[TRENCHES] Thursday, May 9, 2013 - Scarcity

Geth

Scarcity
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/scarcity1

The Final Countdown

Anonymous

I used to work at a small gaming company that went through some pretty rough times and involved the never ending work late grind that seems all too common in the industry.

After a whole intense year of ‘just one more week’ till launch 60-80 hour weeks, we were finally treated to an office Christmas party.

Of the whole team, many people had worked very hard to improve a struggling, dismal company in the face of an extremely poor management team, headed by a really unpopular managing director.

In spite of this, everyone loved working together and we were really proud of the project.

At the Christmas party it was announced by management that they would be rewarding the employer of the year with a great prize.

Everyone gathers around the announcement from the CMO.

He announces that the winner is a great leader, showed amazing insight and added the most value to all departments of the company. He then proceeds to (no shit) play ‘The Final Countdown’ while announcing that the winner is the managing director (they even made a trophy, a t-shirt and a gift basket of prizes).

Needless to say, after that about 20 people in the business handed over their resignations, myself included.

Henroid

There's a jalapeno in that pizza box. I approve.

RMS Oceanic

The story makes management look pretty self-congratulatory.

Lovely

Management in every company is always self-congratulatory, I'm confused about why this was a such a shock to the other employees that it got them to quit 0_o .

RMS Oceanic

Lovely wrote: »

Management in every company is always self-congratulatory, I'm confused about why this was a such a shock to the other employees that it got them to quit 0_o .

When exhausted, stressed out, ill or otherwise under the weather, all it takes is one slight to break the camel's back.

HeavyP

Also, this goes way over the bounds of being self-congratulatory. Management ALWAYS gets the better slice of the deal - management knows this and the peons know this. All their recognition and rewards should take place amongst themselves, and they should never even be in the running for "project-wide" rewards or recognition of this nature. It's like being at a banquet and the head table is eating steak while everyone else gets cold Spam. When you come out and say "we're giving this big bowl of macaroni and cheese to the best employee on this project!" and then give it to Bob at the head table, it's incredibly demoralizing. It doesn't even matter if Bob WAS the best employee - Bob is eating steak and they just brought out the after-dinner cocaine and chocolate tray for the head table. Give the bowl of mac and cheese to someone stuck eating Spam at one of the other tables.

Warlock82

OMG Geth actually posted the right story. HE IS EVOLVING!

Gaslight

Cora is such a jerk I hate her so much rarrrrgh.

Anyone? Anyone? 8->

HeavyP

Well, it DOES seem like as soon as she got an office upstairs she's all "Fuck the testers!" even if she is trying to keep the game development moving. BUT. Pretty much every person in this strip we've had the opportunity to really get to know has turned out to be fairly horrible. So, keeping the status quo, I guess.

Gaslight

HeavyP wrote: »

Pretty much every person in this strip we've had the opportunity to really get to know has turned out to be fairly horrible. So, keeping the status quo, I guess.

Yeah, I agree with you. I'm just clowning about the posts in a lot of the Trenches threads where people seem to take any excuse to act like Isaac is probably worse than Hitler, while the asshole behavior of the rest of the cast goes largely ignored.

wormspeaker

Lovely wrote: »

Management in every company is always self-congratulatory, I'm confused about why this was a such a shock to the other employees that it got them to quit 0_o .

Not all management is like that, and particularly in a good company based on skilled knowledge workers, management actively can't act like that or they will sink the company. Depending on how many people were on that team having 20 of them leave probably gutted the company. Had they done it before the game shipped the company would have probably gone bankrupt.

I've worked at a lot of crappy companies before and management is like that in cases where they can hire unskilled or minimally skilled employees. But eventually I learned a skill that I happen to be really damn good at and now I work for companies that value my work and while management still rakes in nice bonuses they make damn sure that I'm happy and that congratulations is spread around when deserved. I got a nice plaque a goodie bag and a huge round of applause from a mixed group of management and peers just because I did my job well. I didn't even need to put in more than a few hours of overtime over the course of a couple of weeks. I had to travel and do things outside of my normal job description, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. It was like getting an attaboy because I finished eating my delicious ice cream. Sure the management in the room was getting well paid because I did my job on time, under budget, and without error, but they also valued me as an important part of the company's success.

So, there are good companies out there that understand that the success of the company and thus the reliability of management's paycheck is based on the success of their employees. Good management can be hard to come by, but it does exist.

Sgt.Big_Bubbaloola

Welp, senior management is as senior management does - a mutual masturbation club so adroit that i'm surprised their appendages haven't been torn off by each other!

As you may have guessed, I have been wronged by such people in the past.

Corronchilejano

I love that everyone's a dick in this comic. Cora does not dissapoint, ever.

The_Spaniard

I once worked for a company where at the Christmas party there was supposed to be a raffle where an employee would win a new iPad. The raffle was never held and we just assumed the company changed it's mind about the raffle. Turns out that the office manager, a figurehead put in place by the parent company that knew nothing about videogames, a person that was so fabulously wealthy that she wore hundreds of thousands of dollars in diamonds to work... when she decided to come in that is, decided to just keep the iPad for herself.

Well good for her, I'll bet she really needed it.

Neuroskeptic

I wonder if the Trenches would work better with no permanent progression. The testers should just go round and round, in the same place, same people, only the projects change and that only slightly. If the characters develop, it should be only in that they come to realize that they'll never progress.

I guess what I mean is, I was happy without a bat-furry and I don't consider him a good addition.

Gaslight

Neuroskeptic wrote: »

I wonder if the Trenches would work better with no permanent progression. The testers should just go round and round, in the same place, same people, only the projects change and that only slightly. If the characters develop, it should be only in that they come to realize that they'll never progress.

I guess what I mean is, I was happy without a bat-furry and I don't consider him a good addition.

The best comparison for The Trenches I can make is Dilbert, except that The Trenches does have an ongoing plot and Dilbert obviously does not. I don't really see that as being connected to the introduction of bat-guy (whatever his name is) and your distaste for him though. Even Dilbert has crazy throwaway characters who appear for a week or so and then are forgotten, or don't reappear for years.