
About the Penny Arcade Job Posting - b4c0n
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/185114/about-the-penny-arcade-job-posting
======
hapless
This post confirms that the job posting is exactly what it looks like: an
exploitative horror-show

* He speculates whether the job is worth a "lower salary" (and, given his admitted inexperience in the workforce, he probably has no idea what a market salary looks like)

* "The ping-pong table is NOT a benefit"

* He's on the "bottom of the goddamn ladder" and "reminded every day" edit: I'm getting a lot of flak for taking this out of context. This is a post on his employer's public forum, that they tweeted out on their corp accounts. It's not a stretch to read between the lines because this "joke" is so awkward and forced. I cannot imagine that it didn't have a double meaning. In other words, "ha ha only serious"

* He wears "four hats," and does the job of "two people" so they can run "lean."

* At some point his burnout was so bad (and so visible), his employers asked if they could "send [him] anywhere"

It's really a little strange to read this post. It's obvious that he really,
really likes his coworkers and really, really hates his job. He describes
horrible things with soft, feel-good terms. The author seems to hope
applicants go into it with open eyes: the new hire will be crapped on and
underpaid while he keeps a laptop next to the bed to handle early-AM change
requests. But your coworkers are really fun!

~~~
QuantumGood
He fairly specifically says that interpretations such as yours are wrong. He
specifically says:

* No, the conditions are not awful...I love this company

* No one here has been scammed into working as hard as they do, and the implication that we’re all blind fools with low self esteem for being here is honestly insulting.

* There won’t be any taking advantage of starry-eyed young twenty-somethings.

He explains why he's leaving directly and clearly, (including "No, I did not
burn out.") and that he likes working there. You're assuming he's lying, which
you can't know.

~~~
hapless
He says the conditions are not awful, then describes awful conditions. He says
he's not leaving because he burned out, and then describes when he burned out.

He very obviously loves the company, but it's not a healthy love.

~~~
santoshalper
Awful conditions _for you_.

~~~
brianwawok
For a human being

~~~
nbouscal
Yes, because you know what is best for all human beings. This line in the post
was directed at you:

> _That’s like saying everyone would be fulfilled by getting married and
> having 2.5 kids._

Not everyone has the same utility function.

~~~
kelnos
I tend to be a fairly relativistic, each-to-his-own person, so when things
like this come up, I generally nod my head in agreement.

I don't think I can do that here, though. You're totally right in that people
have different utility functions, but I believe that there are some things
that are just objectively bad and unhealthy, and whether or not you _think_
you enjoy them or "like" them, they are still bad for you, and possibly bad
for others.

I don't want to live in a world where it's ok for a company to create a
position like this guy was in, and have that be the _norm_. No, it's not like
that, but the more we apologize for companies that do that, and the more we
say, "oh, it's ok for _that_ person to work in those conditions; if you don't
like it then pick another job", the easier we make it for companies to think
that those kinds of things are ok for everyone.

And then there's the wage issue. Bottom line: if you are working the jobs of
more than one people, you should be paid more than one person. This guy took a
pay cut to do more work. That's certainly a reasonable thing to do if
compensation comes from other (healthy) angles, which appears not to be the
case. The job posting for his replacement explicitly says they're cheap-ass
bastards who aren't going to pay what you are worth or what the job duties
merit.

That's not just a company _I_ don't want to work for. That is a company with
staffing practices that are actively harmful to individuals and the industry
as a whole.

edit: @wvenable puts it so so so well a bit below: "I guess I'm old and tired
of my peers devaluing their own skills and time."

~~~
nbouscal
I agree that there is a point at which allowing the market to decide on fair
compensation breaks down. Hence minimum wage and policies against
discrimination, etc. I just don't see how one could possibly make an argument
that this is the case here. The job pays enough to live well on, and while it
does involve performing tasks typically associated with different _roles_ , I
don't see any indication that it involves doing more than one person's _job_.
His description of the time involved doesn't sound _that_ far off the norm.
The main argument seems to be that the position is under-compensated, but I
don't see any reason why in this case the market shouldn't be allowed to
determine that.

Basically this whole issue seems to be a case where a significant part of the
compensation is non-monetary (essentially, working at PA), and people whose
utility functions assign that compensation zero value are getting bent out of
shape about the fact that there exist people whose utility functions assign
that compensation high value. (For the record, I'm in the group who assigns it
zero value.)

