With respect to Thor, … heh, no comment.

BTW also had the displeasure of working with thor at EA too, that bald headed joke wouldn’t know the first thing about development if it hit him in the head. Zinga needs to get better interviewers if they let that idiot through the door. Hes a shitty DD, all he did was play with excel when he wasn’t surfing the web. Everyone on the MoH team disliked him, no surprise to see his rep follow him. He would play the game, point out things that he thought should be fixed and would pretty much act like he was doing all the heavy lifting. Utterly useless and a waste of space.

Anyway, hope Zinga gets zinged on this lawsuit.

But I digress, to something more fun to discuss.
I’ve worked with Mr. Alexander at metaplace and we’ve had our fair share of conversations. He is a funny guy that really doesn’t have a clue of what he talks or writes about. Look at his article in AI game programming wisdom if you get a chance. I had a discussion with him once on Q learning and statistical modeling, and he went on so many tangents that just made me wonder how this jackass ever wrote an article about machine learning.

Thor, buddy… you really need to change up your game… Here’s some advice from someone who’s still a friend, lay low… squeak by… and reap the benefits of other people’s hard work… oh wait! those were lessons that I learned from you.

Take care buddy. Only a matter of time before you’ll have to switch jobs again. People eventually wise up to the fact that you are just paid for your lip service. Anyone from zynga reading this, watch out for him, he’s a cancer to any company he joins… but at least he has a sense of humor.

Thankfully not all of zynga is riddled with parasites like Thor. However the motto at Zynga seems to be geared towards breeding pond scum like him. Rob probably was a victim of such a manager. Sorry Rob. I pray you get well soon.

I’ll be unbiased and lay the truth onto you folks.

First off, Mark Pincus has been really cool with us, we get lunch and dinner daily and he isn’t shy about taking us out every now and then. If I were to say of all the CEO’s I’ve worked for, he’s the best so far. He doesn’t have to do anything nice for us, yet he does so. It shows up in our bonuses too…

Now the bad. I would say some of the management at Zynga are just plain incompetent and should be fired. Rob Fulop was just a victim of one of these idiotic managers. We have some employees here that have been here from the very beginning and have leveled up not based on skill, but on “zynga years”…

Some of the garbage that has spewed out of the mouths of one such manager would clearly indicate that there are people that work here that need to be let go… Believe me, I have to keep my cool everyday I hear that guy speak. I won’t name names, but they know who they are…

Mark just needs to put his trust in competent people, rather than these idiots that have been around forever. Zynga really needs a review system that lets the team rate their managers. That’ll be the day Zynga truly would be the best company to work for.

“The employees at Zynga have a passion for the games they make and this leads them to the extended hours and weekend work. It’s not that we are forced to work like this,”

“Employees are expected to be big contributers within their first couple months or they will considered dead weight.”

Seems to be kind of a contradiction there.
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As for Parizad – your post comes across as the kind of immature mentality you have already shown in your status as moderator on Zynga forums.
When forum users have shown you proof of personal abuse via PM from your moderating team, you have responded by banning the user.

The article does not need to show Zynga in a bad light, they are doing that all by themselves.
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I’m a big fan of “if you don’t like working somewhere, then leave”. However, there is a difference between a company having a style of working which may not suit everybody, and being morally reprehensible.

They may be great for some, but they shot themselves in the foot with this one.

* I’m a game designer at Zynga
* I have a life situation that doesn’t allow me to work FT (in my case, a baby)
* I work a reduced schedule (half time)
* I work from home
* I’m “experienced” AND over 40

Zynga has been amazingly supportive of my schedule, more than I would have expected of any organization. In fact, I negotiated the reduced schedule with Mark Pincus himself.

I’ve had execs at the highest level (Pincus, Gordon) routinely re-schedule meetings to accommodate my availability. Does it make it less convenient for people? Sure, almost every day. But I think they all hang with me because 1. they’re pretty flexible and cool, and 2. (imho) I am a consistent performer.

Don’t really have any info at all about this other guy’s situation. Sorry about the heart surgery, tho.

Been an full-time employee for a bit and find the bad mouthing odd, I’ve never been so spoiled at a company in my entire career working in games. These guys are nuts with perks (although oddly tight with programmer resources when you need them) trips, booze, movies, etc. Go ahead and call me a hr plant or whatever but fact is folks on this site are severely misinformed.

If one were to quickly summarize the tone of the comments in this discussion, nobody could argue that Zynga is ‘doing something right’ when it comes to treating people well at work. When you get such a flurry of negativity resonating from the bulk of the comments above, there can only be one conclusion, mainly, that Zynga has a lot of work to do to rebuild their reputation as an employer, because right now, such is in the dirt, obviously. Many people feel burned and betrayed, for whatever the reason. They can’t ALL be crazy.

Such does not, however, mean that ALL people who work at Zynga feel this way. Like so many things in life, individual mileage may vary. But IN GENERAL, this thread points to a very obvious, very glaring “issue” at Zynga. Treating people well means a lot more than providing lunch every day.

There is simply no defense to deciding to fire somebody while they are recovering from a serious medical procedure. Especially if that person is not asking to be compensated while they are out of the office, and who opted out of the company insurance plan. Why take such an action? Nobody could argue that taking such an action is “the right thing to do”. Nobody. And that’s why taking such an action is against the law, and that’s why Zynga will be spanked here.

I’m not saying this is what happened, because I don’t know the situation, but sometimes contractors will work their butts off, and then get hired full time only to put on the brakes and start coasting, now that they are “safe”. This also sometimes happens with regular employees when there is a probationary period. Work hard for the first 3 months, then start coasting.

When an employer has more than 100 employees there are even more rules that need to be followed.

In any case, reserve judgement if you don’t know both sides of the story.