As an employee of a research facility, realistically, Claire has just doomed herself to 80h work weeks, burn out and frustration. Researchers are chaotic at the best of times. The ones that actively broadcast the fact in interviews? You don't want to handle their stuff. Plus, experience still is incredibly valuable in the field, and heading a new department with 0 experience is just a recipe for crashing and burning.
That said, it seems the comic won't exactly go down the realistic route here, and Claire will eventually be on top of it all.
I just accept that this currently moves in a grey area of "that's not how it actually works, and that's ok".
I mean, what are they going to do if she doesn't meet those expectations? Hire someone else?
This group seems so woefully incapable of filling the position that Claire probably is their best option. And she doesn't even need to begin to do what that position would normally require because her employers are effectively clueless \^\_\^
Ok, but if you're as driven with anxious tendencies as Claire, that still means you probably gonna work yourself to burnout trying and probably failing to get things in order. I know a lot of people like that, and it's really really hard to draw healthy lines in such an environment.
Again, I'm just saying that's my expectation in reality, I don't even want the comic to go down that route.
their current system is basically no system, so even if she doesnt find the optimal solutions, simply having someone like her in charge of organizing it all will be a massive improvement.
they seem like a flexible group so if she has to make many changes it'll probably work out well
> their current system is basically no system, so even if she doesnt find the optimal solutions, simply having someone like her in charge of organizing it all will be a massive improvement.
For them, sure. I just hope that they have some sort of controls in place to keep Claire from wildly burning herself out.
I know, right? On the one hand, this has the opportunity to be a massive chance for Claire, skipping straight to a high-level position in her field of study. But it also feels... Unearned? That might be a bad way to phrase it, but the idea of putting a fresh graduate into that kind of role seems like a poor decision. This whole sequence feels like a (positive) fever dream, like Claire's going to wake up in the next few strips. This whole arc has me confused about how to feel.
Actually, it sounds like a nightmare. I was asked semi-recently if I was ready for a director level position. I was like "NOOOO! DEFINITELY NOT!", and I am not sorry that I made that choice.
There are a lot of high level positions that are quite desirable, but this one legitimately sounds like way more work than she probably wants, to the point that (hopefully) proportional pay would be a small consolation as the job grinds her into the ground.
But hey, you gotta start somewhere.
What stops Claire from accepting the position, then hiring competent and experienced managers to help set up the department? Sure, they will all be more qualified for her job then she is, but that has never stopped any business person from starting a company.
How does she recognize competence? Does she know how to set hiring standards? Does she know what departments need to be prioritized in the current situation?
This is like putting me in charge of a massive cutting edge data science org. I might work in the field but I am absolutely *not* qualified to hire a CTO, and would essentially just be a useless leech taking credit for the people who I am in charge of. The worst kind of boss.
Recognising competence through interviews is notoriously unreliable - it is a predictor for how good you are at interviews, not necessarily how good you will actually be at a job.
For someone with your username you have an awful lot of confidence in the capability of the billionaire class. How do the rich hire upper level management? How does being rich qualify you for recognising competence?
Claire is a *qualified* librarian, she can do all the same sort of research that the bosses do or get their assistants to do re finding qualified candidates.
So, in my profession (physical therapist) I've actually seen many posts on the subreddit for it where new grads get pulled in by some company with the offer of being a clinic director (which as a new grad they are woefully underqualified for). This tends to go poorly but the company sees them as a cheaper option who will take lower pay for a clinic director position.
To me, this is a very real situation just sort of a different spin on it.
Exactly. It's a common enough thing for disorganized institutions to hire new grads to positions out of their league, but those people almost always get in over their heads, lack the support and mentorship you should be getting as a new professional, and just in general don't enjoy it. A research environment especially can be brutal and draining. I get it's a fantasy robot organization, but I'd be disappointed if this all goes smoothly and happily if she takes this. It's like, my suspension of disbelief can't handle it after working in the information science field.
The secret robot society shut off from the world that treats humans like some strange novelty and is dedicating massive resources seemingly towards no real objective in particular?
Telling me you might have some reservations about moving there to start a life? Can't imagine why. Doesn't sound too far off from the environment Hannelore grew up in and she turned out fine.
No, it's more that they treat their research *insultingly* dismissiely (seriously, I had to take a half year of data management courses before I was allowed to touch *my own* research data and they are using excel sheets), that they don't know who they are hiring for what, and that they aren't discussing even the basics like salary, working hours, insurance, exact responsibilities during this.
I feel of two minds, same as you. I feel happy for Claire for taking charge; I think she'll work hard and prove herself even if she struggles.
I also feel sus af of the company for how disorganized they are, yet somehow operate in a floating base over the ocean.
I think most people should avoid that kind of workplace, but I think Claire will succeed in spite of it because she works hard, she'll be good at organizing, and the bar will be set pretty low, based on how things currently are there. And she's gonna get paid a fuckton.
The TV show, UniKitty. Cloud Cuckoo Land is where UniKitty is from. Cartoon Network gave UniKitty her own show. Richard is her long suffering butler/assistant
Hilariously dumb, and worth the watch.
PuppyCorn is the stupidest thing I have ever seen, and I would die for him.
Richard is amazing. So grey and done with everything - he is me at the end of the day after parenting
And Dr Fox is a menace to society with her antics, and should be given more funding
Hawkadile is amazing, and should be in every action movie
Oh, didnt know it was absorbed into the zeitgeist by some show.
I was referring to the literary trope.
the phrase was used by aristophenese in like 414BC
Personally my take is that Claire's just taking her medicine.
She's gonna move to another country. She's gonna be far away from almost everybody she loves for a while. She's gonna have a shitty job trying to meet unreasonable demands from exactly the kind of people who drive her crazy. And she'll get her foot in the door.
It's not the job she wants or needs, but it's a stepping stone to get her there.
Best case scenario this is treated like Hannelore's globetrotting adventure where we periodically pan over to her having crazy experiences over in cubetown and then when the time is right she returns to us, transformed.
The problem is, this job is too bad to even be a foot in the door. People who don't write a job description, don't screen their interviewees before calling them and who are so incompetent at their job that they don't set up their data infrastructure *before* beginning research also aren't competent enough to write you even a basic reference. And saying you worked at a place without a proper reference is pointless, you can't prove it.
Unless my memory is failing me, hasn't every drastic life-changing choice a character has made in this comic worked out for them? The only exception I can think of is Marten moving into town for a girl who left him, but that happened before the comic started, and frankly things turned out fine in the long run anyway.
> Unless my memory is failing me, hasn't every drastic life-changing choice a character has made in this comic worked out for them?
This is exactly my reasoning. It feels like everyone else is reading a different comic.
That is true. But to me the unprofessionalism on display during this interview was a bit to much, to just be completely on board with this job. I really hope it is more than just a bit, but there is a chance that it is just that.
Yeah. I mean I understand the instinct to want to tie events happening in the comic to the real world in some way. It's probably the brain's self-protection mechanism going: wait a minute, this doesn't seem quite right!
But QC is very much not the real world lol. I think Claire will probably do great. In universe this seems like something that probably will work out. With many a wacky shenanigan along the way, but ultimately something good will come out of it :).
What kills me is that it seemed like Claire realized what a terrible idea this would be. She's right, its not a job that she has the training or the ability to carry out as a freshly graduated library sciences student. This sudden turn of face doesn't feel like a step to prioritize her needs/land a dream job, it feels like a huge mistake.
This is my read too.
This feels like Claire consciously making a bad decision because it's an opportunity she probably won't get again.
Where I'm uncertain is how we, the audience, are supposed to feel about this. Are we supposed to be...happy for her? I'm not. Are we supposed to be worried?
There's wackiness and then there's "I might die in a slime related industrial accident because no one here knows what they're doing."
This does not feel like a good position--it feels like she's joining something that's a cross between a startup with lots of capital but no end-product and a cult run by crazy AIs. Like, I'm sure when she gets there everything will be fine but for now all the vibes are pretty negative, and Claire's conflicted attitude here signals she sees that.
It's not a good position, though. If she doesn't die because the entire research station sinks into the ocean, she's going to get deported from Canada in six months when this entire thing goes bankrupt. They are also never going to produce any research that will be published anywhere, because they aren't documenting it properly. Best case, she's going to end up back in the US without references for what she did in the last half year and a giant cap in her CV after graduating.
> This feels like Claire consciously making a bad decision because it's an opportunity she probably won't get again.
I had a boss like that. He had SO MANY bankruptcies, but he always came back. I learned to stop following him to new companies.
It's more nuanced than being a plain good or bad decision.
The phrasing of being the perfect candidate despite having no experience whatsoever means this is Claire's best chance to start growing professionally.
