Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"

[KillianHawkeye]

Moray is also the Receptionist. And a 'Bucketkeeper', whatever the heck that is (currently tossing up between 'there are few enough physical beings on site that they pitch in with the janitorial duties' and 'it's a position on a team for some sport they invented using cleaning supplies.')

Perhaps she has to sleep in a bucket like Odo from Star Trek DS9 whenever she's offline to recharge or whatever?

[Manga Shoggoth]

I'm just amused by the "you have a particle physicist doing janitorial work?" quote from a someone who interned in a library where one of the chief librarians cleaned out the toilets.

[Mordokai]

I'm just amused by the "you have a particle physicist doing janitorial work?" quote from a someone who interned in a library where one of the chief librarians cleaned out the toilets.

I am unclear on the joke. I'll put it down as English being my second language, but I may just be stupid. With that in mind... what is the joke here?

From my understanding, in the fourth panel, Moray says the person *thought* they were hired for doing particle physics, which Claire finds weird in the fifth panel and inquires about. To which Moray replies, they *are* janitor, just, you know... passionate about neutrinos.

Coupled with a somewhat angry look from the guy in the background, it leads me to believe this is a joke along the lines, "these wacky AIs don't understand basic humans". But, and again, this may be just me, the language used to express this is somewhat... janky?

So am I reading this entirely wrong? And if so, what is the correct interpretation of this wannabe joke?

[Wraith]

Currently thinking Moray is a multiply-bodied intelligence, similar to Yay (or more likely Station) where the main AI is powerful enough to afford to split attention over multiple instances of itself, or Moray just reaaaaaaalllly likes talking to people and has been given all the interacting-with-people-outside-of-Cubetown tasks to deal with while other people get on with whatever Cubetown's actual business is.

I may be misremembering, but isn't that supposed to be illegal in-universe? Or at least, incredibly and unfathomably difficult to achieve unless you're also post-space-station levels of power and ability?

I can't see Jeph giving that attribute to another new, potentially throw-away member of the cast because it would devalue how special it would be to have Yay do it... But on the other hand, I can absolutely see Jeph giving it to another new, potentially throw-away member of the cast because omg so random lol

What do you mean we don't know what Cubetown does? They do 'Holistic Research'! It's on the website and everything! Don't ask questions, just give them money >.>

.. pretty sure Claire was about to ask just what 'holistic research' means. Bet it means 'We contact random smart people and fund them to work on whatever they want until either the funding/grants run out, or a saleable product gets made as a side effect.' Which, tbh, is not even that weird, there are a nonzero number of real world companies that don't make money, have no foreseeable plan to make money, and operate almost entirely off of convincing funding providers that what they're working on will at some point make All The Money (the comic already touched on this for a joke once during the 'Get May a new body' sequence, with the visionary robotics company that isn't predicted to have actual positive cash flow for another five years.)

So in other words; when some smart-ass on Reddit asks 'how does any of this get paid for?' there's a built in answer of "They just do because having quirky millionaires anonymously donating money solves everything".

Thank you, benevolent quirky white millionaires solving our problems for us on a whim; whatever would we do without you!

So am I reading this entirely wrong? And if so, what is the correct interpretation of this wannabe joke?

I *think* that the joke is supposed to be that Cubetown is really, REALLY bad at writing job descriptions and explaining themselves in interviews. They're so bad that they somehow managed to convey "you will clean toilets and empty garbage cans" as "you will be at the forefront of quantum technological development".

I don't know how it would be possible to write a job description that could be easily interpreted as both roles, but apparently Cubetown found a way. Just as randomly, the guy who applied to be a physicist was either desperate or deluded enough to accept a job mopping floors instead, even after finding out that the job wasn't what he thought it was.

It's not a very good joke. It's the same "AIs are hilariously bad at their jobs" joke that we've seen before, told in a confusing way, and with the additional punchline of what I think is supposed to be something along the lines of "white collar workers are weird, random, and/or stupid", which just isn't very nice.

[BRC]

I get the impression that the joke here is supposed to be that they called up a Janitor and said "Hi! I'm from Cubetown, we would like to hire you!"

And he assumed they were headhunting him as a particle physicist instead of a Janitor because he didn't bother to actually listen to what they were saying/read the employment contract. He just assumed that they'd, I dunno, read his forum rants and decided to give him a job as a particle physicist.


