Do Not Sit
squoosh
Comments (162)
Is it weird that I'm having absolutely lewd thoughts about Moray and considering asking Jeph for a Moray pinup? Either way, I am and I might.
Three more tangential thoughts: 1) My kid's summer job was at the university here, converting - did you guess it? - an enormous spreadsheet into a database and series of scripts. It went great, everyone is duly grateful, and they may be able to continue the work part-time and remote over the fall. That part isn't all bad. 2) Re "Don't explode" - my Twitter feed recently blew up with a hazard engineer's discussion about why a good beginner laser project is /not/ a pumped dye laser consisting of coumarin dissolved In pressurized DMSO. (To sum up, highly flammable, pressurized, skin-contact rat poison.) 3) If Claire takes this job, she will find out what kind of person she is - either the kind who loves this sort of job, or the kind who hates it. I know both kinds, and I can see both sides of it, though I lean more on the "love it" side myself. Really it depends whether the management here are assholes or just disorganized.
...Maybe Moray should do an OnlyFans? Just saying.
Can't quite make out the little signs, except for (barely) "Do Not Sit This means you Moray", the one on the wall is something about exploding, and the jar says something about slime?
This is why I don't work for startups lol
Will Roko end up as Executive Director?
May. If you can't be a fighter jet, being an Omnipotent Director has to be a close second.
This company is going to go bust in less than six months. 🚩
it's not a company so much as a lifestyle.
So there's a very conspicuous jar of Moray in the background in the past two shots. ... Is Moray really supposed to be giving this interview? Or is she an escaped lab experiment/assistant and the actual interviewer just left the room or something? heh
Can you read what's written on the jar? I only get "[...]alive[...]Do not[...]"
“…a nightmarish AI techno-cult from which there is no escape” is sounding more likely with each question!
All this talk of Cubetown has me thinking of Cube World. Anyone remember that game? It’s alpha made a huge splash, then the developer ghosted for, like, 7 years and surprise released the full game. It wasn’t much improved. Pity that. In the words of every teacher I’ve ever had: “It had so much potential.”
I'm more thinking FlatLand and suddenly the idea that these are 4D AIs trying to make sense of 3D reality makes things make a whole lot more sense.
Claire has resources that other MLS grads do not...Hanalore and Yea come to mind.
I couldn't imagine considering Yay as a resource to be leveraged. If ambivalent actions help another that's one thing, but asking for assistance? That's opening a large can of chaotic worms.
Claire better ask about the dress code, because right now it looks like "Business Clothing Optional."
Now now, we can't be discriminatory. What if Jelly AIs can't wear clothes? Sticks to their skin and the like?
Cubetown sounds like a talented yet goofball place; judging by Claire's current living location, she's been training for this all along!
i am once again respectfully asking for Moray lewds
You are once again having someone explain to you that this is already pretty lewd. Or are you wanting to see what she looks like after she explodes?
Well,.... I could see her and Marten creating a department to organize and collate information. As long as they are not trying to create/research themselves, this sounds doable. (two assumptions: 1. Not that large an operation. 2, The AI's could use whatever format/framework she comes up with.)
Yes! Claire absolutely needs a team lead for her new department. His name is Marten, btw. She'll be interviewing him on their drive to Cubetown.
As a seasoned IT professional, my internal 8-ball is stuck to RUN
It took me until this strip to realize the little whirring deal in front of Moray is her phone/cam drone. It's been a long week.
Same
Why do I have the sinking suspension that the words "Don't Panic" are written in large friendly letters on the face of the employee hand book?
The handbook comes with a towel.
Honestly, a no-strings job with an impossible task for a chill boss is not the worst.
"Don't Explode" I'd totally want to work there.
i know we all agree on those red flags and claire shouldnt take it. but i personally cant wait to see all the highjinks that'll be coming along the way of cubetown.
That's the difference between what would be best for the characters and what would be best for the comic.
You're being offered the position of head of the information science department at a cutting-edge research facility. Take the job, Claire. Take it and wring them for all they're worth.
Honestly, people keep talking about the red flags here, but dealing with people at my current job who are terrible at data management, I don't think this is all that far-fetched.
It's not far-fetched *at all*. I think the "run away" camp is mostly people who have been put in similar untenable situations.