~~~
kelnos
I'm not talking about wage-slave conditions here. This isn't something that
needs to be protected by a minimum wage or a government entity.

This needs to be protected by applicants valuing their time. I guess I read
the current guy's description differently than you did; to me, it seemed his
multiple-job job required significantly more time than the norm.

I think I distinguish between forms of non-monetary compensation as being good
and bad (or healthy and unhealthy, if you prefer). Again, this is all
relative, but I think at least on a base level we can probably find common
ground here. Accepting lower pay because a place to work is "cool" falls
squarely into the unhealthy pile for me. Perhaps it temporarily raises your
happiness level (which _is_ of value!), but it's fleeting, and, well,
temporary. Accepting lower pay because you're underqualified and the job will
be a bit learning experience for you seems reasonable, as would accepting
equity in lieu of pay (e.g. a recently-started company) if you think it might
be worth something later to compensate. These sorts of things can have lasting
impact on your life and are actually useful.

As I said, I just worry that things like this can inspire other companies to
do similar things. Right now it's fairly easy to get a job at a good company
if you're a developer with some chops. Demand is high and supply is still not
quite meeting that demand. But what happens if that changes? If there's a
strong culture of paying people market rates and avoiding my-company-is-cool
type compensation in lieu of cash, perhaps people can expect a reasonable wage
standard when the market is more competitive. But every company that tries to
feed applicants some feel-good bullshit about how it's ok that they pay people
less because they're just so cool... well, that jeopardizes that.

Or perhaps I'm just worrying about nothing.

~~~
nbouscal
> This needs to be protected by applicants valuing their time.

To me, this reads as "This needs to be protected by applicants changing their
utility function." Applicants _do_ value their time. Everyone values their
time. They just value it differently.

Your claim basically hinges on your belief that some aspects of utility are
objective. The essential point of your argument then, as I understand it, is
that you want job applicants to correct their utility functions according to
that objective evaluation, to help out the rest of us whose utility functions
are already 'correct'.

This would actually be pretty cool, but the trouble is that you really are not
going to have much luck trying to convince everyone else to agree with your
utility estimates, even if they do strike you as objective. I think I would
probably agree with many of them, personally, but they cannot be made
normative.

At the end of the day I agree that you are probably worrying about nothing.
I'm not going to claim that the market does an excellent job of setting
salaries. There are a lot of irrational agents at play in that market, and the
results are skewed accordingly. That said, I think this particular brand of
irrationality is highly unlikely to be a driving force.

------
wvenable
Nothing seems to contradict what anyone has said about this job:

* "It is true that I am paid below market value"

* "If I had had to apply for the job with the presently listed requirements, I might not have gotten the offer."

* "Depending on the project load, I might spend 8 hours at the office and call it good, or I might stay til 10-midnight consistently for a couple weeks."

Just because the person who currently does the job feels this is a great thing
and all the people applying for the job feel it's a great thing doesn't make
it great.

I guess I'm old and tired of my peers devaluing their own skills and time.

------
Pxtl
They're rock-stars looking for a digital roadie. The roadie doesn't care he's
abused because he's "with the band".

They need to admit to themselves that they didn't treat the previous guy right
for the kind of work he put in.

Honestly, given PA's history I'm not surprised by this whole situation. They
seem like a great bunch of guys who suffer from some serious Aspie-myopia
about how life works for everybody outside of their club, and they've had to
fight enough trolls and lunatics online that they can't sort out the
legitimate criticism from the noise anymore, so when they screw up they just
double-down.

~~~
robdrimmie
Why is it "Aspie-myopia"? People with Aspergers are entirely capable of
understanding that other people have different thoughts, expectations,
emotions, minds. They sometimes (it's a spectrum which means that not all have
the same symptoms) have difficulty understanding others' mental state from
body language and other direct social clues but they understand that people
have different opinions.

You are spreading misinformation, and potentially insulting people in a throw-
away portion of your otherwise good point. You don't need to be on the
spectrum to be myopic.

------
doktrin
Nothing about this job seems equitable. There appears to be literally 0 reward
for making added sacrifices and taking on the additional duties called for.

Financial gain? Nope. World class technological challenges? Still no. Work
life balance? Obviously not. Solving meaningful problems? No. Name recognition
or industry stepping stone? Maybe, but highly mitigated by the fact that any
serious applicant would be qualified for more valuable positions elsewhere.

