall is a dlink router with iptables.

pseut• 13 years ago

It's "excellent code," not "self-perceived excellent code" or "good code."

GFischer2• 13 years ago

Good point :) . Yeah, I'm definitely not in the "excellent code" category (more like "it works" category for most languages).

mcv• 13 years ago

It might be hard to find for the money they're offering.

jmduke2• 13 years ago

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.)

coldtea3• 13 years ago

This confuses me, because its as if the author tries to force his valuation of the opportunity onto all prospective applicants.

Perhaps it's rather as the author believes in an objective reality, where there is one true valuation of a thing, and he's not so much trying to "force his valuation onto all prospective applicants" as trying to "communicate the real valuation to all prospective applicants".

He 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.

Perhaps he recognizes that what some people perceive as "cachet" is actually BS and can be bad for them, regardless of what they believe, in the same way that a teenager wanna-be rockstar that thinks heroin is cool and an early death is "romantic" needs to be told otherwise...

jmduke2• 13 years ago

I strongly disagree with this, though. I'm young, but I'm confident people can have different experiences at the same position -- I have friends who would happily take a salary hit to work at startups or smaller businesses. They value the opportunities and cultures of those jobs to be worth more than the additional $X,000. That doesn't mean they disagree with a "one true valuation" -- it means their valuation has different factors and weights.

taeric5• 13 years ago

This rhetorical style reads terribly.

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

The second point is lost on comparing the job to illicit drugs. This is more like comparing it to an intern where you may not get as high of a salary as you could possibly demand, but you will get to work with people you likely view as celebrities. Would be closer to a roadie position with a very established band. Probably not the most lucrative position ever, but is it really comparable to heroin?

gaius3• 13 years ago

Quite. Imagine you are a hiring manager (or perhaps you don't have to imagine). Would you make a candidate a higher offer seeing Penny Arcade on their CV? Then what is the cachet exactly?

xixi772• 13 years ago

One true valuation of anything is only possible in a world populated by precisely identical people. I call that a fantasy, not "objective reality".

jtuente• 13 years ago

Perhaps it's rather as the author believes in an objective reality, where there is one true valuation of a thing

This just annoys me to no end. Even in an objective reality, valuations are subjective; e.g. I value having a high-end computer at my home and a rink-a-dink laptop on the road, whereas some of my friends will never own a desktop again because they find no value in it. To be cliche, different strokes for different folks. There is no real valuation of anything, but simply a choice between alternatives which offer some or all of the things that someone chooses to value.

What you're describing is utilitarianism.

munificent• 13 years ago

Perhaps it's rather as the author believes in an objective reality, where there is one true valuation of a thing

Wait, are you proposing that this is actually the case? That all things have one true real value? That if the entire world likes pistachios but I don't, my perceived low value of pistachio is somehow objectively wrong and needs correction?

People value things differently. Whether its because of individual preference, or just different circumstances, the fundamental proposition of commerce is that people want different stuff.

If I have a banana tree and you have a goat, one banana is worth less to me than a cup of goat milk. Meanwhile, a cup of goat milk is worth less to you than a banana. We exchange and now we're both better off. This is the whole reason commerce works: because it's a non-zero game.

people perceive as "cachet" is actually BS and can be bad for them

I'm just flummoxed here that someone can just flatly declare that another's perceptions of their own preferences are bullshit. "No, dude, you really hate chocolate. Trust me. Yeah, that feeling of satisfaction you have right now. Not real. Don't smile like that. It's a fake smile! You hate it!"

How does that make sense?

saraid2162• 13 years ago

a lot of this post seems to be conjecture which hinges on Robert Khoo being a villain

I didn't get this sense from the post. He disagrees with what Khoo is doing. That kinda necessarily means he'll be talking about Khoo negatively.

chipotle_coyote• 13 years ago

I don't think the author describes Khoo as a villain, just as someone who is very "money-motivated" despite explicitly saying otherwise. Yes, it's subjective to say "the cachet of working at Penny Arcade doesn't outweigh the negatives of this job, and the fact that the posting tells you up front that it's a shit job doesn't change that," but the author certainly makes a good case as to why he believes that. Is it conjecture to say that Khoo wants to pay under market rate for one job that should really be done by more than one person at market rate? Well, if you believe the job listing that Khoo wrote, not really. That's pretty much how he described the job, and that's a perfectly reasonable inference from it.