...why was Clinton so excited about this?
I think Cubetown's reputation is based mostly on the mystery of what they're doing. "cutting edge research of everything" is pretty vague, so people like Clinton fill in the gaps with all their fanciful ideas of what might be going on there, never stopping to consider that it might be pure disorganized chaos.
I feel like I'm in a tiny minority here, but I think she should take the job.
This is like when Hank Green decided to try to answer every question ever. He made a YouTube channel and then stopped after like two months. Excited for Hank to visit Cubetown.
I don't remember seeing that myself, but I still 100% believe it happened lol
"oh no"
I mean. If you want to jump in at the deep end, make yourself invaluable to their operation and start making demands so you can do your job. Sure this place is likely to be full of enthusiastic people who are slowly coming to realise they need an organised ass kicker. So you’re unlikely to be stuck with a sucky boss. Though I would want to talk to the finance department first. If you don’t want any of that and want a more established and ordered place of work. Then run.
I see many variants of "run away", lol. Unless you have a saviour complex or fancy being a one-person system administration department for a vast corporation, that is.
Girl. Run.
This is pretty much exactly how my interview at a university virology research department went. I am not, incidentally, a virologist.
I wasn't on board with the Red Flag Express until today, but now I will happily drive that train to the ends of the earth.
Did you intend to make this post public? non patrons can see it atm.
squoosh, not sploosh
Was just reading manga, so I started reading these frames right-to-left and reached the end before noticing. Then I read it correctly. I'm not sure which version I prefer! Anyone else want to go down this rabbit hole with me?
I quite like the "So, your IT department...." "Yes, when can you start?" transition of going directly from panel 3 to panel 6 when it's read in that order. And, of course, Claire's face will be frozen like panel 5 for at least the next hour, so that one can go anywhere in the order.
“Everything the light touches is yours to catalog, Simba.”
😘🤌
This seems like a disaster, but an interesting disaster!
No, this is not an interesting disaster. This is a "You are going to burnout in six months" sort of disaster
fast track to burnout, regardless of pay.
This. Very much so this.
I wish all job interviews were this easy.
It's interesting to me how people are seeing red flags. I see "Large budget and my own department." She'll have to negotiate, of course.
I suspect a lot of us are seeing that there's a big difference between "set up with a lot of power" and "set up for actual success in your role"
This sounds exactly like every interview for every startup ever
I've worked for a startup. This sounds way worse than my interview, or any of the interviews I gave. Though, I'll admit, that was a late stage startup which ended their first startup stage about a year after I started. I will admit that I talked with a number of people while I worked there who definitely describe having had an interview like this.
"Source control? Do you mean change directories? Cuz we just all make those ourselves"
What's the starting pay? In American dollars.
"Oh, we produce our own currency, lots of it every day."
“Big spreadsheet” 😗👌
Honestly, this is going to make Tilly's job managing Hannerdad look easy. Claire is up to the task intellectually, but the required patience and flexibility may not be there.
Jeff portrays AIs as having a rather discordant mix of expertise and complete lack of common sense. A source of much humor, to be sure, but jarring at times. Poor Claire! On one hand, it's exciting to drop the service job to work in your profession. On the other hand, you just *know* that if. you get hired that easily, your co-workers are likely completely clueless.
Cubetown seems like they have absolutely no idea what they're doing
You just pretty much summed up the late 90's internet boom of companies as a concept. Thus the dot.bomb of 2000.
This seems like it's going to end horribly if she takes it. Entertaining, but it's gonna go poorly for her lol
Ok. In panel 2, behind the speech bubble that starts with, "We had a big spreadsheet..." There is a jar full of Moray colored "goop" with a note on it. I REALLY want to know what that note says...
Spare Moray In Case of Explosion
The Do No Sit is mainly so she doesn't show that little shelf coming off her behind.
this sounds like a big job ... does she know anyone with library experience willing to move to Cubetown with her 😉
And those librarians are gonna need coffee...
One is sitting where it says “do not sit”… how will one comply with the “do not explode” admonition?
I believe Claire won't get to know the answer to that question until she's working on-site. As far as the rest of us go... it does appear that there is one thing that Moray's chassis seems to be well designed to do that it feels like most people here have not properly contemplated.
I've taken worse jobs.
You've never had a job.
