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[TRENCHES] Thursday, June 19, 2014 - Think Nothing Of It
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Think Nothing Of It
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/think-nothing-of-it
Don’t put that there!
AnonymousI had a short run at in-house QA at a fairly large games publisher.
We were working on multiplayer testing, so each desk had several different cables, all different colours, connecting you to all sorts of different internet connection types.
Part of our induction speech:
“Red (ADSL) and blue (Cable) to consoles and gaming PC’s, and yellow (internal network) to work PC’s. If you plug anything into the wrong place, clear your desk and leave.”
One of the guys who was employed alongside me was yellow-blue colourblind.
He didn’t last very long.
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The tale sounds like a case of discrimination. Would it really have been that much work to tag the Yellow and Blue cables with labels for him?
Seems they could have done a better job at labeling, but it could cause major issues.
A good network infrastructure can catch something like this. Plugging a PC in the cable line (why should you even have the need to unhook a workstation in the first place?) shouldn't do anything if the PC has fixed network settings and is locked down (can only login or access the internet if connected to a domain on the internal network / via proxy in an internal network or via a fixed gateway in the network config).
IMO, entry level, non-mantainance staff shouldn't have to mess around with IT equipment in the first place.
Another thing I don't understand is the low tolerance policy which appears quite common in the US (do one thing incorrectly and you are fired). I can understand it if there are large sums of money involved, or if peoples lives are endangered, but come on, getting fired for plugging in an incorrect network cable in a non-critical environment seems a tad overkill. Isn't the hiring and firing process more expensive than simply educating the person?
The Trenches feels quite slow story wise. It has always been that way as it's the nature of the setting.
The characters have changed a bit since the Ty/Monica switch. It's not better or worse, just different.
But I can't help wonder why continue The Trenches if the original creators wanted to hand it off.
Monica + Ty are both crazy talented. I much prefer their individual comics over The Trenches
http://www.thatsinhuman.com/
http://phuzzycomics.monicaray.com/
I miss seeing Monica's more regular comics and with her Nick job, that comic is hardly ever updated. Plus, they both have their own original characters and stories they want to explore I'm sure.
I'm sure they're both grateful for the opportunity, but I can't help but wonder if they would be better off just working solo but with PA support.
Wouldn't it be cooler if PA becomes the equivalent of a record label but for comics (the good kind), that way artists can focus on what they're passionate about and the PA machine can help support all the areas of business, finance, merch + skills the artists lack. Plus they have the option of working in the same building?
That seems like a better idea than Mike + Jerry creating something and then handing it off. IMO it doesn't work.
Sorry if I'm coming off as a jerk. No disrespect to anyone, that's just my view. You're all super awesome talented people
Some of these Trenches tales are BS or at least embellished. This one is a good example; the premise is absurd. No, an employer will not fire you for mixing up cable colors when you are colorblind, no matter how easy you are to replace, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen. It depends on the industry and the business but most employers understand that employees are human, make mistakes, and are costly and difficult to replace. Nobody really follows a "one-mistake-and-you're-fired" philosophy - it's too much work, too expensive, and too exhausting.
I haven't been keeping up on the artist changes because (afaik) PA tries to keep that under wraps, but my impression is yes, the Trenches is slow as hell, it's not a priority to PA but they don't want to admit their failure, and so they're keeping it running but can't keep an artist down. I am imagining they hand this thing off to bright young artists who waste a few months on it and realize it's a dead end with 30 readers and then abandon it for the next artist. Or maybe Mike and Jerry are using it as a charity method to help people break into the industry? It stopped being interesting a while ago, and no I don't know why I'm reading or commenting on it.
No idea if any PA staff read these threads, but hopefully the message will get passed on.
Good that they tried it out though. As I said, there is more potential in the Strip Search model.
Katie's comic is so great and it's proof it works.
When I did hardware testing, the company had several different color coded network cables. Lab LAN, company intranet, company internet and unrestricted. The lab was set up so that any testing computer could diagnose any connected proto-build, the intranet was for your workstation, the internet could be used to grab patches and stuff from vendor sites, and since we tested hardware we had a very throttled unrestricted network we could use to grab games and patches off Steam and the like to test games and unofficial 3rd party patches (if a game had to dial home for DRM, we had to connect the system to the unrestricted port for example). However, if a test system ever connected to the unrestricted port, it couldn't be connected to any other network until the drive was reformatted and the OS reinstalled.
Yeah you'd think so but no. I worked in QA for one of the largest game publishers in the world. They hired and fired en masse. When i got hired it was in a group of some 20 people, and then one day two months later i reflexively (without realizing) pulled out my phone and put it on my desk while searching my pockets for something - which was against company policy. A team lead happened to pass by. I was fired on the spot. As in escorted out of the building 10 minutes later. The cable story sounds perfectly plausible to me. In fact it sounds like the same company's MO.
You'd be surprised what "BS" you can get fired for these days. Even if it's "absurd", if the employee needs the job enough, they'll take the "BS", because they need the job. And an employer who counts on having a large expendable employee pool may or may not care if it's fair and in some cases even legal. I wish I was kidding.
Things I need to learn: To properly knit, speak Klingon, and speak/read Japanese so I can play Final Fantasy games in their original language.
"S.o.o.n." : "'Severe Obligation to Observe' Neurosis". This Neurosis impels the subject to constantly observe an object, waiting for a change they are certain must come "Soon".
Hotel [x] Pax Badgers Fri [x] Sat [ ] Sun [x] Mon [x] Just need 2 Saturdays, and then our sets will be complete! And then...waiting for Pax.....F5F5F5F5F5F5F5....
Remember, this Tale probably comes from America, where the job-creator is king.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-bathroom-breaks-watersavers-union-complaint-20140710,0,2945251.story
At this company, you need your keycard to go to the bathroom, and if you use the bathroom for more than six minutes over the course of a day, you will potentially be fired.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
Yeah, same here. This year, I did a brief stint in support for a tax software company. If you had your phone out on the desk, you were fired on the spot. It was a massive security violation, as we had access to personal information such as ssid's, bank accounts, etc. Their mindset was you could use your phone to record or send personal information.
Someone a few cubes down from me got fired for using their gmail account while on their break, because it was on their work computer. Same sort of security risk.
At-will employment is risky that way. This same agency hired over 100 people from January - March, and "let go" nearly all of them after April, because tax crunch time was over. They also had as part of the contract that if you quit, you're paid minimum wage for the first six weeks of employment to recoup training costs.