Also, I don't see an actual ad hominem attack in here. Buecheler is blunt, but it seems to me he's very explicitly attacking Khoo's actions and policies here. He may be arguing that those actions make Khoo kind of a jerk, but that's not ad hominem. (Buecheler clearly argues Khoo is a terrific businessman, in fact; he just argues that he's using his powers for evil.)

You can certainly argue that "You should know it's a shit job, here's how it's a shit job, but hey it's for Penny Arcade! Woo!" is a fine enough job posting because it's up front about its intrinsic shittiness. But I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to respond with, "Yes, but not only is a shit job still a shit job, this particular one is a shit job at a company that certainly has the resources to make it not a shit job and is choosing to make it so because they're a high-profile, loved-by-nerds company and can get away with it." That response appears to be fundamentally correct.

rayiner• 13 years ago

The fact of the matter is that this sort of "cool but shitty" job is quite common in other industries (music, movies, advertising, politics, sports). At least in tech, these sorts of jobs don't involve giving sexual favors, so be thankful for that much.

kalleboo• 13 years ago

There's an even closer analogy on hand, which is especially poignant with Penny Arcade - video games. Lots of kids enter the game industry and get chewed up and overworked and tolerate it because they love games.

jgon2• 13 years ago

Well he kind of is acting like a villain. I mean if we were to strip out all the names associated with this topic the one line summary could be "Business/Sales guy wants to hire a tech person to work really hard for little money while he gets rich". I mean its a tale as old as the tech industry but are we seriously going to apologize for him? Do we have absolutely zero solidarity with regard to this issue?

dpcheng20032• 13 years ago

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

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

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

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

rantanplan2• 13 years ago

There are so many logic flaws in your comment that I will just respond to the ones that stand out(to me anyway).

"Robert isn't breaking any employment laws".

I didn't know we should only voice our disagreement when someone does something illegal. Actually, on second thought, I think doing that would be somewhat redundant because, well you know, the law has already taken care of that.

"The best you can do to show your disapproval as a great developer is to not apply"

What a misguided and cynical opinion! No. What we can do, is to expose unethical and exploitative tactics, in order to protect the younger, and by extension, the more naive candidates.

Lagged2Death• 13 years ago

Also, lots and lots of ad hominem.

Ad hominem is when you say, in effect, "You butter your toast on the wrong side, so I'm going to discount anything you say, you wrong-side-butterer, you."

It's not ad hominem to point out that a a specific claim ("I don't even really like toast," while sitting on a throne and dais made entirely of toast) is calculatedly disingenuous.

The argument isn't "This guy's a hypocrite and therefore he's wrong about absolutely everything," which would arguably be ad hominem. The argument is "This guy doesn't even believe what he's telling you right now, maybe you shouldn't believe it either."

badman_ting• 13 years ago

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.

truantbuick• 13 years ago

I'm not qualified to discern the quality of most of this post, but its tone disturbed me, and I agree that I find most of the ad hominem stuff really distasteful.

jessedhillon• 13 years ago

At no point does he structure his argument thus: {Khoo, Penny Arcade, anyone} is {immoral, stupid, lacking in some way} therefore they are wrong.

Absent that, there is no ad hominem. What you have is a discussion of the personalities involved in the enterprise and a speculation as to their motives, methods and the means available to them. All of that is relevant in answering some questions which need to be asked of any job offer: Who will I be working with? Will I be a valued team member? What will the team and workplace dynamics be? How do these people operate?

The term ad hominem means a specific thing. It's not a blanket term for "some people were spoken of in an unflattering way." If you don't like that some personal qualities are discussed and conclusions drawn therefrom, say that you simply dislike discussions which include value judgments about the actions of specific people.

nollidge4• 13 years ago

It's gotten to the point where any time I see someone citing a logical fallacy on the Internet, I can be 99% assured that they don't actually understand it.

taeric5• 13 years ago

Actually, the post is {Khoo, Penny Arcade} are shrewd business folks that are looking for a sucker. Don't be the sucker. With lots of exposition on why this author feels they are looking for a sucker.