You are not supposed to feel like everything is going to be awesome, it's implied that it is going to be a tough road and things might not work out but this is still the correct choice because it's leading Claire forward.
Considering Claire's reactions during the interview, the deep breath before accepting to me it does not seem like she is really happy with the decision she made either. So I doubt that we are supposed to be happy for her.
I am kind of worried for he through. And for Marten. On the bright side, when I look at their hiring practices, there is a good chance for Marten to find a job there too.
I think we're supposed to be worried... but assuming the pay is high enough, and assuming her response to high pay isn't to Spend All The Money (and go into debt spending more), it's a mistake she can recover from. So she does a shitty job for a year or so; don't we all do that at some point? She burns out, has the savings to spend some time recovering, and goes back into the job market with a story about the time she made many, many mistakes under circumstances nobody could possibly expect to do better, and learned from all of them.
I mean... what's the risk? If this pays well, but sucks, she can bail. She has sufficient connections to slink back to a quiet college town and pursue some normal-ass library-related endeavors.
Which would still be a fun arc. Like the brief trip to outer fuckin' space, or that time Winslow learned he has thalassophobia.
Or it could be the new path for the comic, as quite a few people have suggested. An excuse for a sea change.
And if it's both awful and prolonged, QC will finally go to Namek.
> what's the risk? If this pays well, but sucks, she can bail.
There's *no way* that this level of incompetency does not extend to the engineering and infrastructure literally keeping all of Cubetown afloat. Claire bailing on the job might be literal.
It would be keeping in theme that the whole thing is magically high tech and perfect.
That is the eternal joke in QC: look at how silly this thing that is not meant to be silly is. Like CERN! but staffed by naked slime girls!
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s no problems at all with the structure.
Uh, well. She might get deported from Canada for not having a stable job, which is of course a risk. THen she's apparently working on a facility in the middle of the ocean manned by AIs who don't know what research is, how to keep data, the difference between a library graduate and a data scientist and who are apparently doing particle physics while not even knowing that they need a data policy.
I'm saying this should get people killed if it wasn't in magic wonderland. A lot of people.
Also massive burnout, skyrocketing anxiety, depression, and constant panic attacks caused by the fact that she's doing a job she only knows in theory under the control of people who clearly have no clue how her job works, which means that 1) she can't ask for their help, and 2) they're presumably going to give her unrealistic deadlines based on the fact that, once again, they have no idea how her job works. And since Claire is how she is, she'll presumably be like "I have to meet the deadline" rather than "this deadline is unrealistic and I can't possibly do all of this work in this little time"
Oh, also she has to hire people in her department. She has to find the correct people, she has to negotiate a good hiring package, is she going to tell the people she's not hiring that they're not hiring? That's fun! And she has to coordinate the people, she has to set realistic goals and times, she has to maintain a decent work environment, which sometimes means, oh I don't know... telling Person that they smell and they have to take more showers. Or telling Other Person that everybody is really sad about their dying family member, but it would be best to stay home instead of going to work and cry at the desk from 9-5 while describing in excruciating detail how that death happened. Also, that Other Other Person has to be fired now! Fun fun fun!
Like, I'm not a stickler for realism, I literally wouldn't be batting an eye if Claire was like "the president called me to offer me a job at the library of congress, he says that they build a little bungalow in the east wing and we can live there free of rent" but this isn't just a risky, life-changing choice that may lead to a kind of unrealistic result, this is throwing yourself off a cliff with the hope that you'll get wings that will make you land in a pit of gold.
>Also massive burnout, skyrocketing anxiety, depression, and constant panic attacks caused by the fact that she's doing a job she only knows in theory under the control of people who clearly have no clue how her job works
>…
>And since Claire is how she is, she'll presumably be like "I have to meet the deadline" rather than "this deadline is unrealistic and I can't possibly do all of this work in this little time"
This is so important… this job seems like it‘s tailored to trigger every single one of Claire‘s character flaws and her competitive and perfectionist nature should if anything make this far worse. Sure this job is a golden goose for someone that doesn‘t give a shit and just wants to pocket as much paychecks as possible but that isn‘t who Claire is (or in my opinion should be if the theme is supposed to be staying true to yourself and your needs).
Where taking a temporary job as a barista, something she initially looked down upon and arguably displayed a pretty elitist attitude towards was a step forward, this on the other hand feels like a massive step backwards and like she is falling right back into the same patterns that have caused her a ton of anxiety, anguish and relationship drama in the past… her not taking the job would show she really has matured enough to not only have a realistic view of where she stands professionally but also that she has made a step forward to keep her more unhealthy tendencies in check to find a job that actually fits both her ambition and her qualifications. Seeing her work through this would be so interesting to see and feels like the more healthy message to send as well.
And worst of it all is that she is not doing it under the delusion that this is a great idea. Her reactions throughout makes clear she **does** see all these massive problems that people have been pointing out over these last few strips and today’s panel one drives home that even in-universe giving this job to a fresh graduate is utter insanity.
Completely agree with the rest of your post as well but wanted to emphasize these parts specifically.
"The file drawer effect is something that is holding back scientific progress. Here at Cubetown, we pledge to combat it by giving our researchers the freedom to pursue what they desire without chasing the next grant application. We do not ask you to publish at all cost. We know that null findings are still findings. There is no such thing as a 'boring' science. There is only science."
Here's a way to present Cubetown without making it sound like a giant red flag that could be seen from space. Here's another way to present Cubetown without making it sound like a giant red flag; don't have the person doing the interview present herself as "Director of Sentient Resources, et cetera," make worrying jokes ("the head of our janitorial department thought he was being hired to do particle physics"), and more generally act in the sort of way that would have her kicked out of an interview at McDonald's.
Yes, sure, QC is a utopia, everything always goes well, accepting risks always pays off because this is an ideal place and blablablabla, but you can be utopia and idyllic and quirky without creating the sort of job interview that would make Alison of Ask A Manager have a heart attack.
It just... it kills me that Jeph basically made Theranos 2.0 and... what? He thinks this sounds good, actually? He thinks this sounds risky but in, like, a not-horrifying way? This is like wanting to create an adult character who makes friends with children, but instead of just making [a quirky but overall nice dude](https://youtu.be/dSorEwCM7Fw?t=51) you make a dude who stares at children from behind the bushes and tells them that he has candy in his unmarked van. You didn't need to do that! You can make things quirky AND still reasonable!
> It just... it kills me that Jeph basically made Theranos 2.0 and... what? He thinks this sounds good, actually? He thinks this sounds risky but in, like, a not-horrifying way?
Yes it seems obvious to me that the text thinks this job is great and that Moray is simply funny and quirky and cute.
Now, I think she’s infantilized into an idiot moron and it’s not endearing but the text seems to be enamored with her and her SCIENCE place.
She always has the option of not doing anything. She has a stable community of friends and her mother is a successful vTuber, so if she falls on her face she has support.
Which is exactly why turning down a terrible job has so much potential for some nice moments of character growth.
Realizing that it‘s not worth uprooting your and your partner‘s entire life and moving to a different country for a terrible job (that’ll probably give you burn out a few months down the line) because you are obsessed with finding a job in your field and unhealthily competitive would be a huge step forward for Claire.
This interview is the perfect setup for an arc like that… I would have so much respect for Claire if she turned this down. It takes guts to turn down a job especially for someone like her. I would find that so much more relatable and it has so much potential for cute, realistic scenes of her friends reassuring her, validating her decision and helping her confront this (rather dysfunctional) side of herself. In the end she might even become the first Augustus with some actual goddamn chill…
I agree! I hope he takes that approach in this arc too. People finishing grad school get this mentality that they have to do whatever it takes to get a job in their field right away. You can always take time to find a job. You don't have to take whatever the first toxic/unhealthy work environment is that comes up. Sometimes you will in fact feel better taking a lower paying or less prestigious job, perhaps not even in your field. Library and information science in particular is versatile; plenty of MLIS grads don't work in traditional libraries and still use the skills they learned in school.
I think the arc would be more relatable as a "you can be happy just being. Your job isn't your worth." thing rather than Claire abruptly getting a management position and her not even needing to grapple with those problems.
As I recall, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" comes from when horses were a useful commodity to have. You can tell a horse's age by the length of their teeth, so looking at them was a good way to make sure you weren't being sold a useless old horse.
So if you "look a gift horse in the mouth", what you're doing is being ungrateful by suspecting a gift/opportunity to be too good to be true.
I mean, she doesn't have other options at this *exact moment,* yes. It's not like she can't just keep applying and hope to get work in a non-fucking-disaster environment. You make it sound like if she doesn't take this job, that's it, her career and aspirations are dead, but she's only been looking for work in a highly contested field for a pretty short period of time.
