Why You Are Overreacting to the Penny Arcade Job Posting

I’ve had a job like the one in the Penny Arcade posting and wish to talk about it, but first I need to discuss something else. Feel free to skip to paragraph 6 for the meaty bits.

The Internet has gone ballistic yet again over the shenanigans at Penny Arcade, this time concerning a certain post that Robert Khoo put up over at LinkedIn and a response post by a friend of Penny Arcade by the name of ChristopherBuecheler.

It kind of makes it hard to take him seriously when he calls Mike a “raging trans-phobic asshole,” but then goes on to say he doesn’t hate them. I don’t know too many people who call people they like such very harsh things, but I’m not the author, so maybe I shouldn’t comment.

It is worth reminding people that it is over these tweets that he makes the claim. I don’t read those tweets and think I’m reading the words of someone who actively hates and/or fears transgendered people, I read them and think I’m reading the words of someone who doesn’t know or understand the issues at hand and doesn’t realize what he is saying is hurtful. I have friends that can be pretty ignorant when it comes to issues like gay rights, racial discrimination, and transgender issues, but when they say things like this, you know what I do? I give them the benefit of the doubt and try to explain to them why they’re wrong, maybe turn their attention to why what they say and think is wrong and get them to be a bit less judgmental and reactionary. That’s what his friend Sophie did. Mike admits he reacts like an asshole when people accuse him of things he doesn’t feel himself guilty of and, honestly, who doesn’t? If you off-handedly mention that you don’t have any black friends and someone says that makes you racist, would you honestly scratch your chin and think ‘does that make me racist?’ or would you give them the finger so hard that the wind billowing off the extended digits cuts them across the face?

By way of apology, Mike donated $20,000 to the Trevor Project. Whether or not you believe this is a PR stunt or whatever negative ideas you retain about it, it at least shows that he admits he is wrong in his own way and is trying to handle it. At this point, I think most people should be willing to forgive him and give him a second chance. You’d think people would all for this ‘forgiveness’ thing. Not forgive and forget, mind you – always remember – but at least another chance.

But I’ve spent entirely too long on that subject. I really wanted to talk about this job posting and this huge negative reaction to it and why I disagree with it.

I had a job very much like the one described in the LinkedIn page linked at the beginning of this post and all over the #PennyArcadeJobPostings hashtag. I worked for a small company – only 30 people – and was in charge of a wide array of technology, although a lot of it wasn’t actually in my job description. I ran the Active Directory, the Exchange server, the Sharepoint server, had to make Sharepoint sites and clean up the navigation, did some work on the website, had to create snippets of code to handle automated tasks, and yes, even handled ‘tedious’ and repetitive tasks like filling out spreadsheets. On top of all this, I still had to perform general IT, run wiring, build cubicles, and answer calls and perform general IT with a remote location, AND occasionally show up at three in the morning for server updates and maintenance, AND AND AND still had time to maintain a blog, Tumblr, and Twitter while at work. Even with all this, I was paid under $40k a year.

And I fucking loved that job. The only reason I quit was because we were bought out and everything that was great about my job was ruined. All of my coworkers were moved to different locations, I was stripped of many duties and responsibilities and became little more than a general IT guy for a building with less than 20 people in it.

Do you know how much work an IT guy gets in a building full of 20 computer-and-tech-savvy people? Fuck all, that’s how much. I quit because there was no work to do. Everyone was thirty years older than me and had been working with computers since they were my age, so the amount of general IT work I did was next to nothing. With the coding, servers, and development out of my hands, I had nothing to do until I got so fed up with it that I handed in my two-week’s notice.

Now imagine the same being done at Penny Arcade. Chris – can I call you Chris? – says that the person hired by the company would be doing four jobs and that the person should be paid for the work of four people OR that four people should be hired. This is bullshit. I can tell you right now that hiring an IT guy for 15 people is a waste of his time and your money, especially when you are talking about 15 young and tech-savvy people, the kind who build their own gaming rigs. As for the web developer side, need I ask you when the last time they updated their site was? I believe it was after the Kickstarter when they removed all the ads. Before that, I believe it was the aesthetic update developed by Erika Sadsad after the original “PA Hires” episode during season 1 of the series. I’m not sitting on top of a site update schedule, but that is not a shit-ton of development work, even adding in the PAR site on top of that and the occasional CP update.

A person with just the general IT and web development job? I’ll tell you right now, that fucker is spending 90% of their day on Tumblr because they will have nothing else to do. It is precisely because of all of the projects that Chris names – the games, the magazine, the charity, the expo – that they need an IT guy to handle it all despite not having enough people for him to work with on a day-to-day basis. Without the four jobs combined, it’s just not practical by any stretch to hire someone for these positions alone.

Now, I’ll agree that them being “not a terribly money-motivated group” is rather silly, but I will also say that money isn’t everything. I got a raise when my company was bought out and I still left because the environment was absolute shit. I would rather have worked for barely enough to get by in a great workplace than get more money and have every day be a waking hell, and I proved that to myself with that job.

Said one Twitter user: “Your skills qualify you for four distinct $100K+ jobs. Stick it to the man by doing all four at once for $70K! #PennyArcadeJobPostings”, totally failing to take into account that it actually isn’t four FULL jobs, but just bits and pieces here and there, and yes, I can say from experience that that makes a HUGE difference. I should also point out that for me, $70,000 is still 3.7 fuck-tons of money. Metric, of course. So I can get a reasonable (if not absolutely top-tier) chunk of change for working in a place where I am practically guaranteed to enjoy the environment, and you’re going to complain about getting ‘only’ a 2% 401k match, when my job had a fucking 0% match? Well eck-fucking-SCUSE me, Mr. penthouse suite. Full health benefits are enough to make me happy, but adding in goddamn ping-pong and company trips and motherfucking camaraderie? I’ll sign up with my own goddamn blood for the privilege, thank you very much.

Is it the best job? No. Is it the best offer? Definitely not. Do I think it deserves to be eviscerated in the way that it has? Not by a long shot. If I had the experience necessary, would I apply? You bet your ass. I aim for ‘contentedness’ in my daily life, not ‘rock star orgy.’