Is this job squarely aimed at die hard PA fan-people? What about them as an
organization is particularly exciting?

~~~
lightbritefight
Im personally not interested, but PA is something of a cultural zeigiest in
the same demographic as most of the people who would meet this skill set. They
are a big name in gaming, running PA, PAX(the largest video game expo out
there), and the childs play charity. They are considered leading commentators
in gaming, being both insightful and involved with gaming for over a decade.

~~~
LordHumungous
They have zeitgeist in the gaming world, not the software engineering world.
They aren't doing anything remotely cutting edge software wise. I don't see
why an engineer would think it's such a special place to work, other than just
because they like video games, and by extension Penny Arcade.

~~~
JamesArgo
Now if xkcd needed a dev...

------
macspoofing
The one (and only) problem I had with the posting was this line:

>Salary: Negotiable, but you should know up front we’re not a terribly money-
motivated group. We’re more likely to spend less money on salary and invest
that on making your day-to-day life at work better.

That immediately jumped out at me. That came off so off-putting. If you're not
a "money motivated group", that means you pay more, right, RIGHT? No, of
course not. Again, the author probably didn't mean for it to come out the way
it did, but it felt so sleazy, like they were trying to put one over the
applicant. "We can't pay you a lot because we're not about money here". ..
urgh.

All the other stuff about work-life balance and multiple roles, I didn't have
a problem with. This job is made for a single 20-something guy or girl who
wants to hang out with the penny-arcade crew, not someone with kids and a
spouse.

~~~
kaonashi
Probably intended it to be more of a comment on the size of the budget and the
percent allocated for the position than the size of the salary relative to the
market. That said, having been involved in a similar set-up, being the lone
guy holding up tech for a large organization is a type of hell I wish on no
man.

------
scrabble
* If you want to work 80 or more hours * Prepare to have a laptop and some way of connecting to the internet with you at all times. Want to go on a hike somewhere there's no reception? Sorry, you can't. * They pushed out the launch, came and visited me in the hospital, brought me delicious Asian snacks and lent me a Vita to help pass the time.

So 80 hours of work a week -- or more. Inability to travel or enjoy wilderness
or even visit family if they don't have reception. And if you're in the
hospital, maybe they will visit and lend you something relatively cheap that
you can return later.

------
agentultra
So you like working for less-than-market rates and have no life other than
work? Want to work for me?

I suspect the answer is a flat, "No." Unless I was running a successful media
company like PA there's nothing in it for you. What about it being PA makes it
okay then?

Unfortunately I'm not surprised by the job posting. In non-unionized media
companies the labor relations are generally very poor. A friend of mine used
to work in such a post-production audio studio as a junior engineer. They paid
him practically nothing and waited as long as they could to pay his invoices.
In return he lived to work for them and never received credit for anything.

In contrast his sister worked in a larger post-production effects studio where
the workers were unionized. She still has a job there afaik and is quite
happy. Her brother left his gig when he was up to his eyeballs in debt and
couldn't handle the hours anymore.

It sucks but that's the free market for you.

~~~
SheepSlapper
He says what made it okay in his case:

"This job meant security, a huge opportunity to go out of my comfort zone and
learn, and countless other 'soft' benefits I couldn't think of. And I got to
work with people I truly enjoyed."

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

------
beachstartup
the job he describes is at LEAST $125k/year + benefits + location and schedule
flexibility i.e. work from home if you want, and you can leave to pick up the
kids at 2pm. as long as the work gets done. possibly stock or options -
depends on the company, but quite honestly i don't even view that as 'real'
compensation for 90% of all cases.

i can't even begin to know what the fuck a 'volunteer' Enforcer is, especially
for a profitable company. quite frankly it sounds like the typical 20 foot
pile of horse shit that only the games industry could come up with. and i've
seen some really _mind-bendingly exploitative_ behavior after being based here
in LA for a decade.

anything significantly less than the above salary + benefits, and you are
being ripped. off. by. people. who. know. better.

i know this because i have several senior devops guys on my staff who fit that
description and have been with us for over 3 years. this is also what I used
to make as a senior engineer before i started up my company as an
owner/executive.

people should be FAR AND AWAY your most expensive resource. with a few notable
types of exceptions, if you pay your people less than your hosting provider or
your rent or marketing, you're doing something very, very wrong, and it will
catch up to you in some way or another. see: penny arcade job post.