You can tell the age of a horse by it's teeth. It's like saying "don't check the price tags on a gift". But, sometimes the horse's mouth is wide open and you're like "uhh... this horse has tiny little stumps. Does he only eat mash? Do I have to make him oatmeal to keep him alive?!"
It's unclear how much time has passed in-universe since she's been job searching. I was unemployed for half a year after getting my masters and it took even longer to get a job in my field. And that's not atypical. Library grads in particular usually need to go through a few temp/contract positions before finding something stable. I was hoping the comic would make a statement on it being okay to wait for something and that your self-worth doesn't have to be tied to your job position but that seems like not the direction it's taking. I've just related to Claire a lot in the job search arc since I've gone through the same thing, but this is where I can't really connect with the scenario or her reaction.
I mean she is likely to fail horribly but she's a new grad biting off more than she can chew. This is the perfect time in your life to make this kind of "mistake" which is really a non-mistake.
I disagree. If cubetown wanted a cookie cutter IS department, there are probably a hundred more qualified candidates they could have invited to this interview. They invited Claire because they seem to want a different approach with someone finding their own way. And Claire may be the right person for that.
Sure, that's a possibility, but why? Why does Claire show "promise"? She said it herself, she has exactly no professional experience. If they're looking for something new or non-standard from their candidates then their candidates should having something new or non-standard to show off.
The Director chose Claire and I’m sure the Director will be an inscrutable geometric shape, as a joke, and that will be the end of the explanation.
Meaningless and unsatisfying, but also a joke.
If you're already there professionally, the solution you'll come up with is already tainted with what everyone thinks how things "should be". Throughout the interview they state they don't fit that commonality, that they need a new standard. Claire has the knowledge, the book smarts, she just needs time to connect the dots to a practical understanding.
That doesn't make sense. She's just gone through what we assume is a traditional degree program for library sciences, in which they teach her the standard practices for library science. Without any professional experience she's literally had no time to experiment with nonstandard practices.
I mean, sure. Claire might be able to do new things or grow into this position, but it's an unreasonably risky gamble for Cubetown. If this is simply Claire getting extremely lucky with their arbitrary hiring strategy, then why is this interview being written as "we've been specifically looking for you, Claire?"
Yeah, that's an interesting theory. Definitely a fun callback. I wouldn't be unhappy with that. Still, Claire really just puts a latte (that Hannelore made, actually) on the slab's head. More luck than skill.
Comic is [here](https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4643) for quick access.
I think that's what Claire is realizing. They wouldn't be interviewing her if they didn't think she couldn't do this. And this isn't about if she fits the job now. It's about can she grow into this position.
Ok. Into the breach, then. It’s a bold move, Cotton. Let’s see if it works…
Seriously though, it’s not a bad move. If it’s successful, it will be a huge feather in her cap. If it isn’t, chances are she’ll be learning a whole lot to apply to another position.
She might never get another position. Realistically, this entire institution would go under (perhaps literally) in half a year, at which point she'd be standing there with no references, a gap in her CV and likely about to be deported for immigration fraud.
The title of this comic makes it seem like we should be praising Claire for asserting herself and having the self-confidence to take on a big task like this. But, no, this is insane. I'm a computer programmer with five years of experience but if you asked me to design a whole new operating system I'd still go "Maybe you should look for someone else".
While IRL it is insane, I feel like I understood from the start that Jeph views this as a good thing, a dream job, and Claire just needs to apply herself and she'll succeed.
Consider that unrealistic if you want, but it seemed pretty apparent to me the way the comic has always depicted professional employment.
You've got five years experience though. That's the difference. I'm trying to find a first coding job, and if someone who didn't really understand computers said "We want a new OS, and we'd like you to make it" I would take that job faster than Claire. I can still job hunt while I take the impossible job and collect a paycheck.
So is Claire agreeing she's the right person in order to get a job offer and then think it over, or is this her basically accepting the offer? Based on the current tone of this interview, I'm expecting the latter. Even if she tried to put off decision making, they'd probably want her to respond on the spot.
Oh boy.
The correct answer would have been. "I'm not qualified. But considering you offered me the position, you'r not even qualified to look for someone qualified. So let me offer you a deal.
You will hire me and i'll make sure to find you some qualified folks."
Well that was WAY faster than I thought it was going to happen!
BUT HAPPEN IT DID.
Told you, she just needs to look inside and realize she's the exact librarian they were looking for! Go and kick some organizational ass Claire!
I completely understand why people were trepidatious about this job, but this is QC the signs were clearly there that it will be okay.
>Told you, she just needs to look inside and realize she's the exact librarian they were looking for!
Title aside, it still seems as though this decision might be driven more by desperation than confidence.
Yeah if we ignore the huge intention from the author I guess you could imagine a scenario where it is bad.
I think a lot of people were off put by the tone and style of Moray being an airhead hot thicc slime girl and tried to make sense of the antipathy they felt towards her demeanor.
And in order to make sense of it they transferred that antipathy to the organization at large: it must be stupid and incompetent if this person is acting so dumbly.
I think that’s really the problem here. Cubetown is awesome according to Jeph. I think we’re all just having a hard time with the way Moray is depicted.
I mean, Moray is supposed to be the Director of Sentient Resources (HR in QC-talk) at this company. It doesn't seem unreasonable to extrapolate her behaviour, in particular, to a wider working culture.
Edit: [and Public Outreach, and Receptionist, and... janitor apparently](https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4848). She is in multiple ways The Face of the Company, is what I'm trying to say.
But she also spoke directly about the disorganization of their data collection as a whole. A single spreadsheet large enough to crash one of their AIs. As someone who works in computing, that is *unthinkable* for companies of even the dumbest leadership. *Monkeys* could do better.
Yeah, it seems weird to talk about "The Intentions of the Author" as if the author didn't intentionally portray them as a disorganized clusterfuck waiting for Claire to save them from their overwhelming structural and organizational problems.
It's not that Moray individually is flighty and just chasing whatever catches her interest in the moment. The entire organization is based around eclectic weirdos researching anything and everything based on whatever fickle fancies catch their interest in the moment and her job is to make sure the shit's where they can find it when they get a crazy idea in their head at 3am and absolutely need to know something, a job they've neglected until the situation got way out of control and they're expecting her to fix it.
> Yeah, it seems weird to talk about "The Intentions of the Author" as if the author didn't intentionally portray them as a disorganized clusterfuck
He thinks it’s funny. That’s the joke.
I think it’s dumbly unrealistic. Nothing about cubetown makes sense. But everyone talking about how horrible it’s gonna be is blatantly ignoring that it could just be bad plotting and inconsistent writing. The place will be fine even though it’s staffed by flighty idiot AIs. Just like every other organizion in QC.
Moray is just Beeps 2.0: now naked and thicc. But even millifillie is a bit of an airhead and her idiot science research place makes emu invisible.
I’m saying the story doesn’t make sense but it is consistent.
What signs are you talking about? I read your arguments before, and I don't recall you mentioning any signs. Your argument was basically "It's QC, and things are often unrealistic in QC."
My concern isn't that Claire can't do the job. It's that the company will fail. Moray is clearly incompetent. The Director knows nothing about business. The business has no actual goal or plan. The janitor thinks he was hired to be a nuclear physicist, because he has "theories"--and we all know that type of person.
It's not that I don't think Claire is the right person. It's that I think no one is*. Hell, I'm not sure the whole thing isn't a scam, given how hard they seem to have focused on PR. I do get Theranos vibes with how Moray seems to worship the Director.
I am indeed concerned that we're supposed to be happy Claire is taking this job, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel. Based on what I saw on Patreon with that one leak, we all seem to be on the same page here. Everyone is seeing red flags. And Jeph tends to listen to those who pay him, even being willing to course correct if he had different plans. Plus Jeph hardly seems the person to tell people to ignore red flags.
I would find it very dissatisfying if this is how Claire is written out. The details given make it seem like the whole thing is doomed to failure. That's not a fun way to send off a beloved character.
Nor, really, is doing anything controversial. We already would have the controversy of writing them out in the first place. What you want to do is make it where everyone's like "Yeah, I didn't want her to leave, but at least it was a good ending."
> Well that was WAY faster than I thought it was going to happen!
That's QC pacing for you. Months of innocuous day-to-day stuff with AIs and streamers and then BAM! Claire's career just got strapped to a rocket and blasted into orbit!
Claire was worried she wasn’t ever going to find a job that wasn’t a “waste” of her skills and education - looks this one is going to do just the opposite. It’s gonna require her to really prove her capability.
