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I don't honestly know why I am writing this. I have left this place, and I have been content about leaving. Still... I just read the stuff JP went public with, and I guess I feel compelled to comment.
It is easy to imagine, as a focused consumer of products from a specific company, that you have a notion about the people working there. You feel that the stuff they produce is great, and they should be good people accordingly. But as things work, companies are companies, and bad things are everywhere. As such, the things JP wrote do not surprise me. There are enough s*#+ty stories about every other RPG company out there to match. Profit margins are hair-thin, people are underpaid... it's what you should expect.
Of course, it might be the case that JP is doing this to enact some form of personal revenge. I have no idea. It seems, though, from the responses that has been made, that she is on point.
However: What stays with me in all this is simply that a union would be a good thing. Coming from Sweden, where unions are everywhere, and have leverage to bring to bear if necessary, it surprises me that the US is so negative to them. A Paizo union would be a great thing for the workplace, and I wish those organizing one success, and all the best. Whether or not the dirt brought up is all true or not, a union will improve the situation of those who work there, which will in turn bring us better RPG books.
Plus, it would make Doodlebug Anklebiter happy.
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I'm European myself, but I was working there a few times in gamedev (video games industry). It occurred to me that the USA is a land of contrasts - you are either diehard communist or as conservative as it gets. There's almost nothing in between or at least that's what politicians and mass media there want people to believe and the people themselves are very vocal about pretty much everything (often regardless of their background and actual knowledge). I can see why unions are not a thing there.
Whichever way they want to go about this problem, I hope that the working conditions will improve there. It will benefit not only the employees, but all of us as well. After all, products are made better by satisfied workers and I hope that Paizo management understands this.
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Remember that Paizo is located in Washington state. I doubt that more than a very small number of conservatives are involved -- and even they would not be dogmatically anti-union in this situation. It is mainly unions of government workers that conservatives have issues with.
For a company like Paizo, public image is critically important, and it is hard to see how opposing a union could do anything good for that image.
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I'm European myself, but I was working there a few times in gamedev (video games industry). It occurred to me that the USA is a land of contrasts - you are either diehard communist or as conservative as it gets. There's almost nothing in between or at least that's what politicians and mass media there want people to believe and the people themselves are very vocal about pretty much everything (often regardless of their background and actual knowledge). I can see why unions are not a thing there.
Whichever way they want to go about this problem, I hope that the working conditions will improve there. It will benefit not only the employees, but all of us as well. After all, products are made better by satisfied workers and I hope that Paizo management understands this.
At the sake of dipping a momentary toe into the politics here -- I'd be one of those 'filthy moderates' that gets it from the conservatives for 'doing too much' and the liberals for 'not doing enough'.
It often feels like the most vociferous conservatives are spoiled indulgent entitled folks who don't care anything about anyone else save their increasingly rabid exclusionary rural country club agenda. More often than not, they've NEVER had the experience of being 'poor'/'working class'/'homeless'/'insert any of a hundred disenfranchised options'
It sometimes feels like the most outspoken liberals have lost touch with a more moderate perspective and the idea of being open-minded and learning the wrong things is bad. And then when you mention that you're self-taught and haven't had a college education because you couldn't afford it, they look at you like you're from another planet.
And meanwhile, there's accusations of being a 'traitor' from both those extremes when the desire is to want everyone to get along and 'not be a jerk' (and not do the conservative gamist version of "Well, they're infringing on me by making me not be a jerk")
As an essential retail worker for nearly three decades, the customer entitlement has been steadily growing worse, this assumption that we must hate/love the current/former President, that we don't care about our health, and we're there at the sufferance of the Company.
I'm tired of it. I want the back-and-forth to stop and people to stop being a-holes to one another. But damned if we're gonna get it from hypocrites from either side who can't seem to understand we're all in this together.
I'm really hoping that Paizo's executive team looks at this incredible, unprecedented development and grabs the opportunity to shake hands with labor over this, and then bring forward their addressing of the transphobia concerns as well as data security.
I'm hoping it happens in a timely fashion, too. I have money set aside for the buying of product but it will get diverted elsewhere if RL rears it's inevitably ugly head.
** spoiler omitted **...I'm European myself, but I was working there a few times in gamedev (video games industry). It occurred to me that the USA is a land of contrasts - you are either diehard communist or as conservative as it gets. There's almost nothing in between or at least that's what politicians and mass media there want people to believe and the people themselves are very vocal about pretty much everything (often regardless of their background and actual knowledge). I can see why unions are not a thing there.
Whichever way they want to go about this problem, I hope that the working conditions will improve there. It will benefit not only the employees, but all of us as well. After all, products are made better by satisfied workers and I hope that Paizo management understands this.
Data security ? I’m really out of the loop it seems
Interesting insight on the extremes that you don’t often here very much for fear of being accused of “both sidesing” an argument - which I am aware is obviously inappropriate in many cases (I think there was a recent story about how certain history was being taught in Texas )
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I think the data security was an oblique reference to Jeff Alvarez doxxing a couple posters a while back. Data security, but not in the way we usually think about it.** spoiler omitted **...I'm European myself, but I was working there a few times in gamedev (video games industry). It occurred to me that the USA is a land of contrasts - you are either diehard communist or as conservative as it gets. There's almost nothing in between or at least that's what politicians and mass media there want people to believe and the people themselves are very vocal about pretty much everything (often regardless of their background and actual knowledge). I can see why unions are not a thing there.
Whichever way they want to go about this problem, I hope that the working conditions will improve there. It will benefit not only the employees, but all of us as well. After all, products are made better by satisfied workers and I hope that Paizo management understands this.
Data security ? I’m really out of the loop it seems
Interesting insight on the extremes that you don’t often here very much for fear of being accused of “both sidesing” an argument - which I am aware is obviously inappropriate in many cases (I think there was a recent story about how certain history was being taught in Texas )
Maybe not the public conception of data security but the most effective way to hack a system is by targeting the human elements of said system.
Isn’t this only a data security point if that was part of the terms and conditions on sign up ? Is that what you mean by “not in the way we usually think about it”?
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Dread Lady Sissyl. So good to see you!