Anenome
06-25-2010, 12:05 AM
http://evilavatar.com/images/thumbs/sleepyy.jpg
The spouse of a newly hired EA employee describes (http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html) what it's like doing hard time as a programmer at Electronic Arts, and how EA's employee policies have made their lives hell (http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/1163/sleepyoffice.gif). EA might have backed off their anti-consumer policies, but they're still treating their employees like sh!t.
My significant other works for Electronic Arts, and I'm what you might call a disgruntled spouse.
Our adventures with Electronic Arts began less than a year ago. Electronic Arts offered a job, the salary was right and the benefits were good, so my SO took it. I remember that they asked him in one of the interviews: "how do you feel about working long hours?" When asked for specifics about what "working long hours" meant, the interviewers coughed and glossed on to the next question; now we know why.
...The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm). This averages out to an eighty-five hour work week (http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/080425/office-space-15_l.jpg).
EA's attitude toward this has been, "If they don't like it, they can work someplace else."
And the kicker: for the honor of this treatment EA salaried employees receive a) no overtime; b) no compensation time! ('comp' time is the equalization of time off for overtime -- any hours spent during a crunch accrue into days off after the product has shipped); c) no additional sick or vacation leave. The time just goes away.
Additionally, EA recently announced that, although in the past they have offered essentially a type of comp time in the form of a few weeks off at the end of a project, they no longer wish to do this, and employees shouldn't expect it.
To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people on whose backs you walk for your millions?
(full article (http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html))
Remind me not to buy any EA stock; conditions like this do not a lasting company make.
The spouse of a newly hired EA employee describes (http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html) what it's like doing hard time as a programmer at Electronic Arts, and how EA's employee policies have made their lives hell (http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/1163/sleepyoffice.gif). EA might have backed off their anti-consumer policies, but they're still treating their employees like sh!t.
My significant other works for Electronic Arts, and I'm what you might call a disgruntled spouse.
Our adventures with Electronic Arts began less than a year ago. Electronic Arts offered a job, the salary was right and the benefits were good, so my SO took it. I remember that they asked him in one of the interviews: "how do you feel about working long hours?" When asked for specifics about what "working long hours" meant, the interviewers coughed and glossed on to the next question; now we know why.
...The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm). This averages out to an eighty-five hour work week (http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/080425/office-space-15_l.jpg).
EA's attitude toward this has been, "If they don't like it, they can work someplace else."
And the kicker: for the honor of this treatment EA salaried employees receive a) no overtime; b) no compensation time! ('comp' time is the equalization of time off for overtime -- any hours spent during a crunch accrue into days off after the product has shipped); c) no additional sick or vacation leave. The time just goes away.
Additionally, EA recently announced that, although in the past they have offered essentially a type of comp time in the form of a few weeks off at the end of a project, they no longer wish to do this, and employees shouldn't expect it.
To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people on whose backs you walk for your millions?
(full article (http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html))
Remind me not to buy any EA stock; conditions like this do not a lasting company make.