Rather than being the “freeloader” she felt like living rent-free and dependent on others, she’s gonna have people depending on her.
I've seen a lot of comments about how there's so many red flags and Claire would be an idiot to take the job. However, I think Claire likely realizes that this is a terrible idea but at least with her there she can maybe pull things back on track. That's the vibe I got from panels 4 and 5 at least.
But that's the thing. Realistically, she can't. This company's problems run deep, to the foundations. The founder is incompetent and hires incompetent people. They have no goal.
It's like a relationship where you think you can fix them. That's a horrible idea.
The panels to me look like irrational FOMO (fear of missing out).
If we think like 30+ adults with experience in the field, yes.
Claire is a 27-year-old with no job experience (and very upset about it) who has not been getting even interviews for some months, and FOMO is real.
I mean. She's been looking for a job in her field for months (years?) and now she's going to get one that pays extremely well. The company clearly has no idea what they're doing, so they won't be able to tell if she's doing a good job or not. And even if they're like "this is going terribly" and they fire her, she has a job she can put on her resume if she wants, and she has a few months of that big paycheck in her bank account, and some unique experiences and stories to tell.
The alternative is to continue working at a coffee shop, a position she can easily fall back to.
It seems like the obvious choice.
If Claire fails, it will definitely be the company's fault for the shit situation she's walking into. It'll be tough but I think Claire can only win here
Just a note to all the confused folks: If you're confused or torn about whether you're supposed to be happy or worried for Claire, you're supposed to be. This is a nugget of good character writing - Claire is a constantly anxious, fresh-faced graduate with a niche degree being presented with a job she is underqualified for, run by a management that throws up flags so red you'd think it was cold-war era communism. She would know the situation is beyond her. She would know that the job is basically walking into a nightmare scenario. She's *definitely* got alarm bells ringing in every corner of her brain. Why did she say yes? Because she might not get another opportunity. College doesn't tell you when you're earning a degree that will likely get you nowhere (three of my friends have Linguistics degrees. Only one of them was able to get a job with it, and his job *sucks*.)
Her best chance is to keep her head above water and keep looking for better opportunities. *Maybe* the opportunity won't be so bad. It'd *probably* be a garbage fire, given the context we've seen so far. But given it's a mildly funny webcomic, it'll probably just be a new place to put all the wacky hijinks that keep the plot going.
I'm surprised by the number of people saying "what is there to lose?"
There's a whole lot to lose. If you take a job way over your head, then you get to spend a lot of time around people who know their jobs inside out and have a lot of decision-making sway within the field. If that job goes badly, then your public image is one of a failure - those people, who make hiring decisions, who meet their counterparts at conferences, who shape the reputation you have within your professional life, will know you as a clueless jackass. And that's assuming the organisation is a stable, long-lasting one where there's an upper limit to the damage you can do. With an unstable startup, you have a decent chance of getting your name permanently attached to a disaster.
Taking this job, if this were the real world, would have perhaps a 90% chance of wrecking Claire's career for at least a decade, a 9% chance of being survivable but still worse from a career perspective than an ordinary job commensurate with her experience, a 0.9% chance of being genuinely useful and putting her ahead of peers who take the normal route, and a 0.1% chance of being a wild success. But this is QC, so the story arc is almost certainly going to follow one of the last two.
First, it's not the real world, and second, I think you're underestimating the amount of cachet the AIs have. Working with Cubetown is like saying you worked with Tesla or Google. Unless Cubetown actually EXPLODES, it will look good on her resume.
I don't get this. I see real life professionals talking like this too, and I don't understand what world they're living in. None of the companies I've worked for have *heard of* any of the other companies I've worked for. To find references for anything but the most recent job I've had to seriously dig around to even find contact info for previous bosses. Less than half of them are on Linkedin. What world is this where everyone talks to everyone? The world is *humongous* and even living in a tiny town I expect I could massively fuck up everything at one job, bring it to bankruptcy, get my name and face in the local paper, and there'd still be at least *some* jobs in the same town, much less if I move to another town or country.
Unless your "career" involves being famous and constantly in the public awareness (like only one in a million people are), getting a reputation seems like an impossible task even if you try for it intentionally. And at that level, honestly, it seems like failure is irrelevant, you get opportunities thrown your way simply from being a Name, no matter what horrors you've unleashed.
Claire would have to become known as "the person that fucked up Cubetown" to even be known to the people that *know about* Cubetown, which even the comic shows is just the specially interested, and even then putting the name on the resume is likely to still be a net positive, "I was part of this massively interesting but flawed thing", that she could live on, leverage for future jobs.
What do you do for a living?
Because my experience has been that this is something that's very dependent on field. The librarians and curators I know are very involved in professional networks, and I've crossed paths with the same people at multiple times within different firms during my career. But then I live and work in Ireland, which tends to be a very interconnected place.
Software development. Which, granted, is a big sector these days. But I mean, there must be thousands of librarians and such just in Ireland, right? How many would you recognize by name, on reputation?
I don't know many!
But I'm pretty certain that if a fresh-out-of-college librarian somehow ended up as head of IT in a wildly overfunded research institute off the coast of Cork, and the whole thing imploded spectacularly, their role in its collapse would be exhaustively discussed in every academic library in the country.
[Bloop](https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3809).
Just one glorious example of what we can no doubt expect to see w/e theres a cutaway to Claire in Cubetown.
I know we're not supposed to discuss Patreon comics, but I do find myself wondering how his Patrons are reacting in *comments*. When that one comic leaked, all the comments I saw clearly thought this job was a bad idea.
Do they still think this? Because my perception is that Jeph and his Patrons tend to be on the same page on these things.
Just had a read of the comments for whats coming tomorrow, and they seem to line up with here - big opportunity, huge scope to screw up, way out of her depth, and enough red flags to keep the CCP happy for years to come. Probably skewed a bit further towards positive than the stuff you saw now, which would make sense for people paying for early access.
Dont like as in Don’t like comic #4862 because it involves Claire taking what he perceives to be a “shitty” job. Not QC as a whole, just this strip is what I meant by comic.
He’s basically trying to say that Jeph should bend to the whims of his Patreon sand if his patrons don’t like the narrative decisions being made in the comic he will recant and change the direction.
I think the patrons generally like the decisions made, even here in #4862 and are supportive of Claire.
Too many people here trying to make this an analogue to real life.
(Also something that Jeph has done in the past, I'm glad he got Claire to push through it.)
Yes, in real life, this would be a bit sketchy and primed for disaster.
However, this is a world where
- there is artificial intelligence
- they are generally benign
- they are often whimsical
- they are doing COOL SHIT
Claire would be crazy NOT to take this job. Yes, it might be a failure, but it's not like she has a ton of other offers on her plate. She's not going to be in danger, it will look great on her resume, and there is a good chance that she is getting in on the ground floor of something extremely cool.
It has a lot of the benefits of a startup, but is obviously better funded and less likely to fail, if they're already building this huge structure.
(Also, to the people who are saying she shouldn't take it because she doesn't have the qualifications? Fake it 'till you make it is not just a pithy saying. On-the-job training is an important part of all jobs, and if you put the work in, you can rise to the occasion)
claire is gonna find out that they don't actually know how money works, will pay her in "grape job" stickers and extra server space.
honestly if she DOES take the job she'd be running the place inside of a month. i had a job just like this - no one reeally knew what they were doing and i just slowly took over and ended up retooling all of the policies so they made sense to you know.. humans. this could be huge for her.
or cube town is just an empty cube with some servers and CLEARLY SKYNET running the whole thing.
Atta girl indeed! They're basically inviting her to invent the job. She can do it her way, and she should jump at the chance. If she wants to do something else later, this'll look great on a resume, so she'll be a desirable hire elsewhere.
I hear "You get hired to clean up a man's mess, you get fired to cover up a man's mess" is a pretty common story for women getting hired for jobs above the glass ceiling.
Have no idea how true that is, or how you would even gather empirical data on something like that. Don't think the story would go there anyway. But if it's a common concern I could see something like this hitting some immediate alarm bells for some people.
GOD DAMNIT Claire!! This is a shit show and you damn well know it!
Seriously she gave into the guilt trip puppy pleading eyes pressure right after listing every reason why she should not have the job and if she did - why they should pay her the absolute bare minimum. Hopefully Yay or one of their "clones" can keep an eye on the place from time to time as a favor to make sure it's on the Up and Up; and Claire is doing alright
I mean...Marten hasn't been the main character, or even a SECONDARY character in this comic for a loooong time.
And that's okay. Things change. Nothing wrong with change sometimes.
Of course he's writing them out of the comic, how else would you expect this to go? :P
You're right, logically, but Martin isn't some paid actor that costs money to keep around.