~~~
Lewisham
_i can 't even begin to know what the fuck a 'volunteer' Enforcer is,
especially for a profitable company. sounds like a 20 foot pile of horse
shit._

Why don't you try using Google and looking it up before angrily speculating?

The Enforcer system is what the use at Penny Arcade Expo. It's a volunteer
system to help run the event, and in return you get to attend things when
you're not on the roster. It's no different to all sorts of roles, be it grad
students being a student volunteer to attend a conference (and if you want to
talk about underpaid, grad student is where it's at) or teenagers picking up
trash after the Glastonbury Music Festival.

No-one is being pressganged into being an Enforcer, it sounds like a pretty
sweet gig to me.

~~~
beachstartup
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Arcade_Expo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Arcade_Expo)

that's funny, i didn't see "non-profit" or "charity" _anywhere_ on this page.
you guys should consider updating it.

i am angry because there is an ongoing, systematic monetary devaluation (and
hence social devaluation, dot com billionaires notwithstanding) of all
technical roles _by people in our own industry_. it pisses me right the fuck
off and the games companies are at the forefront of the fuckedupedness and
loss of dignity.

you chain this fucking guy to a pager and pay him peanuts and harass him to
the point where he needs to resign and then flippantly post another job
posting with such unbelievably thinly veiled condescension and arrogance, and
it's about time an industry called you out for it.

~~~
mhurron
How is the Enforcer system related in any way to technical roles?

Since you didn't seem to get it, the Enforcers are people that 'volunteer' for
parts of the event in exchange for free tickets to attend the rest.

~~~
beachstartup
no, i don't think you get it.

a for-profit enterprise should not be asking for volunteers for anything. that
is a moral position i take.

second, the loss of dignity and monetary devaluation was referring to his day
job. the one that he ostensibly makes a living from.

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

Why do you hate freedom? Think someone's going to _steal your job_? Are you
one of those union members who freak out if someone is setting up at a
convention center and _plugs in their own laptop_ or _moves their own chair_?
:P

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

------
mkr-hn
It's almost as if people with no knowledge of the situation didn't know what
they were talking about and speculated angrily instead.

~~~
jonknee
... And they got it _right_. The employee confirmed what was in the job
posting and what people had issues with (so many different roles, ridiculous
hours, low pay, etc).

It's not that hard:

Want a programmer? Hire one.

Want a web developer? Hire one.

Want a system administrator? Hire one. Hire two if you have any type of 24/7
on call requirement (it's not remotely reasonable to expect one individual to
be on call 24/7 365).

Then unless you want to get sued, set reasonable expectations of hours (2x
full time is not reasonable).

~~~
wvenable
I disagree. In a small company, everyone takes on multiple roles -- so why
can't a single person be a programmer, web developer, system administrator?
I've done that job many times.

The only issue is if the workload is more than one person can handle. In this
case, the work sounds like it's only slightly more than a one-person job and
it's unfortunate he's not paid accordingly.

~~~
swang
Generally you are required to take on multiple roles at a small company
because there is no other choice. There are no funds to hire the proper people
to do it. It's either do it or go bust.

Penny Arcade is not a small company in that sense. They definitely _could_
hire the right 4 people to work there, but instead they want to just pay 1
person to do that job.

While I am sure you were competent enough to do 3 jobs, you are probably not
as good at all 3 as someone who focuses primarily on one of those roles. But
you forget this is for 4 jobs, and they want 1 person to do all that within
their regular bounds of a job where they expect you to be on call 24/7\. Oh
and they want to pay you below market rates to do all 4 of them. I think that
is what every is angry about.

~~~
wvenable
Lets just remove pay from the equation; because everyone should be paid
appropriately for their work.

There seems to be a disconnect here between the amount of income/profit of a
company and the size of the company. It doesn't sound like there is enough
work for 4 people full time. There might not even be enough work 2 people full
time all the time.

And while you might be right that I'm probably not as good as someone focusing
on a single job that's irrelevant. I was competent enough to get the job done.

------
trimbo
It was a great response until he got to the 80 hours thing.

Why would you take a below market wage to do twice the work? Is there equity
in penny arcade? Some kind of lucrative upside we don't know about?

------
Glyptodon
He doesn't seem to dispute that he basically gets paid less than someone who
does all those things should...

So what I'm missing is whether there's a legitimate reason for him to be paid
below market considering the Penny Arcade seems quite successful.

Though as one of the many people who's accepted supposedly below market pay, I
can somewhat relate.