Hell, we don't even really know what the compensation is for this position. Could be they are willing to pay upwards of 200k. Am I just missing where they are saying this will pay terribly? I saw they are not "money oriented" which is probably true since they have more of it than they can really reason about. Better, they have front row access to what they dreamed about as kids. They don't need the money anymore.

I think something a lot of folks from companies that aren't 20ish people are missing is that they are effectively auditioning someone to come be part of a very close knit crew. Imagine the postings for a recurring role on {insert popular tv show}.

ChuckMcM2• 13 years ago

This is a confusing post.

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.

angersock5• 13 years ago

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.

Zimahl6• 13 years ago

One startup I worked at for about 2 months was very similar. I needed a job at the time and took what I could get.

The wage was fine, the hours were bulky but understandable. Little did I know that the founder wanted/expected probably double that. The nail in the coffin was when he lectured me on how the human body only really needs 4 hours of sleep a night and after 6 months we can re-evaluate my working schedule. Hah!

That for a mediocre wage, no benefits, and zero equity? The last 2 weeks he paid me the salary to find another job, I did zero work for him during that time.

ChuckMcM2• 13 years ago

Perhaps surprisingly I think we agree.

Your anecdote, and the original article, have the same form. Allow me to abstract it a bit and tell me if I screw it up.

We have in one hand a "job" which has some set of properties associated with it; Hours needed to do it, responsibilities, tools, and environment in which to do it. And we have this independent variable, compensation.

Now lets take your anecdote first and change the conditions in a wild way in order to reason about it. Let's say that nothing in your anecdote changes except that instead of 'beer money' it was "$100,000 a week".

That is an extraordinary amount of money per week for someone to make would you agree? If without a "stake in the company" would you have looked back fondly on your time there? Along the lines of "it was a crazy work schedule with people who were clueless but man the money was sweet." ?

What I'm trying to demonstrate is that there is a "value" received when working somewhere. It is more complex than just "cash" it has elements of ownership, cash, people, tools, location, and mission.

I've hired consultants that their bottom line was cash per week. They had a goal of some amount of cash by some point in time and they could be sorting pennies by minting date all day long and be fine with it if it met their cash flow goal.

I've known people continue to work on stuff after the company ceased to exist because it was something they were really committed to getting done.

I have come to conclude that the value someone gets from doing a particular job is a deeply personal thing and unique and made up from a variety of factors some of which I can control and some of which I cannot. When people are reasonably self aware about what it is they value they can make good choices about what compensation they would need to work somewhere. And those values can change over time.

So back to your anecdote, when you started the job it met all your compensation needs (beer money, decompressing) after a while it didn't (no equity, no health insurance, poor predictability of pay), perhaps because once you had "decompressed" you were once again thinking about the future and the relative value of things like health insurance rose in your list. I knew a guy who fell in love with the girl of his dreams and she was constrained to living in Livermore, a 2 hr commute to the southern part of the Bay Area. You could not pay him enough to stay in his job, he changed to a job in Livermore. The values changed over time.

So let's get to where we disagree, the characterization of the Penny Arcade job as a "set up".

For me, the term 'set up' implies fraud. And yet the terms of the job are very clearly spelled out in the job listing. Given that level of clarity I have no trouble believing that they would be as forthcoming in person as well (but could be wrong there). You and I can read it, "If you want equity you need not apply" or as Chris read it "PA isn't interested in sharing any wealth with you." and in both cases forewarned is forearmed. But they already said they wouldn't and presumably people who value equity will, in fact, not apply (or at least ask if that is a possibility prior to applying)

So end of the day. I don't agree Penny Arcade is being misleading or 'setting someone up' to be exploited. While I can understand that someone whose value equation isn't met by what they are offering would consider themselves "exploited" if they were forced into that sort of labor contract. Except nobody is forcing anyone here.