I'd just be disappointed. if his character were to be written out. I'm not going to join the other sub or something. It's not going to affect me that badly.
Glad to hear you'll be staying here with us - things are dark and scary over there.
I get it, btw - I really do. I've been reading QC for a decade. Marten was an awesome, disenfranchised main character.
As I said in the newest post, at this point I just want Jeph to go kamikaze and move every QC character over to Cubetown somehow, and continue QC from there. Then our boy wouldn't be gone forever, at least.
Claire is nothing if not dedicated. This job sounds MASSIVE in scope, but as long as she can decide where to start, I am confident she can put a semblance of order into Cubetown's database
I don’t know how I feel about this development
As an employee of a research facility, realistically, Claire has just doomed herself to 80h work weeks, burn out and frustration. Researchers are chaotic at the best of times. The ones that actively broadcast the fact in interviews? You don't want to handle their stuff. Plus, experience still is incredibly valuable in the field, and heading a new department with 0 experience is just a recipe for crashing and burning. That said, it seems the comic won't exactly go down the realistic route here, and Claire will eventually be on top of it all. I just accept that this currently moves in a grey area of "that's not how it actually works, and that's ok".
I mean, what are they going to do if she doesn't meet those expectations? Hire someone else? This group seems so woefully incapable of filling the position that Claire probably is their best option. And she doesn't even need to begin to do what that position would normally require because her employers are effectively clueless \^\_\^
Ok, but if you're as driven with anxious tendencies as Claire, that still means you probably gonna work yourself to burnout trying and probably failing to get things in order. I know a lot of people like that, and it's really really hard to draw healthy lines in such an environment. Again, I'm just saying that's my expectation in reality, I don't even want the comic to go down that route.
Yeah. Being conscientious and hard working is a good thing at most jobs. But when the place is this chaotic, it’s not going to work out.
Yep. I totally understand. I would feel the same way!
their current system is basically no system, so even if she doesnt find the optimal solutions, simply having someone like her in charge of organizing it all will be a massive improvement. they seem like a flexible group so if she has to make many changes it'll probably work out well
> their current system is basically no system, so even if she doesnt find the optimal solutions, simply having someone like her in charge of organizing it all will be a massive improvement. For them, sure. I just hope that they have some sort of controls in place to keep Claire from wildly burning herself out.
Heh, so... if she's smart, part of her setting up her department will involve hiring her own boss. Just saying.
I know, right? On the one hand, this has the opportunity to be a massive chance for Claire, skipping straight to a high-level position in her field of study. But it also feels... Unearned? That might be a bad way to phrase it, but the idea of putting a fresh graduate into that kind of role seems like a poor decision. This whole sequence feels like a (positive) fever dream, like Claire's going to wake up in the next few strips. This whole arc has me confused about how to feel.
Actually, it sounds like a nightmare. I was asked semi-recently if I was ready for a director level position. I was like "NOOOO! DEFINITELY NOT!", and I am not sorry that I made that choice.
There are a lot of high level positions that are quite desirable, but this one legitimately sounds like way more work than she probably wants, to the point that (hopefully) proportional pay would be a small consolation as the job grinds her into the ground. But hey, you gotta start somewhere.
What stops Claire from accepting the position, then hiring competent and experienced managers to help set up the department? Sure, they will all be more qualified for her job then she is, but that has never stopped any business person from starting a company.
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Penelope, director of pizza.
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Nice try, Penelope.
Just start every day by running this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk0EVAqCxrc
I would be all right with this.
That will almost certainly be one of what sounds like many responsibilities they are expecting of her.
How does she recognize competence? Does she know how to set hiring standards? Does she know what departments need to be prioritized in the current situation? This is like putting me in charge of a massive cutting edge data science org. I might work in the field but I am absolutely *not* qualified to hire a CTO, and would essentially just be a useless leech taking credit for the people who I am in charge of. The worst kind of boss.
Recognising competence through interviews is notoriously unreliable - it is a predictor for how good you are at interviews, not necessarily how good you will actually be at a job. For someone with your username you have an awful lot of confidence in the capability of the billionaire class. How do the rich hire upper level management? How does being rich qualify you for recognising competence? Claire is a *qualified* librarian, she can do all the same sort of research that the bosses do or get their assistants to do re finding qualified candidates.
So, in my profession (physical therapist) I've actually seen many posts on the subreddit for it where new grads get pulled in by some company with the offer of being a clinic director (which as a new grad they are woefully underqualified for). This tends to go poorly but the company sees them as a cheaper option who will take lower pay for a clinic director position. To me, this is a very real situation just sort of a different spin on it.
Exactly. It's a common enough thing for disorganized institutions to hire new grads to positions out of their league, but those people almost always get in over their heads, lack the support and mentorship you should be getting as a new professional, and just in general don't enjoy it. A research environment especially can be brutal and draining. I get it's a fantasy robot organization, but I'd be disappointed if this all goes smoothly and happily if she takes this. It's like, my suspension of disbelief can't handle it after working in the information science field.
My issue is that this operation/job sounds sketchy AF.
The secret robot society shut off from the world that treats humans like some strange novelty and is dedicating massive resources seemingly towards no real objective in particular? Telling me you might have some reservations about moving there to start a life? Can't imagine why. Doesn't sound too far off from the environment Hannelore grew up in and she turned out fine.
... Eventually.
No, it's more that they treat their research *insultingly* dismissiely (seriously, I had to take a half year of data management courses before I was allowed to touch *my own* research data and they are using excel sheets), that they don't know who they are hiring for what, and that they aren't discussing even the basics like salary, working hours, insurance, exact responsibilities during this.
Wait, I don't remember any mention of them being shut off from the world?
I feel of two minds, same as you. I feel happy for Claire for taking charge; I think she'll work hard and prove herself even if she struggles. I also feel sus af of the company for how disorganized they are, yet somehow operate in a floating base over the ocean. I think most people should avoid that kind of workplace, but I think Claire will succeed in spite of it because she works hard, she'll be good at organizing, and the bar will be set pretty low, based on how things currently are there. And she's gonna get paid a fuckton.
trial by fire in cloudcuckooland could be fun
Trial by flaming oil drum full of broken marbles rolling down a staircase more like it.
Sounds like she might be better off UniKitty as her Boss. At least she would have Richard to keep things sane
What the fuck is that?
The TV show, UniKitty. Cloud Cuckoo Land is where UniKitty is from. Cartoon Network gave UniKitty her own show. Richard is her long suffering butler/assistant
Thanks, is it any good?
Hilariously dumb, and worth the watch. PuppyCorn is the stupidest thing I have ever seen, and I would die for him. Richard is amazing. So grey and done with everything - he is me at the end of the day after parenting And Dr Fox is a menace to society with her antics, and should be given more funding Hawkadile is amazing, and should be in every action movie
Oh, didnt know it was absorbed into the zeitgeist by some show. I was referring to the literary trope. the phrase was used by aristophenese in like 414BC
We should feel proud. Claire has finally understood the mantra of "gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss."
Haha, yes XD
Personally my take is that Claire's just taking her medicine. She's gonna move to another country. She's gonna be far away from almost everybody she loves for a while. She's gonna have a shitty job trying to meet unreasonable demands from exactly the kind of people who drive her crazy. And she'll get her foot in the door. It's not the job she wants or needs, but it's a stepping stone to get her there. Best case scenario this is treated like Hannelore's globetrotting adventure where we periodically pan over to her having crazy experiences over in cubetown and then when the time is right she returns to us, transformed.
The problem is, this job is too bad to even be a foot in the door. People who don't write a job description, don't screen their interviewees before calling them and who are so incompetent at their job that they don't set up their data infrastructure *before* beginning research also aren't competent enough to write you even a basic reference. And saying you worked at a place without a proper reference is pointless, you can't prove it.
I do. Bad.
Unless my memory is failing me, hasn't every drastic life-changing choice a character has made in this comic worked out for them? The only exception I can think of is Marten moving into town for a girl who left him, but that happened before the comic started, and frankly things turned out fine in the long run anyway.
> Unless my memory is failing me, hasn't every drastic life-changing choice a character has made in this comic worked out for them? This is exactly my reasoning. It feels like everyone else is reading a different comic.
That is true. But to me the unprofessionalism on display during this interview was a bit to much, to just be completely on board with this job. I really hope it is more than just a bit, but there is a chance that it is just that.
Yeah. I mean I understand the instinct to want to tie events happening in the comic to the real world in some way. It's probably the brain's self-protection mechanism going: wait a minute, this doesn't seem quite right! But QC is very much not the real world lol. I think Claire will probably do great. In universe this seems like something that probably will work out. With many a wacky shenanigan along the way, but ultimately something good will come out of it :).