~~~
robdrimmie
That sort of depends on your definition of "legitimate", but in my opinion,
no.

I am fully aware that I make below market pay. Almost everyone (except for my
developer co-ops, who I need to pay above market to be competitive in the
local market) at the not-for-profit I work for does. It's not something that
it hidden but our revenue comes from government money and membership fees that
is best applied towards fulfilling our mandate so from a community perspective
standpoint there is some degree of necessity.

There are other compensation factors though. There's some amount of profile
enhancement (in a smallish pond), I've learned a ton, I get to work with a
huge number of startups, I get to participate in any of the company-run events
I want (and there's a lot).

To me, those are legitimate reasons for me to accept a salary under market
value. But if we were a for profit the equation changes dramatically.

Salary is not the be all and end all for all (arguably most) people, and if
it's within a certain percentage of market value, then other factors of
compensation do make it worthwhile. Maybe you could get 10% more working in
grey cubes but you wouldn't be working with those people, you wouldn't be part
of a significant force in the geek culture world, and for some those trade
offs are worth it.

What makes it stink for me is that I feel like PA could afford market rates,
and they're not entirely because they know they don't need to be competitive
in that regard, and to me that feels exploitative. They have a huge crowd of
people willing to sacrifice some financial gain to be part of them, and
they're going to take advantage of that.

It's reasonable from a business standpoint, I think it's even ethical, but it
doesn't mean that it's a good thing.

------
joshguthrie
Fuck this.

No, actually, fuck YOU. Everyone out there who is going all white-knight on
"Oh no, this is not a good situation yadda yadda, you're being exploited,
abused,... You're in such abusive relationship that you don't even see it".
The job posting was worded to be terrible just to ensure only the most
motivated and willing would apply.

Does this mean PA are looking for a slave? No, there are better ways to get
yourselves a slave and a lot of startups are doing it without anyone batting
an eyelash. Look around you: unpaid internships, low salaries that don't
compute with the living costs in the area, all these talks of "sure, you start
with a low salary but you'll get equity and stock-options",... This is the
real bullshit happening around us every day.

All of this talk about "he's working in awful conditions" when he's describing
his happiness is making me sick. Who gave any of us the Judgement Stick to
impose our views on other people? The real abuse Kenneth is getting is from
anyone putting words he never said in his mouth. He's doing great stuff for a
great company who SUPPORTS him whole-heartedly. Why is this crowd trying to
disminish his proudness of being part of a family?

We've broken the boundaries of the "9-to-5" job. We're beginning to see the
myth of developers working only from the workplace crumbling in front of our
eyes and I'm only expected to be at work during the day because we got a sales
team whose job IS 9-to-5. Because in the end it's not about our capacity to
seat 40 hours in an office but our capacity and desire to get stuff done. And
some of us are burning with it, don't deny them. Yes we don't count our hours
but what would be our alternatives? Go home while we're HAVING FUN? And I
can't picture a workplace where I would be told "Okay, you did your thing. Go
home and continue it tomorrow morning." I stay late because I like it,
sometimes for the 1Gbps fiber, sometimes because there's still stuff I want to
do. Yes, two people could do my job and we could share the hats. But we could
also hire 50 people to share the hats and just produce even less.

Stop hating and go slap the companies who really deserve it, all the one who
boast their funding, business model, clients, w/ever... and think you're being
"arrogant" when you ask for a decent salary.

~~~
EdwardDiego
> No, actually, fuck YOU.

Why so angry mate?

~~~
joshguthrie
I'm angry because for the last four days, it's been all about "the PA job
posting". It's not even about "hacker" or "news" anymore. It's just about "hey
look at us, we're having our weekly scandal and everyone can write a blog post
to jump on the bandwagon and cash some visits".