As for the more general joke, it seems to be that there's a high level of awareness of Cubetown as some sort of cutting-edge research facility, but little actual knowledge of what it IS, to the point where Claire is unusual for having actually looked at the website, instead of just jumping at the opportunity to work there.

It's like (And I know this isn't how employment works anywhere), imagine somebody who loves Pokemon is told "Hello, this is Game Freak, I'd like to hire you for-" "YES" and shows up for work thinking that they've been asked to design the next Pokemon game, only to be told they're working in the cafeteria.

My guess, based purely off the words "Holistic Research" is that Cubetown is only a research facility secondarily, it's primarily an experiment in itself, put a bunch of scientists of different disciplines in a town together, make them all work together, see if any interdisciplinary magic falls out.

[Morquard]

I'm a bit surprised nobody seems to have mentioned this particular red flag.
Not a minute into the interview the HEAD OF SR is dissing and making fun of another employee. That's such a big no-no on so many levels, that I don't even know where to start.
If that happened to me, I'd nope out there so fast, because I know the environment there is gonna be toxic as hell.

[Wraith]

To say nothing of the fact that the Head of SR is conducting a confidential interview with a non-HR, non-relevant member of staff standing around eavesdropping while she might be asked to show her photo ID or disclose some personal medical issue that might be relevant to the role.

Jeph did go to the trouble of actually hand-drawing the lights in the server stack to the right, though. Lesser artists would just have copy-pasted the pattern, so a point for effort if nothing else.

[halfeye]

I think the joke may be that they hired an actual physicist snd made him a janitor over his protests. Which would only be funny to sadists.

[Vinyadan]

"So, you do particle physics?" "Yes, I--" "Very well, these dust particles need to be physically removed by four."

[Keltest]

I think the joke may be that they hired an actual physicist snd made him a janitor over his protests. Which would only be funny to sadists.

That would make the followup where he is clarified to actually be a janitor with a coincidentally overlapping hobby rather unusual though.

[Delicious Taffy]

I can see it being actually pretty normal for the janitor to have applied for a "normal" cleaning position and during the interview maybe he brought up his neutrino thing and the goo girl said "Sweet, this is relevant enough to what we do to be a bonus trait".

[Keltest]

I find myself agreeing with Claire's skeptical face. Hopefully she has the nerve to ask who signs the paychecks, because as a librarian thats probably a more relevant detail to her decision making process than the abstract research goals. If the money runs dry within 3 months or even 2 years, she's kind of up poop creek without a paddle.

[Mechalich]

I find myself agreeing with Claire's skeptical face. Hopefully she has the nerve to ask who signs the paychecks, because as a librarian thats probably a more relevant detail to her decision making process than the abstract research goals. If the money runs dry within 3 months or even 2 years, she's kind of up poop creek without a paddle.

Immigration law should protect her, at least a little, in this case. In Canada, in order to get a work permit for a non-citizen non-resident hire, the company has to submit what's called a Labour Market Impact Assessment, with the Canadian government and have it approved. This imposes a floor on how ridiculous of an enterprise one can run and still hire foreign workers.

That said, Claire has some of flexibility to take on a fairly short-term position. She has no ties to her current job, isn't on a lease, and can store anything she doesn't immediately need at her mom's house. The biggest issue I see would be health care. Claire has ongoing health care needs and transitioning onto Canadian health care is a bit tricky prior to establishing residency in the relevant province. Hard to say much about it though since we don't know what her current health insurance situation even is (this is complicated by not knowing her actual age).

[geoduck]

Immigration law should protect her, at least a little, in this case. In Canada, in order to get a work permit for a non-citizen non-resident hire, the company has to submit what's called a Labour Market Impact Assessment, with the Canadian government and have it approved. This imposes a floor on how ridiculous of an enterprise one can run and still hire foreign workers.

That said, Claire has some of flexibility to take on a fairly short-term position. She has no ties to her current job, isn't on a lease, and can store anything she doesn't immediately need at her mom's house. The biggest issue I see would be health care. Claire has ongoing health care needs and transitioning onto Canadian health care is a bit tricky prior to establishing residency in the relevant province. Hard to say much about it though since we don't know what her current health insurance situation even is (this is complicated by not knowing her actual age).

I have to wonder if you've just given this issue more thought than Jeph has.