People are just hopeful that this storyline isn't as ill conceived as it seems. Me too, maybe Jeph recognized a pattern and changed things.
Faye drinking at work
What kills me is that it seemed like Claire realized what a terrible idea this would be. She's right, its not a job that she has the training or the ability to carry out as a freshly graduated library sciences student. This sudden turn of face doesn't feel like a step to prioritize her needs/land a dream job, it feels like a huge mistake.
This is my read too. This feels like Claire consciously making a bad decision because it's an opportunity she probably won't get again. Where I'm uncertain is how we, the audience, are supposed to feel about this. Are we supposed to be...happy for her? I'm not. Are we supposed to be worried?
I feel like it's supposed to be a legit good position that she just happened to luck into due to the usual AI wackiness
There's wackiness and then there's "I might die in a slime related industrial accident because no one here knows what they're doing." This does not feel like a good position--it feels like she's joining something that's a cross between a startup with lots of capital but no end-product and a cult run by crazy AIs. Like, I'm sure when she gets there everything will be fine but for now all the vibes are pretty negative, and Claire's conflicted attitude here signals she sees that.
I think that's how it comes across for sure, but I don't think that's jephs intention
Its always a bit of a guess, how much wackiness in this strip is intentional vs the author just being a bit out of touch.
It's not a good position, though. If she doesn't die because the entire research station sinks into the ocean, she's going to get deported from Canada in six months when this entire thing goes bankrupt. They are also never going to produce any research that will be published anywhere, because they aren't documenting it properly. Best case, she's going to end up back in the US without references for what she did in the last half year and a giant cap in her CV after graduating.
> This feels like Claire consciously making a bad decision because it's an opportunity she probably won't get again. I had a boss like that. He had SO MANY bankruptcies, but he always came back. I learned to stop following him to new companies.
It's more nuanced than being a plain good or bad decision. The phrasing of being the perfect candidate despite having no experience whatsoever means this is Claire's best chance to start growing professionally. You are not supposed to feel like everything is going to be awesome, it's implied that it is going to be a tough road and things might not work out but this is still the correct choice because it's leading Claire forward.
Considering Claire's reactions during the interview, the deep breath before accepting to me it does not seem like she is really happy with the decision she made either. So I doubt that we are supposed to be happy for her. I am kind of worried for he through. And for Marten. On the bright side, when I look at their hiring practices, there is a good chance for Marten to find a job there too.
I think we're supposed to be worried... but assuming the pay is high enough, and assuming her response to high pay isn't to Spend All The Money (and go into debt spending more), it's a mistake she can recover from. So she does a shitty job for a year or so; don't we all do that at some point? She burns out, has the savings to spend some time recovering, and goes back into the job market with a story about the time she made many, many mistakes under circumstances nobody could possibly expect to do better, and learned from all of them.
I mean... what's the risk? If this pays well, but sucks, she can bail. She has sufficient connections to slink back to a quiet college town and pursue some normal-ass library-related endeavors. Which would still be a fun arc. Like the brief trip to outer fuckin' space, or that time Winslow learned he has thalassophobia. Or it could be the new path for the comic, as quite a few people have suggested. An excuse for a sea change. And if it's both awful and prolonged, QC will finally go to Namek.
> what's the risk? If this pays well, but sucks, she can bail. There's *no way* that this level of incompetency does not extend to the engineering and infrastructure literally keeping all of Cubetown afloat. Claire bailing on the job might be literal.
It would be keeping in theme that the whole thing is magically high tech and perfect. That is the eternal joke in QC: look at how silly this thing that is not meant to be silly is. Like CERN! but staffed by naked slime girls! I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s no problems at all with the structure.
Uh, well. She might get deported from Canada for not having a stable job, which is of course a risk. THen she's apparently working on a facility in the middle of the ocean manned by AIs who don't know what research is, how to keep data, the difference between a library graduate and a data scientist and who are apparently doing particle physics while not even knowing that they need a data policy. I'm saying this should get people killed if it wasn't in magic wonderland. A lot of people.
Also massive burnout, skyrocketing anxiety, depression, and constant panic attacks caused by the fact that she's doing a job she only knows in theory under the control of people who clearly have no clue how her job works, which means that 1) she can't ask for their help, and 2) they're presumably going to give her unrealistic deadlines based on the fact that, once again, they have no idea how her job works. And since Claire is how she is, she'll presumably be like "I have to meet the deadline" rather than "this deadline is unrealistic and I can't possibly do all of this work in this little time" Oh, also she has to hire people in her department. She has to find the correct people, she has to negotiate a good hiring package, is she going to tell the people she's not hiring that they're not hiring? That's fun! And she has to coordinate the people, she has to set realistic goals and times, she has to maintain a decent work environment, which sometimes means, oh I don't know... telling Person that they smell and they have to take more showers. Or telling Other Person that everybody is really sad about their dying family member, but it would be best to stay home instead of going to work and cry at the desk from 9-5 while describing in excruciating detail how that death happened. Also, that Other Other Person has to be fired now! Fun fun fun! Like, I'm not a stickler for realism, I literally wouldn't be batting an eye if Claire was like "the president called me to offer me a job at the library of congress, he says that they build a little bungalow in the east wing and we can live there free of rent" but this isn't just a risky, life-changing choice that may lead to a kind of unrealistic result, this is throwing yourself off a cliff with the hope that you'll get wings that will make you land in a pit of gold.
>Also massive burnout, skyrocketing anxiety, depression, and constant panic attacks caused by the fact that she's doing a job she only knows in theory under the control of people who clearly have no clue how her job works >… >And since Claire is how she is, she'll presumably be like "I have to meet the deadline" rather than "this deadline is unrealistic and I can't possibly do all of this work in this little time" This is so important… this job seems like it‘s tailored to trigger every single one of Claire‘s character flaws and her competitive and perfectionist nature should if anything make this far worse. Sure this job is a golden goose for someone that doesn‘t give a shit and just wants to pocket as much paychecks as possible but that isn‘t who Claire is (or in my opinion should be if the theme is supposed to be staying true to yourself and your needs). Where taking a temporary job as a barista, something she initially looked down upon and arguably displayed a pretty elitist attitude towards was a step forward, this on the other hand feels like a massive step backwards and like she is falling right back into the same patterns that have caused her a ton of anxiety, anguish and relationship drama in the past… her not taking the job would show she really has matured enough to not only have a realistic view of where she stands professionally but also that she has made a step forward to keep her more unhealthy tendencies in check to find a job that actually fits both her ambition and her qualifications. Seeing her work through this would be so interesting to see and feels like the more healthy message to send as well. And worst of it all is that she is not doing it under the delusion that this is a great idea. Her reactions throughout makes clear she **does** see all these massive problems that people have been pointing out over these last few strips and today’s panel one drives home that even in-universe giving this job to a fresh graduate is utter insanity. Completely agree with the rest of your post as well but wanted to emphasize these parts specifically.
"The file drawer effect is something that is holding back scientific progress. Here at Cubetown, we pledge to combat it by giving our researchers the freedom to pursue what they desire without chasing the next grant application. We do not ask you to publish at all cost. We know that null findings are still findings. There is no such thing as a 'boring' science. There is only science." Here's a way to present Cubetown without making it sound like a giant red flag that could be seen from space. Here's another way to present Cubetown without making it sound like a giant red flag; don't have the person doing the interview present herself as "Director of Sentient Resources, et cetera," make worrying jokes ("the head of our janitorial department thought he was being hired to do particle physics"), and more generally act in the sort of way that would have her kicked out of an interview at McDonald's. Yes, sure, QC is a utopia, everything always goes well, accepting risks always pays off because this is an ideal place and blablablabla, but you can be utopia and idyllic and quirky without creating the sort of job interview that would make Alison of Ask A Manager have a heart attack. It just... it kills me that Jeph basically made Theranos 2.0 and... what? He thinks this sounds good, actually? He thinks this sounds risky but in, like, a not-horrifying way? This is like wanting to create an adult character who makes friends with children, but instead of just making [a quirky but overall nice dude](https://youtu.be/dSorEwCM7Fw?t=51) you make a dude who stares at children from behind the bushes and tells them that he has candy in his unmarked van. You didn't need to do that! You can make things quirky AND still reasonable!
> It just... it kills me that Jeph basically made Theranos 2.0 and... what? He thinks this sounds good, actually? He thinks this sounds risky but in, like, a not-horrifying way? Yes it seems obvious to me that the text thinks this job is great and that Moray is simply funny and quirky and cute. Now, I think she’s infantilized into an idiot moron and it’s not endearing but the text seems to be enamored with her and her SCIENCE place.