I'm angry because this week, our splendid BBS was just a tech version of US
Weekly (or The Sun-Herald if "mate" is any indication of you being Aussie).

~~~
niuzeta
I can see where you're coming from, though I don't quite share your anger. Let
me explain:

When Snowden did his revelation that was pretty much _all_ we talked about. In
fact, pretty much everywhere I go was full of the discussions. BBS, blogs,
forums, you name it. We recounted where Snowden was at the time, whether he
would escape the U.S., whether he would be granted asylum, and so on. The news
was very high profile and (in)directly relating to the people, especially the
developer community(the hackers, following your diction).

That's the nature of the high profile event. When something of interest
happens you want to talk about it, do you grumble about its lack of diversity
of topics? Sure, but the stuff was important and we talked about it.

I'm sure at least half of the so-called hackers, (I would prefer the term
developers, but I digress) also either play a game, or more obviously,
_hired_. A lot of us have been burned by bad employers and know at least a
friend who's been exploited by such bosses.

PA, in this case, hits the two demographics in the center. They are one of the
biggest presence in gaming industry _and_ they showed themselves as an
exploitive, abusive boss still pretending to be 'the good guys protecting the
small'.

To me PA stands in a very bad books because they had a track record of
hypocrisy, misogyny, and more importantly, bullying. This is just another
record to be added, but you see why people would want to talk about it, and
when they have a place to talk about it, sharing the same interests and same
demography, they talk about it.

We are all people, and a BBS doesn't define the topics.

------
jonknee
Apparently it wasn't just a poor attempt at humor--that job is ridiculous.

------
Legion
The initial job post, to me, was very clearly written to scare some people
off, in an attempt to reduce the tidal wave of responses down to a mere flood.

If that flood of respondents doesn't treat their skills (or their life) as
having any value, why should Penny Arcade?

This isn't one of those crap IT jobs someone takes out of desperation for
work. This is a job that a ton of people are going to be feverishly applying
for and calling their "dream job".

If their "dream" is to trade their skills and time for that level of
compensation, who am I to start saying PA is in the wrong by not splitting it
into two jobs?

~~~
SheepSlapper
A lot of people commenting seem to think that salary is the only form of
compensation in a job, as well. I'd gladly trade a few thousand dollars a year
to be _excited_ to go to work, with people I enjoy, instead of working a
corporate gig where I'm miserable and working on boring projects.

------
lostlogin
Marco has some thoughts on this posting.
[http://www.marco.org](http://www.marco.org)

~~~
jacobquick
That isn't his response to the kid's post, it's his response to the original
job posting, and it got a lot of points being posted on its own yesterday.

~~~
lostlogin
That's what I meant, should have been clearer sorry. I searched on this thread
for a link to it. I should have searched the actual site - obviously a Marco
post would be there...

------
johngalt
Congrats Kenneth Kuan. If I ever meet you in person I'd buy you a beer and
tell you it isn't always like this.

Realistically PA needs at least two hires here. One ops guy responsible for
IT/Sysadmin, and one dev. Both can crossover as much as needed. They can share
the on-call duties. Either decide to reel-in the expectations on this position
or hire two people to do it right.

~~~
TWAndrews
Ultimately they'll have to, but not because of any outrage about under
compensation. This is only possible for Mr. Kuan because he built the systems
he maintains. The next person is going to have to maintain systems someone
else built. That will be a lot harder, and my guess is ultimately impossible
for one person.

~~~
Pxtl
... oh God. I hadn't even thought of that.

The PA guys were running a one-man show. This isn't going to just be "A system
made by somebody else". This is going to be "An entire infrastructure made by
one overworked dude who obviously had no time to document anything or make it
neatly organized".

Their entire infrastructure is organized and managed _in this one guy 's
head_. There will be at best a pile of notebooks and sticky-notes documenting
things. Unless he suffers from a severe case of clinical OCD, there is
approximately _zero_ chance that the files, the code, the database, the
servers, the jobs... _anything_ is any condition to be handled by anything but
That One Guy.

This isn't even a two-man job. It's a 10 man job.

------
jedrek
Has it been said that this guy is the reason Penny Arcade wrote the ad they
wrote?

People treat us how we let them treat us, someone taught his bosses that it's
OK to ask one employee to be your entire IT department. That it's OK to have
them on call 24/7 and have him work a minimum of 8 hours a day (but up to
15-16h/day for months at a time), in exchange for friday lunch and the ability
to play video games at work. I'm certain that the people he describes, those
who leave at 5 to be with their families, each had a situation when they were
pressured to stay late day after day and at some point just said, "no, I'm
leaving".