I'm calling it. Either Moray isn't really a scientist / really doing the interview (like, she the assistant and the real interviewer walked away after the call wasn't initially answered), or Cubetown is one giant AI playground where a bunch of half-sane AIs are pretending to be scientists, poorly, while not quite grasping the concept.
There are academic departments like that, except not AIs
Given how mysterious this organization seems to be, Claire should really ask Yay if they have any information to share and/or if they'd recommend her taking a position there. I don't know that we've seen Yay interact with Claire yet, but they're close to Claire's mom at this point and thus would likely do a favour for Aurelia's kid.
Yay will probably reply with "they are exactly what they seem. As for my recommendation, I believe the kids say 'shrug-emoji'". All Yay knows about office work was that one RPG session with Elliot, Clinton and Melon
you must not, Claire
This is the point where you start making serious thoughts on how much someone would have to give you that you would sell your sanity to them.
The danger is you jokingly set that number impossibly high... and they hire you anyway. I've had that happen to me, and hoo boy, it turned out I set the price too low.
🚩🚩🚩🚩
Oh no Moray. Oh no no no no no
I wonder how much Yay could find out if they spent a few nanoseconds looking into the company.
Jeph please make this happen
is Cubetown about to host a Soviet military parade because i'm seeing *all the red flags*
r/AccidentalCommunism
Where’s all the posts about the smooshy butt? Y’all just going on about flags, IDGI.
Is it wrong that I just kinda want to give Moray a big squeeeeze
Clearly they NEED her pretty bad, but I feel like her turning it down was a given because it would wreck the storyline otherwise.
Nah, I think she'll be taking it. Just moving the comic in a different direction is all.
lmao, word of advice: Don't take jobs like this unless they are willing to pay well above industry rate. Even that barely takes the edge off the resentment you will inevitably build up.
You need an information science department? You're talking a whole team and infrastructure, which I'm happy to direct. Annual budget will depend on just how much data and metadata you plan for, but if you're researching everything, I think at least eight figures to begin. I also have several friends, I mean colleagues, who would be a great kernel of the new team.
Having a deja vu: I worked for about a year for a professional organization which didn't have a real live library. I worked to get it started up, then left when there was an opening for an Indexer/Editor. Jumped at it, retired 28 years later. Go for it, Claire; there's a lot to be said for getting in on the ground floor of something.
insert BIG RED FLAGS gif here
🎼🎶🎵 ruuuunnnn, screeeeaming for the hiiiiiiills 🎵🎶
No. Please, no.
In academic libraries, there's this tendency to create jobs based around stuff that we're pretty sure need doing, but we haven't really thought through. So we hire a fresh MLS, give them minimal support, and ask them to spin gold out of thin air. I don't know what the job market looks like now, but ten years ago, it was all the rage to hire a librarian to manage your institutional repository. It's a good position to have, but a lot of people got hired without the necessary resources to actually make it successful. A lot of libraries didn't have an institutional repository, didn't really have the infrastructure to set it up properly, didn't have the buy-in from other parts of campus to actually make it successful... but they still hired someone and hoped they figured out what they were doing before they inevitably burned out and went somewhere else.
Jeph’s comment of “academia, am I right?” made me think of my days as a grad student in a research university, which admittedly meteorology research is more like “CSI: Caribbeans” or wrangling FORTRAN code. It’s possible Cubetown is just organized enough to get international government and private benefactor funding but otherwise be relatively chaotic. Professors are as organized as their rooms are, which in my time were not organized at all. I hope Cubetown’s CEO is a much smarter AI or an actual human.
I've read the other comments, and I'm not an idiot and can see the situation, and yet my response is... "Cool! She'll be a department head!"
Why do I think she is going to turn down this position?
Because she's smart?
Pro: good money, you can write your own job description. Con: raw, elemental chaos every day at work.
Writing your job description isn't that much fun when it ends up as all-the-things.jif
Panel 5: ‘Hopes deleted.’
So now we are at the cliffhanger of the weekend, there’s a lot to say no about and also a lot to say yes about. This place is like if a billionaire with ADHD developed a high tech company in such a way that the Legion of Doom would envy. It’s clearly unorganized. The job is extremely vague. And yet it’s highly regarded from what we’ve heard from Clinton & Hannerlore. Also, thus far this seems to be the closest Claire has gotten to a job that matches her librarian degree. Rejecting this would means several more months of job hunting at least. I also see this conversation confirms that Claire will probably be asked to multitask. Given that Claire is wanting anything close to her librarian dream, I think it’s likely she will say yes.