[Delicious Taffy]

"What does holistic research entail?"
"Wacky shenanigans with a cartoon laboratory backdrop and frequent use of science words as an excuse for them to happen."

That's what I'm getting, at least. I might have said before, but hey, it's his comic.

[Mechalich]

I have to wonder if you've just given this issue more thought than Jeph has.

Maybe, but the 'amount of thought' I've put into this mostly involves typing 'work permit Canada' into google and tooling around with their FAQs for maybe 10 minutes. If Jeph can't clear that bar...

[Eldan]

As for the more general joke, it seems to be that there's a high level of awareness of Cubetown as some sort of cutting-edge research facility, but little actual knowledge of what it IS, to the point where Claire is unusual for having actually looked at the website, instead of just jumping at the opportunity to work there.

It's like (And I know this isn't how employment works anywhere), imagine somebody who loves Pokemon is told "Hello, this is Game Freak, I'd like to hire you for-" "YES" and shows up for work thinking that they've been asked to design the next Pokemon game, only to be told they're working in the cafeteria.

My guess, based purely off the words "Holistic Research" is that Cubetown is only a research facility secondarily, it's primarily an experiment in itself, put a bunch of scientists of different disciplines in a town together, make them all work together, see if any interdisciplinary magic falls out.

That's not even that out there. I've talked to a cafeteria employee at our university and she said she'd rather work here than almost anywhere else, because as an employee, she still has free university access and can sit in on seminars.

[Gez]

That would make the followup where he is clarified to actually be a janitor with a coincidentally overlapping hobby rather unusual though.

It's only clarified that "janitor" is the title of his job here at Cubetown. The joke is still that he's a particle physicist, who thought he was hired to do science, and instead he gets menial labor. Claire is probably hired to go scrub the barnacles off Cubetown's underside.

[Willie the Duck]

I find myself agreeing with Claire's skeptical face. Hopefully she has the nerve to ask who signs the paychecks, because as a librarian thats probably a more relevant detail to her decision making process than the abstract research goals. If the money runs dry within 3 months or even 2 years, she's kind of up poop creek without a paddle.

"What does holistic research entail?"
"Wacky shenanigans with a cartoon laboratory backdrop and frequent use of science words as an excuse for them to happen."
That's what I'm getting, at least. I might have said before, but hey, it's his comic.

Time will tell, but it does seem like Jeph is deliberately making this job sketchy and concerning (in a 'do I really want to take a job in this looney bin?' way). That puts my mind at ease a bit that he isn't turning the strip into Girl Genius/Narbonic -- the absurd mad scientist schtick stuff is supposed to be weird even in the comic universe.

Maybe, but the 'amount of thought' I've put into this mostly involves typing 'work permit Canada' into google and tooling around with their FAQs for maybe 10 minutes. If Jeph can't clear that bar...

But why would he be attempting to clear it (much less communicated it to us)? This is a scenario he hasn't put in his comic. Keltest just speculated it as an option.

[Wraith]

Time will tell, but it does seem like Jeph is deliberately making this job sketchy and concerning (in a 'do I really want to take a job in this looney bin?' way). That puts my mind at ease a bit that he isn't turning the strip into Girl Genius/Narbonic -- the absurd mad scientist schtick stuff is supposed to be weird even in the comic universe.

Sketchy is fine. "This place is full of wacky AIs and your job as librarian is going to also encompass the role of glorified baby-sitter" is perfectly fine as a plot, and well within what we'd expect from Questionable Content.
Heck, Claire lives with Pintsize and interned at SMIF where the senior lecturers bang on the photocopier and they have a special net for encroaching Hampshire students - that's work-relevant experience! It justifies her successful interview!

The problem is, even to a casual glance it's coming off more like "This place is BAD sketchy, probably an off-shore tax avoidance scam and the AI are going to experiment on you like a rhesus monkey in a laboratory".

