i can't let this one go by

[rone]

I'm guessing you're "stealth" because you don't have the stones to face the brunt of ridicule over your outrageously low offer of $55k for someone to do *everything* for your office.  You're detailing work that will take, at a minimum, 14 hours a day.  No one person is going to be able to work that much and do a GOOD job at it.

Get a goddamned clue.  Hell, get a six-pack of clues.  Hire enough people for the job and PAY THEM WHAT THEY'RE WORTH.  You need two people: an IT guru and an office manager.  You are NOT going to get anyone worth more than shit for $55k, in either job, let alone both.  Your company is in a crucial stage, and getting an idiot or an incompetent now is going to hamstring your company.  You will regret it, guaranteed.  You should be looking at about $70k for the office manager and $85k for the IT person, MINIMUM.  Don't fucking argue with me!  Just fucking do it.

A dog walker?  You people are fucking insane.  It's not 1998 anymore.  You aren't going to get naïve chumps who will work for stock options.  Get real!

rone

Comments

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

That'd be an ideal job for my cousin (he's 25) if it was outside of Detroit. In San Francisco? ...eh, maybe if it was paying twice what they're offering. But do you really want to be paying your dog-walker $50+/hr? Doesn't seem efficient.

You're numbers are close, but I'd fudge 'em some. I think they could probably get away with a $55K office manager, but they're probably looking at a $100K IT jockey. "can figure out how to setup any type of technology, are a master at a Linux command-line, can setup an Exchange server, know how to configure a VPN firewall while allowing SIP packets to properly navigate NAT" is $75K right there, and when you add in "don’t mind being the guy called for that emergency. Yeah, at 3AM. For real.", I add in at least another $20K.

"We're outrageously smart, meta-cognitive renegade thinkers"? I read that as "Our business model is 'sound crazy long enough to attract VC, then issue press releases just long enough to get bought out'."

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

2wanda was an office manager throughout her dotcom years, and she made more than $55k then, and for the work she did, she was definitely underpaid.

I think $20k for being on call, even 24/7, is way too much. You aren't going to have that many damn emergencies when there's less than 15 people in the company, assuming you're not an idiot setting stuff up with beige shitboxes and Fedora. Then again, they should probably be shooting for a do-all genius instead of an IT guy. But i think we've already established that they don't have the right idea for getting their business off the ground. I give them 10 months before they burn through their money on foosball tables, sushi lunches, and executive seminars.

Meta-cognitive... the fuck does that mean? Shit, now i'm wishing i'd've been less helpful and more abusive. Fucking idiots. They aren't going to be bought; they're going to crash and burn and picked apart for spare parts. It's all they deserve.

For me, it's the "we're science fiction fans" ...

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

People can be s.f. fans without putting it in a job spec. Once they put it in the job spec., you know they're going to expect non-stop jabber about libertarian politics and new age economic theories, low pay because working for them is just so cool, requests for bringing them stuff at 9 p.m. at night while you're at work, without a car, which means that two employees have to leave work to make sure your whims are met. You'll collect everyone who couldn't get a job at Google or, here, Comcast, and the Feds will nail you for not paying unemployment compensation taxes when you finally sell the money-losing company to someone who lays off half your staff before it goes bankrupt for stupidly acquiring money losing companies -- and some actually intelligent Southerners from Charlotte, NC, figure out how to actually manage the company and make money with it by not putting any of the original crew on their board of directors.

Bet they'll find someone who's bipolar or who will steal every machine that's not actively in the network, or someone who is capable of faking experience, or someone who's so obscessive about work that he sleeps in the NOC so he can have his fatal heart attack without going home.

[joepro.livejournal.com]

I just think it's cool that you guys just type craigslist.org, and the sfbay area comes up by default. Did you ever realize how lucky you are? Also, you have probably been using this awesome website for years, I just discovered it and am addicted. It's funny how everything sounds so great on craigslist, even a glorified dog-walking job. Very funny stuff.

[vatine]

$55k? Per year? For a decently qualified IT guy? That's, like 20p in real money! (well, OK, it's about 25kUKP; still not worth getting out of bed for). I pull 75k UKP prior to "overtime" and "on-call allowance" and I get 25 days off (plus bank holidays) each year and I'm borderline underpaid.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, if they just wanted an IT guy for $55k, that would be merely laughable (and i've seen those... hell, there was one where they wanted a Director of IT for $55k). It's that they want someone who does IT and someone to manage their office, which, from the sound of it, is a fucking kindergarten. And they think they're SOOOO smart and edgy and i really ought to find out who these people are so i can drive to their office and throw at them all the dog crap i collected from my back yard.