Thought #1: Given that the entire concept of this institute is to research a wide array of things and find unexpected connections, information science is literally the whole _point_ and the fact that they haven't realized this suggests that this place is run by idiots. Thought #2: And Claire should probably take the job. It's going to be toxic and annoying and drive her up the fucking wall, but if the pay is decent (which, given AIs' weird finances, seems likely) and she can deal with that for 2-3 years, she'll be able to get _way_ better jobs elsewhere with that on her resume. When you're young and have the energy to deal with that level of stupid is the time to take them for every penny they're worth and then go elsewhere.
... Because I also suspect Claire would enjoy it, stupidity and all. Because she gets to organize the _shit_ out of it and do real serious librarianing and she obviously loves that.
Dear Turing, I see where this is heading. "Do you have a CIO, CTO, Data Science division, etc, etc, etc,?"
A friend of ours was some sort of (private, not state) financial auditor, and was assigned to "inspect" a bank. She abhorred the state of their records and couldn't tell whether this was about crime, or if these people were just that disorganized. A month later they offered her a job interview. She kept from laughing on the phone at them.
Or maybe they were engaged in disorganised crime.
So. Many. Red. Flags.
I'm beginning to wonder if Moray is... well, actually Sentient Resources. Maybe she's a resource that's sentient - a project for cubetown, and she's "helping" by interviewing someone to fill a hole SHE sees, but that Cubetown doesn't actually have funding for (or even posted a placement ad for). But... maybe I'm also throwing sentient goo at the wall to see if it sticks. :P
This interview has more red flags than a Swiss vexillology conference.
Claire in panel 5: same
When she led with "spreadsheet" that's a big red flag! Excel is not designed for that much data! Claire better be asking for a six figure salary, at least
Also not great that the spreadsheet was apparently stored locally, on their director
sound like it's all digital information ask if you can work yourself to death from home
I’m looking forward to when they start sending stuff home to Claire, because reasons.
... I am kind of sad to admit what fraction of the interviews I've had in my professional life went something like this.
But without the naked goopy AI and the neutrino janitor, I assume
This is really a brilliant rendition of an interview for a job that will eat you alive.
Panel 5 today is the same as panel 5 yesterday. But with more concerned Claireface.
Her concern manifested the lightning bolt pattern in the bricks.
Claire: :| :| :|
I like big butts.
And I can not lie.
Oh look, another SMB that doesn't invest in their IT...#workanxietyflashbacks
"You are now Head of the Information Science Department. Which consists solely of you."
Catalogue all of THIS ::waves arm around encompassing the world::
Sounds like they need someone from the Excel World Championship. It’s a sport now!
I don't think even Matt Parker could make that spreadsheet work!
On second thought, hell no that job environment sounds toxic as sin.
Sounds like they need a DBA more than a MLIS...
Claire is seeing ALL the red flags at this point. On the other hand, it's a job, which may lead to something more...conventional.
Or an indelible black spot on her resume.
And yet, this company is highly regarded.
Yes, I am also very suspicious
🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩
🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
Well, even if it's a great place to work, I'd be really hesitant to accept at a place like that. ALTHOUGH, I kinda like that type of chaotic work environment?
Well, in a few years time... When you are the only means to output all that science... You ARE all that science.
It's official...I now want Moray as a pinup.
She looks like she just got one of Tai's Gold Stars, and she isn't happy about it.
(Also, "Don't Explode"). LOL!
Very practical advice.
I want Moray and Melon to meet. I don't know why, but I just think they'd vibe.
The chaos left in their wake would be glorious to behold!!!
It's going as quickly as possible in the hope she won't ask about salary.
Is... Is that a toilet paper drone? . o O (I mean, probably not but still?)
Camera drone.
FBI Clean Yo Mama?
DO NOT SIT! But then what? I can't read it....
“This means you, Moray”
It’s the most Claire of Clairefaces™!
i cant tell if this interview is going very well or very poorly
I can. 🚩 🚩 🚩 🚩