[kelnos]

I tend to be a fairly relativistic, each-to-his-own person, so when things like this come up, I generally nod my head in agreement.

I don't think I can do that here, though. You're totally right in that people have different utility functions, but I believe that there are some things that are just objectively bad and unhealthy, and whether or not you think you enjoy them or "like" them, they are still bad for you, and possibly bad for others.

I don't want to live in a world where it's ok for a company to create a position like this guy was in, and have that be the norm. No, it's not like that, but the more we apologize for companies that do that, and the more we say, "oh, it's ok for that person to work in those conditions; if you don't like it then pick another job", the easier we make it for companies to think that those kinds of things are ok for everyone.

And then there's the wage issue. Bottom line: if you are working the jobs of more than one people, you should be paid more than one person. This guy took a pay cut to do more work. That's certainly a reasonable thing to do if compensation comes from other (healthy) angles, which appears not to be the case. The job posting for his replacement explicitly says they're cheap-ass bastards who aren't going to pay what you are worth or what the job duties merit.

That's not just a company I don't want to work for. That is a company with staffing practices that are actively harmful to individuals and the industry as a whole.

edit: @wvenable puts it so so so well a bit below: "I guess I'm old and tired of my peers devaluing their own skills and time."

[nbouscal]

I agree that there is a point at which allowing the market to decide on fair compensation breaks down. Hence minimum wage and policies against discrimination, etc. I just don't see how one could possibly make an argument that this is the case here. The job pays enough to live well on, and while it does involve performing tasks typically associated with different roles, I don't see any indication that it involves doing more than one person's job. His description of the time involved doesn't sound that far off the norm. The main argument seems to be that the position is under-compensated, but I don't see any reason why in this case the market shouldn't be allowed to determine that.

Basically this whole issue seems to be a case where a significant part of the compensation is non-monetary (essentially, working at PA), and people whose utility functions assign that compensation zero value are getting bent out of shape about the fact that there exist people whose utility functions assign that compensation high value. (For the record, I'm in the group who assigns it zero value.)

[kelnos]

I'm not talking about wage-slave conditions here. This isn't something that needs to be protected by a minimum wage or a government entity.

This needs to be protected by applicants valuing their time. I guess I read the current guy's description differently than you did; to me, it seemed his multiple-job job required significantly more time than the norm.

I think I distinguish between forms of non-monetary compensation as being good and bad (or healthy and unhealthy, if you prefer). Again, this is all relative, but I think at least on a base level we can probably find common ground here. Accepting lower pay because a place to work is "cool" falls squarely into the unhealthy pile for me. Perhaps it temporarily raises your happiness level (which is of value!), but it's fleeting, and, well, temporary. Accepting lower pay because you're underqualified and the job will be a bit learning experience for you seems reasonable, as would accepting equity in lieu of pay (e.g. a recently-started company) if you think it might be worth something later to compensate. These sorts of things can have lasting impact on your life and are actually useful.

As I said, I just worry that things like this can inspire other companies to do similar things. Right now it's fairly easy to get a job at a good company if you're a developer with some chops. Demand is high and supply is still not quite meeting that demand. But what happens if that changes? If there's a strong culture of paying people market rates and avoiding my-company-is-cool type compensation in lieu of cash, perhaps people can expect a reasonable wage standard when the market is more competitive. But every company that tries to feed applicants some feel-good bullshit about how it's ok that they pay people less because they're just so cool... well, that jeopardizes that.

Or perhaps I'm just worrying about nothing.

[nbouscal]

> This needs to be protected by applicants valuing their time.

To me, this reads as "This needs to be protected by applicants changing their utility function." Applicants do value their time. Everyone values their time. They just value it differently.

Your claim basically hinges on your belief that some aspects of utility are objective. The essential point of your argument then, as I understand it, is that you want job applicants to correct their utility functions according to that objective evaluation, to help out the rest of us whose utility functions are already 'correct'.

This would actually be pretty cool, but the trouble is that you really are not going to have much luck trying to convince everyone else to agree with your utility estimates, even if they do strike you as objective. I think I would probably agree with many of them, personally, but they cannot be made normative.

At the end of the day I agree that you are probably worrying about nothing. I'm not going to claim that the market does an excellent job of setting salaries. There are a lot of irrational agents at play in that market, and the results are skewed accordingly. That said, I think this particular brand of irrationality is highly unlikely to be a driving force.