OGC• 13 years ago

I don't regret the time I spent there, and I still help put out fires from time to time

What the...? Why would you do that?

thesimpsons1022• 13 years ago

The author obviously has a clear and abundant bias against penny arcade.

nollidge4• 13 years ago

Who cares? Is he wrong?

DanHulton• 13 years ago

Potentially, yeah.

rsynnott• 13 years ago

Huh? He doesn't seem to like their business person, but based on this job ad, _who can blame him_?

johngalt2• 13 years ago

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.

danudey6• 13 years ago

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.

ceol3• 13 years ago

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

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

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

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

criley2• 13 years ago

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

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

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

lolcraft• 13 years ago

If I hire someone I want them to have a good attention to detail and not just do whatever works.

Crazy-person level of attention to detail. Not good. Not adequate. It asks for perfection, or lunacy: both of which are abusive to ask for. [1]

They run conventions. Obviously they want their IT guy around to help set everything up. [...] How do you mitigate that?

Try hiring four people to do the job of four people. If they fucked up the wifi because their intern-slave is busy updating the site's CSS, managing the databases, backing up the file server, fixing the wifi, carrying down the booths, making coffee, cleaning the toilets, and has to catch a plane for Kuala Lumpur tomorrow at 6 a. m., guess who's failing at his job. And it's not the guy making the coffee.

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

Maybe it's normal, but that doesn't mean those who accept it for a pittance are not suckers.

[1] "Oh, but they're joking, it's hyperbole". I presume the salary is a joke too?

johngalt2• 13 years ago

You're right, I'm not being charitable in my assumptions. I would edit it and trim it back a little, but I don't want to take away from your response.

To examine this more seriously:

Individually their requirements fit in the broader context of IT. However, taken as a whole the job post screams 'toxic environment', and 'setup for failure'. It's possible I'm entirely wrong, but the post throws off a lot of red flags. Such a long list of requirements and roles without one mention of decision making or authority. Not even one mention of responsibility. Most skilled IT people are comfortable meeting a high standard, but are wary of entering situations where they will be 24/7 solo on-call for variegated environments that they get no authority over.

The issue with the requirements isn't being oncall or managing projects, or travel, or attention to detail, or fexibility, or offensive environment. It's oncall AND projects AND travel AND details AND flexibility AND offensive environment WHILE cheap AND alone.

How would they fix it? How could this job post be better? Change the language to reflect more of a management position. Talk more about selecting and managing tech vendors, projects, strategies. Make it sound like they are looking for an IT Director for guidance who is not afraid to roll-up his sleeves. Right now it appears they are looking for a skilled slave to do it all.

Having been around many highly skilled IT teams, I can guarantee you that most senior IT people aren't filling multiple roles while being on-call for all of them.

EDIT: "The wifi at PAX Prime 2012 was unusable the majority of the time. How do you mitigate that?"

I'd reach out to my network and find someone who's already solved the problem of large scale wi-fi and rent them. Or contact a large wi-fi equipment provider and see if we could make an arrangement for equipment support/manpower in exchange for PAX floor space. The last thing I would do is ask the IT generalist who's been on-call for three months straight and is in the middle of updating the website. "Hey can you figure out convention wifi?"

nsxwolf• 13 years ago

On-call 24/7 is normal? I thought good IT departments had rotating on-call schedules.

6d0debc071• 13 years ago

If that's what they expect, then they should just say that. It's difficult to trust someone to have reasonable expectations when they just throw a bunch of buzz-words; that could mean anything from 'we basically want you to run the technical side of our entire company for us' through to 'we want a person who's not a total pain to work with'; at the wall.

ShirtlessRod2• 13 years ago

"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?"

By hiring enough qualified people to handle setting it up properly instead of relying on a wing and a prayer and an under-appreciated, underpaid worker doing too many things at once?

WettowelReactor• 13 years ago

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.

johnyzee• 13 years ago

Here's what interviewing will be like: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/04/06

Eric_WVGG• 13 years ago

Haha, totes.