It could work - These AI could be quirky but endearing, and describe an eclectic, but legitimate, job that Claire wants to take. But they're not. They're annoying and appear dangerously unprepared to arrange a birthday party, let alone build a new society on an artificial island. It's not even one of those things where it's a fine line between the two - I feel like the entire fandom (genuine fans and snarkers alike) are reading it and going: "..the hell? No-one would fall for this. They will steal only your kidneys if you're lucky"

[Ionathus]

"...They will steal only your kidneys if you're lucky"

What a fantastic line. Thank you for this

[Traab]

On the other hand, they may be hiring her as a librarian, but in reality she may be a record keeper. Basically, a hard copy of everything they do and their results kept organized just in case they need them for something. I could see that being setup similar to a library. "Here is particle physics, here is botany, here is where they crossover" As for the job crashing in 3 years, thats still three years of work experience she can parley into her resume. That should help her out more than being a newbie graduate whose experience is working as an intern at the local college library.

[Ionathus]

As for the job crashing in 3 years, thats still three years of work experience she can parley into her resume. That should help her out more than being a newbie graduate whose experience is working as an intern at the local college library.

Definitely. "2 years" is not the death sentence Keltest implied - having worked as a recruiter, I can tell you that 2 years looks good compared to a lot of the patchwork resumes I've seen. And Claire's just beginning her professional career too, which gives you a lot of leeway: if Cubetown goes belly-up in 5 months, her resume/CV will still show that she got a relevant job within 6ish months of graduating, then lost it through no fault of her own. If they ask her about it, she can talk about all the lessons she learned (maybe including "don't take a vague job with nudist goo people who do science in the ocean").

Sure, maybe it wouldn't be an ideal resume. She'd want to be prepared for questions about her employment timeline. But she certainly wouldn't be up any creek without a paddle.

[Radar]

Definitely. "2 years" is not the death sentence Keltest implied - having worked as a recruiter, I can tell you that 2 years looks good compared to a lot of the patchwork resumes I've seen. And Claire's just beginning her professional career too, which gives you a lot of leeway: if Cubetown goes belly-up in 5 months, her resume/CV will still show that she got a relevant job within 6ish months of graduating, then lost it through no fault of her own. If they ask her about it, she can talk about all the lessons she learned (maybe including "don't take a vague job with nudist goo people who do science in the ocean").

Sure, maybe it wouldn't be an ideal resume. She'd want to be prepared for questions about her employment timeline. But she certainly wouldn't be up any creek without a paddle.

To be honest, ensured financing for two whole years was the best equivalent of job security I ever got in my career. I do not like that particular aspect of my job, but short contracts do not stain the CV in any way.

[Morquard]

It's only clarified that "janitor" is the title of his job here at Cubetown. The joke is still that he's a particle physicist, who thought he was hired to do science, and instead he gets menial labor. Claire is probably hired to go scrub the barnacles off Cubetown's underside.

I agree, I can't explain the expression on the janitor's face any other way. If he really was a janitor, hired for a janitor position and misunderstood something, then that would be like a funny anecdote, right? But he looks like he could murder that goo girl.

[Keltest]

I agree, I can't explain the expression on the janitor's face any other way. If he really was a janitor, hired for a janitor position and misunderstood something, then that would be like a funny anecdote, right? But he looks like he could murder that goo girl.

In fairness, he could just be grumpy. And especially grumpy that the HR person is talking about him during an interview.

[Kish]

Yeah, he's clearly not happy, but that doesn't mean he got tricked (especially not by anyone other than himself; as Moray describes it, he didn't bother to even look at the website before taking the job). That just means the job he has isn't in the field he wants to be working in. And at least one of his coworkers is a row of asterisks who finds this loudly hilarious.

Now, if (IF) Jeph later tries to hard-sell us "Moray is a sweetie who would never laugh at someone else's misfortune," then that can be filed alongside the numerous examples of "women threatening violence is endearing and funny."

[Mechalich]

The thing of it is, if you're actually qualified to be a particle physicist and you end up hired somewhere as a janitor through some sort of weird hiring process error (even if its your fault), why don't you just quit? There's only reason to stay as a janitor is if the pay is functionally equivalent to what you'd be making in a job you're actually qualified for somewhere else. Seeing as custodial staff usually make slightly above minimum wage (though often with overtime and good benefits since they are often unionized), that implies Cubetown is massively overpaying persons in custodial and presumably other maintenance positions. That only makes it seem more scam-riddled.

[Keltest]

Right, ok. No IS department yet. How on earth did these guys actually get the permits and resources to start this place before having the organization in place to actually do anything? What idiot gave them funding, and which person in need of firing signed off on everything?

[georgie_leech]

Maybe through some fluke of accounting, this was started by the bulk of the fortune Yay gave away.