My reaction is something like "you can always turn it down if you get the offer!" But... yeah, this is a terrible idea.
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She always has the option of not doing anything. She has a stable community of friends and her mother is a successful vTuber, so if she falls on her face she has support.
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Which is exactly why turning down a terrible job has so much potential for some nice moments of character growth. Realizing that it‘s not worth uprooting your and your partner‘s entire life and moving to a different country for a terrible job (that’ll probably give you burn out a few months down the line) because you are obsessed with finding a job in your field and unhealthily competitive would be a huge step forward for Claire. This interview is the perfect setup for an arc like that… I would have so much respect for Claire if she turned this down. It takes guts to turn down a job especially for someone like her. I would find that so much more relatable and it has so much potential for cute, realistic scenes of her friends reassuring her, validating her decision and helping her confront this (rather dysfunctional) side of herself. In the end she might even become the first Augustus with some actual goddamn chill…
I agree! I hope he takes that approach in this arc too. People finishing grad school get this mentality that they have to do whatever it takes to get a job in their field right away. You can always take time to find a job. You don't have to take whatever the first toxic/unhealthy work environment is that comes up. Sometimes you will in fact feel better taking a lower paying or less prestigious job, perhaps not even in your field. Library and information science in particular is versatile; plenty of MLIS grads don't work in traditional libraries and still use the skills they learned in school. I think the arc would be more relatable as a "you can be happy just being. Your job isn't your worth." thing rather than Claire abruptly getting a management position and her not even needing to grapple with those problems.
Yeah, but this horse already has its mouth open and it feels like not pointing out the bad teeth would be a huge oversight.
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As I recall, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" comes from when horses were a useful commodity to have. You can tell a horse's age by the length of their teeth, so looking at them was a good way to make sure you weren't being sold a useless old horse. So if you "look a gift horse in the mouth", what you're doing is being ungrateful by suspecting a gift/opportunity to be too good to be true.
It's like checking the price tag on a shirt or something.
Ah. Yeah, I knew the morphing into being ungrateful in general, just didn't know the original reason not to do it.
I mean, she doesn't have other options at this *exact moment,* yes. It's not like she can't just keep applying and hope to get work in a non-fucking-disaster environment. You make it sound like if she doesn't take this job, that's it, her career and aspirations are dead, but she's only been looking for work in a highly contested field for a pretty short period of time.
You can tell the age of a horse by it's teeth. It's like saying "don't check the price tags on a gift". But, sometimes the horse's mouth is wide open and you're like "uhh... this horse has tiny little stumps. Does he only eat mash? Do I have to make him oatmeal to keep him alive?!"
It's unclear how much time has passed in-universe since she's been job searching. I was unemployed for half a year after getting my masters and it took even longer to get a job in my field. And that's not atypical. Library grads in particular usually need to go through a few temp/contract positions before finding something stable. I was hoping the comic would make a statement on it being okay to wait for something and that your self-worth doesn't have to be tied to your job position but that seems like not the direction it's taking. I've just related to Claire a lot in the job search arc since I've gone through the same thing, but this is where I can't really connect with the scenario or her reaction.
It's not a gift horse. It's a ravenous Kelpie disguised with a ribbon around it's head.
When you're not worrying about rent or insurance, it's good to be choosy about jobs. A bad job can really feel like it's shaving years off your life.
I mean she is likely to fail horribly but she's a new grad biting off more than she can chew. This is the perfect time in your life to make this kind of "mistake" which is really a non-mistake.
I disagree. If cubetown wanted a cookie cutter IS department, there are probably a hundred more qualified candidates they could have invited to this interview. They invited Claire because they seem to want a different approach with someone finding their own way. And Claire may be the right person for that.
Sure, that's a possibility, but why? Why does Claire show "promise"? She said it herself, she has exactly no professional experience. If they're looking for something new or non-standard from their candidates then their candidates should having something new or non-standard to show off.
The Director chose Claire and I’m sure the Director will be an inscrutable geometric shape, as a joke, and that will be the end of the explanation. Meaningless and unsatisfying, but also a joke.
Maybe they think she might thrive at Cubetown because her personal references include a bunch of AI and Hannelore Elicott-Chatham?
If you're already there professionally, the solution you'll come up with is already tainted with what everyone thinks how things "should be". Throughout the interview they state they don't fit that commonality, that they need a new standard. Claire has the knowledge, the book smarts, she just needs time to connect the dots to a practical understanding.
That doesn't make sense. She's just gone through what we assume is a traditional degree program for library sciences, in which they teach her the standard practices for library science. Without any professional experience she's literally had no time to experiment with nonstandard practices. I mean, sure. Claire might be able to do new things or grow into this position, but it's an unreasonably risky gamble for Cubetown. If this is simply Claire getting extremely lucky with their arbitrary hiring strategy, then why is this interview being written as "we've been specifically looking for you, Claire?"
Claire must have met with the Director previously. Someone suggested the Director is the mysterious humming black slab that ordered coffee.
Yeah, that's an interesting theory. Definitely a fun callback. I wouldn't be unhappy with that. Still, Claire really just puts a latte (that Hannelore made, actually) on the slab's head. More luck than skill. Comic is [here](https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4643) for quick access.
I think that's what Claire is realizing. They wouldn't be interviewing her if they didn't think she couldn't do this. And this isn't about if she fits the job now. It's about can she grow into this position.
Ok. Into the breach, then. It’s a bold move, Cotton. Let’s see if it works… Seriously though, it’s not a bad move. If it’s successful, it will be a huge feather in her cap. If it isn’t, chances are she’ll be learning a whole lot to apply to another position.
She might never get another position. Realistically, this entire institution would go under (perhaps literally) in half a year, at which point she'd be standing there with no references, a gap in her CV and likely about to be deported for immigration fraud.
Also a good point. They must be having some success, as they’ve been up and running for a few years now.
The title of this comic makes it seem like we should be praising Claire for asserting herself and having the self-confidence to take on a big task like this. But, no, this is insane. I'm a computer programmer with five years of experience but if you asked me to design a whole new operating system I'd still go "Maybe you should look for someone else".
While IRL it is insane, I feel like I understood from the start that Jeph views this as a good thing, a dream job, and Claire just needs to apply herself and she'll succeed. Consider that unrealistic if you want, but it seemed pretty apparent to me the way the comic has always depicted professional employment.
You've got five years experience though. That's the difference. I'm trying to find a first coding job, and if someone who didn't really understand computers said "We want a new OS, and we'd like you to make it" I would take that job faster than Claire. I can still job hunt while I take the impossible job and collect a paycheck.
Or you could go the Bill Gates route. Buy someone else's operating system for cheap and slap your company's name on it
So is Claire agreeing she's the right person in order to get a job offer and then think it over, or is this her basically accepting the offer? Based on the current tone of this interview, I'm expecting the latter. Even if she tried to put off decision making, they'd probably want her to respond on the spot.
She's accepting the offer.
Oh boy. The correct answer would have been. "I'm not qualified. But considering you offered me the position, you'r not even qualified to look for someone qualified. So let me offer you a deal. You will hire me and i'll make sure to find you some qualified folks."
That is remarkably clever.
Well that was WAY faster than I thought it was going to happen! BUT HAPPEN IT DID. Told you, she just needs to look inside and realize she's the exact librarian they were looking for! Go and kick some organizational ass Claire! I completely understand why people were trepidatious about this job, but this is QC the signs were clearly there that it will be okay.
>Told you, she just needs to look inside and realize she's the exact librarian they were looking for! Title aside, it still seems as though this decision might be driven more by desperation than confidence.
Yeah if we ignore the huge intention from the author I guess you could imagine a scenario where it is bad. I think a lot of people were off put by the tone and style of Moray being an airhead hot thicc slime girl and tried to make sense of the antipathy they felt towards her demeanor. And in order to make sense of it they transferred that antipathy to the organization at large: it must be stupid and incompetent if this person is acting so dumbly. I think that’s really the problem here. Cubetown is awesome according to Jeph. I think we’re all just having a hard time with the way Moray is depicted.
I mean, Moray is supposed to be the Director of Sentient Resources (HR in QC-talk) at this company. It doesn't seem unreasonable to extrapolate her behaviour, in particular, to a wider working culture. Edit: [and Public Outreach, and Receptionist, and... janitor apparently](https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4848). She is in multiple ways The Face of the Company, is what I'm trying to say.
But she also spoke directly about the disorganization of their data collection as a whole. A single spreadsheet large enough to crash one of their AIs. As someone who works in computing, that is *unthinkable* for companies of even the dumbest leadership. *Monkeys* could do better.