[kodi]

It's not 1998 anymore.

If they're telling the truth that they're a group of 8 idiots who plan to develop "software and hardware products for the movie, television, and consumer gaming markets," and they have enough "venture backing" to expand to 25 people by the end of the year, I think they might actually be living in 1998. Nothing there makes sense at all.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Hey, kids! Let's put on a company!

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

I think Rone is planning on going out there to paint their fuckin' wagon.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

They'll get applicants hand-over-fist. And they'll hire somebody who has the proper combination of innate competence and poor self-esteem to make them feel that they just have to cast their net wider next time after the poor person flames out after nine months of playing the pissboy to a roomful of entitled, coked-up louches whose highly tuned minds are far too important to be distracted by implementing anything or, hell, getting up off the couch to pee.

[sabinablue.livejournal.com]

As partner to a sysadmin who logged something like 90 hours in 5 days last week, that ad makes me gag. I detest sales and marketing types.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I sure hope that was just an unusual week. Otherwise, he should really look for a new gig. That's just abusive.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Sheeit, schools pay at LEAST $20k more for just the IT side of that stuff.

[tskirvin.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly certain I'd require $100k+ per year to handle that kind of job in central Illinois. The Bay Area? I'd probably consider it for $150-200k, so I could sub-contract bits out.

Idiots.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

See, the funny thing is: The more broadly versatile you are, the lower you get paid.

Anybody who can admin a server, design from scratch in Photoshop, and implement a commerce site in Rails is only worth maybe $45-55k/year here in Michigan. But somebody who's employed purely to perform a specific subset of tasks involving a proprietary plugin in Photoshop will pull down $75k/year, minimum, at one of the ad agencies in the Detroit area. And work fewer hours, too.

A prime rule of the polymath is that you'll only get paid according to your least-worthy skill, because your employer believes that anything your employer doesn't specifically understand is a simplistic, commodity role, in contrast to his own very difficult responsibilities. The job posting Rone linked to? They're only paying for the dog walker. And they're not kidding about having a dog to walk.

[plorkwort.livejournal.com]

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, you can hire an entry-level librarian (fresh out of a master's program) for under 40k. But I guess walking a dog has more complex requirements.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Heh, I put in my comment above before I saw this. It's true. I am in fact an entry-level librarian making under 40k (although the university I work for is known for underpaying people, because our endowment is tiny).

I hate that being a determined generalist counts against me.

[wolffire.livejournal.com]

Rants like these...and the comments...this is why I love reading your LJ. I'm gonna have to get down to Cali for a couple of weeks some time.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[shawn-burns.livejournal.com]

A good carwash manager makes 55k. Not to disparage carwash managers, but come on.

[loosestrife.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I don't suppose you actually know what I did at my last job, and for how long, and for how much.

All I can say is never again.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You never did got into much detail...

[rjray.livejournal.com]

But, but... they're "outrageously smart, meta-cognitive renegade thinkers". What more could you hope for?

[gallifreyan.livejournal.com]

The boss's wife is hot, bio female, and unsatisfied at home?

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

...We are developing software and hardware products for the movie, television, and consumer gaming markets. The company was recently formed, venture backed, and has 8 people now...

Oh, for fuck's sake. So, lemme get this straight... some VC bastard swallowed your ten page Powerpoint presentation and liked the smell of your ass, so now you're going to spend a bunch of his money training yourselves in how startups die, so that the next time he needs to staff up something that actually has a prayer of working out, you'll feel like you owe him for getting you started in the business.

I'm so impressed... with eight people, you're going to build hardware and software, i.e. embedded firmware for your fucking hardware, plus whatever other software you need for managing the firmware load, oh my christicle on a skewer... eight fucking people, with plans for twenty-five even by the end of the year.

You'll be lucky if you get past the stage of building a nice cardboard box that looks like the cool hardware you want to sell.

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

Do I sound like I'm gloating over the fact that my hardware shipped? Why yes, I am.

[gallifreyan.livejournal.com]

You should include the text of the ad, so this will still be funny in 7-10 days when the ad goes away. :)

But they will probably get someone for 55k. Someone who's been pimped out by the lamer contract houses in SF and been found wanting... and realized they can do this without having to justify their puffed up resumes. I have several candidates for them in fact. But the $23.50 referral bonus wouldn't be worth it to me.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I fetched a copy locally, so when the craigslist page goes away, i'll fix the link.

[tinellaq.livejournal.com]

My favorite bit is:

"Be prepared never to feel like the smartest one in the room again."

AKA "Whoever you are, we think we're smarter than you."

Which may actually be true if you responded to the ad....

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you took the job, you should damn well feel like an idiot.