The mindset behind this job posting is quite similar to that behind unpaid internships.

deletes• 13 years ago

Here's what interviewing is actually like: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/new-hire-part-1

andrewljohnson• 13 years ago

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.

socalnate1• 13 years ago

I want to upvote this a hundred times.

thirdtruck• 13 years ago

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.

SheepSlapper2• 13 years ago

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. :)

jgon2• 13 years ago

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.

xixi772• 13 years ago

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.

ChristianMarks3• 13 years ago

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.

junkilo2• 13 years ago

could you elaborate on what you mean precisely by "talent waste" and "misdirection"?

ChristianMarks3• 13 years ago

This kind of job is unlikely to be conducive to deliberate practice. If your intention is to improve your understanding of algorithms, for example, practice implementing and analyzing algorithms at just above your current level. Here you have little control over your time, which is spread thin. You're on call all the time, so that your focus is fractionated. You may even become dependent on the short-term satisfaction you get from completing many small assignments without warning, while your peremptory, offensively smug manager unhelpfully demands that you explain why some internal web site isn't up to date (someone else left out an expiration date), and points out that if in the future you have to be reminded, the unconscionable error of omission must be immediately corrected; and by the way, a a slide show is needed for presentation by noon. Before you go, order software by 9 AM on your credit card if you have to and install it by 10AM--timing is crucial, only you find out the software company is a sole proprietorship in another time zone where it is 3 AM; get the online store running without the help of the retail people or any testing whatsoever with the payment gateway; and while you're at it do a quick PHP fix to the most elaborate routine in the system, not to mention a patch to the store because the US Postal Service modified its REST endpoint--without the patch no one can specify USPS shipping and only priority mail works, but site went down and you call the hosting facility to log a ticket (oops, a switch--a point of failure--failed). While you juggle mutually exclusive priorities, your manager's manager calls to explain that the users cannot upload videos on wifi connections using http--absolutely unacceptable: do something about this immediately! Without testing you attempt to install a gridFTP service, but installation requires the --skip-broken option in the yum package manager, which may or may not work; now it's 11 PM and you've been there since 8 AM, but you need to provide instructions to unsophisticated users who prefer moralizing to problem-solving, while you update the header of a web site by appending an image to an overgrown CSS sprite, but this is interrupted by a rude text in from your manager, whose insists that an extremely important email is nowhere in the 160,000 message inbox on his phone (he refuses to archive his mail)--it is your responsibility to explain why he didn't receive it; but he did receive it--you produce the delivery header, but as usual there is no response, except for an email that a home-grown DVD has to be produced, which means remembering photoshop macros to resize the borders to the right aspect ratio, only the deadline for the jQuery Mobile application is tomorrow...

Sukotto• 13 years ago

Two thoughts spring immediately to mind.

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.

egypturnash• 13 years ago

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.

saalweachter2• 13 years ago

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.

eshvk• 13 years ago

But but but stock options, 'generous equity' etc

webhat2• 13 years ago

Stock options and equity make you a half-partner, they rarely bestow you more than a honorary partnership. Just ask Marissa Mayer.

Yen• 13 years ago

In the general case, equity could serve to create a realistic in-between position between employee and partner. An employee with equity might not have control or responsibility for the entire business, but they have a more direct stake in its success. So there's that.

In this specific case, Penny Arcade's job offer doesn't mention anything about equity. Their IT guy won't be part of their branding or image, so they don't even get any social equity out of the deal. The IT guy would be an employee, who'd be expected to expend effort like someone who's bootstrapping the business.

davidgerard• 13 years ago

If you have the sort of qualifications this job asks for, you may want to consider applying them somewhere that makes the world a better place:

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 ;-)

jhjester• 13 years ago

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.

jheriko• 13 years ago

people who very nearly match this description exist. its not really the point though. i agree that this is an unrealistic ask.

its not uncommon to see in the games or entertainment industries in general... everyone wants in and so many are willing to work themselves to death for it.

downer96• 13 years ago

Link to original thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6799033

sireat• 13 years ago

The problem I have with this job posting, is that it screams hypocrisy. That is this is something that Penny Arcade would draw a comic about if it were about game programmers. In fact, I remember seeing some PA comics about crappy wage/job situations before.

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

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