Anyway, Penny Arcade's human resource management obviously sucks. But hey,
they had a guy doing the work of a 3-4 person team and for cheap to boot. Why
shouldn't they expect to find someone else to pump and dump?

------
roel_v
How much money does this company make? Does their corporate structure require
them to file balance sheets? I mean if you're doing something like this to
support the site you love, I can understand (still not agree, but understand).
But if it's just to make some owner/investors rich...

------
mephi5t0
Erm. "..I wanted to teach but I needed money before that to put aside; and to
make money I took a salary cut after Amazon job to work for PA. And then I
work sometimes till midnight for weeks because they can hire more people but
they won't. And you can't go hike and should be on call, always, forever and
ever..." LOL what?

For the company that is supposed to be cool and racks up money from PAX... I
don't have words to express my thoughts. It's a huge whirlwind, thoughts
quickly appear in my head and move in circles and I can't grab any of them to
display here. Just wow!

------
throw7
Any job where one is required to be "plugged" into the internet 24/7 is a red
flag. He goes on and mentions that being able to take a hike in the mountains
is out of the question. If your life is work...

~~~
Pxtl
Reminds me of the infamous Office 365 tone-deaf infographic:

[http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/press/2013/nov13/11-06ge...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/press/2013/nov13/11-06getitdone.aspx#infog)

Doubly ironic given Krahulik's famous love for the Surface Pro, the flagship
device of this new platform.

------
doe88
blah blah blah.

I'm leaving because I'm underpaid.

blah blah blah.

~~~
deletes
I downvoted you. I think completely justifiably. Is your type comment really
appropriate for HN?

Quote from the post: >>First things first - you may wonder, how could this job
possibly be so good if I'm leaving it behind? No, I did not burn out. No, the
conditions are not awful. I am leaving because I have always wanted to
teach.<<

~~~
doe88
This is a free country you can downvote me as much as you want but you cannot
distort facts by quoting half paragraphs. And facts are that that if he was
paid enough he would have stayed longer at Penny Arcade in order to later
fulfill his dream of teaching.

> Doing so comfortably requires that before then, I need to put away a lot of
> money to support myself when I’m getting paid a truly ludicrous wage. It is
> true that I am paid below market value, but not so significantly as folks on
> the internet assume. I live quite comfortably on this salary, and while it’s
> less than I could make elsewhere, it’s not out of the bounds of reasonable
> expectation. But I want to accelerate my plans for teaching. So here we are.
> I love this company, but I have goals that won't be fulfilled by working
> there, so it's time to move on.

TL;DR I'm leaving because I'm underpaid.

~~~
deletes
He is leaving because:

-I want to accelerate my plans for teaching

-I have goals that won't be fulfilled by working there

-I need to put away a lot of money to support myself when I’m getting paid a truly ludicrous wage ||-> indicating he is getting paid well at PA( compared to the teching job ) and was able to amass money for the low paying job when he will be teaching.

Reading is tech.

~~~
hatu
I read it as he's not getting paid well enough to put money away so he's
changing to a better paying job which let's him build up his savings and then
move to teaching. Which would imply that PA isn't paying him very well.

~~~
gwern
Yes, he's not really clear that 'I am quitting so I can get a better-paying
job to save up for becoming a teacher', but if you parse the paragraph
carefully and pay attention to the 'but's, it's what he's saying:

> I am leaving because I have always wanted to teach. Doing so comfortably
> requires that before then, I need to put away a lot of money to support
> myself when I’m getting paid a truly ludicrous wage. It is true that I am
> paid below market value, but not so significantly as folks on the internet
> assume. I live quite comfortably on this salary, and while it’s less than I
> could make elsewhere, it’s not out of the bounds of reasonable expectation.
> But I want to accelerate my plans for teaching. So here we are. I love this
> company, but I have goals that won't be fulfilled by working there, so it's
> time to move on.

'I live comfortably... _but_ I want to accelerate my plans for teaching'; he's
not quitting _to_ teach, he's quitting to 'accelerate my plans' ie. save up a
bunch of money, which implies getting a better-paying job which is not itself
teaching.

------
bundy
_I think there 's a MySQL DB or two somewhere in the back_

This line scared me the most...

------
bowlofpetunias
Wow. Sounds an awful lot like the rationalizations of a cult member. The Kool-
Aid is strong in this one.

------
sbierwagen
Sounds terrible.