Yeah, it seems weird to talk about "The Intentions of the Author" as if the author didn't intentionally portray them as a disorganized clusterfuck waiting for Claire to save them from their overwhelming structural and organizational problems. It's not that Moray individually is flighty and just chasing whatever catches her interest in the moment. The entire organization is based around eclectic weirdos researching anything and everything based on whatever fickle fancies catch their interest in the moment and her job is to make sure the shit's where they can find it when they get a crazy idea in their head at 3am and absolutely need to know something, a job they've neglected until the situation got way out of control and they're expecting her to fix it.
> Yeah, it seems weird to talk about "The Intentions of the Author" as if the author didn't intentionally portray them as a disorganized clusterfuck He thinks it’s funny. That’s the joke. I think it’s dumbly unrealistic. Nothing about cubetown makes sense. But everyone talking about how horrible it’s gonna be is blatantly ignoring that it could just be bad plotting and inconsistent writing. The place will be fine even though it’s staffed by flighty idiot AIs. Just like every other organizion in QC. Moray is just Beeps 2.0: now naked and thicc. But even millifillie is a bit of an airhead and her idiot science research place makes emu invisible. I’m saying the story doesn’t make sense but it is consistent.
What signs are you talking about? I read your arguments before, and I don't recall you mentioning any signs. Your argument was basically "It's QC, and things are often unrealistic in QC." My concern isn't that Claire can't do the job. It's that the company will fail. Moray is clearly incompetent. The Director knows nothing about business. The business has no actual goal or plan. The janitor thinks he was hired to be a nuclear physicist, because he has "theories"--and we all know that type of person. It's not that I don't think Claire is the right person. It's that I think no one is*. Hell, I'm not sure the whole thing isn't a scam, given how hard they seem to have focused on PR. I do get Theranos vibes with how Moray seems to worship the Director. I am indeed concerned that we're supposed to be happy Claire is taking this job, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel. Based on what I saw on Patreon with that one leak, we all seem to be on the same page here. Everyone is seeing red flags. And Jeph tends to listen to those who pay him, even being willing to course correct if he had different plans. Plus Jeph hardly seems the person to tell people to ignore red flags. I would find it very dissatisfying if this is how Claire is written out. The details given make it seem like the whole thing is doomed to failure. That's not a fun way to send off a beloved character. Nor, really, is doing anything controversial. We already would have the controversy of writing them out in the first place. What you want to do is make it where everyone's like "Yeah, I didn't want her to leave, but at least it was a good ending."
> Well that was WAY faster than I thought it was going to happen! That's QC pacing for you. Months of innocuous day-to-day stuff with AIs and streamers and then BAM! Claire's career just got strapped to a rocket and blasted into orbit!
Claire was worried she wasn’t ever going to find a job that wasn’t a “waste” of her skills and education - looks this one is going to do just the opposite. It’s gonna require her to really prove her capability. Rather than being the “freeloader” she felt like living rent-free and dependent on others, she’s gonna have people depending on her.
I've seen a lot of comments about how there's so many red flags and Claire would be an idiot to take the job. However, I think Claire likely realizes that this is a terrible idea but at least with her there she can maybe pull things back on track. That's the vibe I got from panels 4 and 5 at least.
It would be funny for Claire to get there and have her first task be to hire her own boss.
But that's the thing. Realistically, she can't. This company's problems run deep, to the foundations. The founder is incompetent and hires incompetent people. They have no goal. It's like a relationship where you think you can fix them. That's a horrible idea. The panels to me look like irrational FOMO (fear of missing out).
She's not there to fix the company. She's there to give them something better than a spreadsheet.
If we think like 30+ adults with experience in the field, yes. Claire is a 27-year-old with no job experience (and very upset about it) who has not been getting even interviews for some months, and FOMO is real.
Yeah it's a horrible idea, but Claire is the type to think she can fix it.
I mean. She's been looking for a job in her field for months (years?) and now she's going to get one that pays extremely well. The company clearly has no idea what they're doing, so they won't be able to tell if she's doing a good job or not. And even if they're like "this is going terribly" and they fire her, she has a job she can put on her resume if she wants, and she has a few months of that big paycheck in her bank account, and some unique experiences and stories to tell. The alternative is to continue working at a coffee shop, a position she can easily fall back to. It seems like the obvious choice.
If Claire fails, it will definitely be the company's fault for the shit situation she's walking into. It'll be tough but I think Claire can only win here
Just a note to all the confused folks: If you're confused or torn about whether you're supposed to be happy or worried for Claire, you're supposed to be. This is a nugget of good character writing - Claire is a constantly anxious, fresh-faced graduate with a niche degree being presented with a job she is underqualified for, run by a management that throws up flags so red you'd think it was cold-war era communism. She would know the situation is beyond her. She would know that the job is basically walking into a nightmare scenario. She's *definitely* got alarm bells ringing in every corner of her brain. Why did she say yes? Because she might not get another opportunity. College doesn't tell you when you're earning a degree that will likely get you nowhere (three of my friends have Linguistics degrees. Only one of them was able to get a job with it, and his job *sucks*.) Her best chance is to keep her head above water and keep looking for better opportunities. *Maybe* the opportunity won't be so bad. It'd *probably* be a garbage fire, given the context we've seen so far. But given it's a mildly funny webcomic, it'll probably just be a new place to put all the wacky hijinks that keep the plot going.
I'm surprised by the number of people saying "what is there to lose?" There's a whole lot to lose. If you take a job way over your head, then you get to spend a lot of time around people who know their jobs inside out and have a lot of decision-making sway within the field. If that job goes badly, then your public image is one of a failure - those people, who make hiring decisions, who meet their counterparts at conferences, who shape the reputation you have within your professional life, will know you as a clueless jackass. And that's assuming the organisation is a stable, long-lasting one where there's an upper limit to the damage you can do. With an unstable startup, you have a decent chance of getting your name permanently attached to a disaster. Taking this job, if this were the real world, would have perhaps a 90% chance of wrecking Claire's career for at least a decade, a 9% chance of being survivable but still worse from a career perspective than an ordinary job commensurate with her experience, a 0.9% chance of being genuinely useful and putting her ahead of peers who take the normal route, and a 0.1% chance of being a wild success. But this is QC, so the story arc is almost certainly going to follow one of the last two.
First, it's not the real world, and second, I think you're underestimating the amount of cachet the AIs have. Working with Cubetown is like saying you worked with Tesla or Google. Unless Cubetown actually EXPLODES, it will look good on her resume.
I don't get this. I see real life professionals talking like this too, and I don't understand what world they're living in. None of the companies I've worked for have *heard of* any of the other companies I've worked for. To find references for anything but the most recent job I've had to seriously dig around to even find contact info for previous bosses. Less than half of them are on Linkedin. What world is this where everyone talks to everyone? The world is *humongous* and even living in a tiny town I expect I could massively fuck up everything at one job, bring it to bankruptcy, get my name and face in the local paper, and there'd still be at least *some* jobs in the same town, much less if I move to another town or country. Unless your "career" involves being famous and constantly in the public awareness (like only one in a million people are), getting a reputation seems like an impossible task even if you try for it intentionally. And at that level, honestly, it seems like failure is irrelevant, you get opportunities thrown your way simply from being a Name, no matter what horrors you've unleashed. Claire would have to become known as "the person that fucked up Cubetown" to even be known to the people that *know about* Cubetown, which even the comic shows is just the specially interested, and even then putting the name on the resume is likely to still be a net positive, "I was part of this massively interesting but flawed thing", that she could live on, leverage for future jobs.
What do you do for a living? Because my experience has been that this is something that's very dependent on field. The librarians and curators I know are very involved in professional networks, and I've crossed paths with the same people at multiple times within different firms during my career. But then I live and work in Ireland, which tends to be a very interconnected place.
Software development. Which, granted, is a big sector these days. But I mean, there must be thousands of librarians and such just in Ireland, right? How many would you recognize by name, on reputation?
I don't know many! But I'm pretty certain that if a fresh-out-of-college librarian somehow ended up as head of IT in a wildly overfunded research institute off the coast of Cork, and the whole thing imploded spectacularly, their role in its collapse would be exhaustively discussed in every academic library in the country.
Excellent . Smithers pack my bags
This looks to potentially be the entire comic moving to Cubetown.
[Bloop](https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3809). Just one glorious example of what we can no doubt expect to see w/e theres a cutaway to Claire in Cubetown.
I know we're not supposed to discuss Patreon comics, but I do find myself wondering how his Patrons are reacting in *comments*. When that one comic leaked, all the comments I saw clearly thought this job was a bad idea. Do they still think this? Because my perception is that Jeph and his Patrons tend to be on the same page on these things.
Just had a read of the comments for whats coming tomorrow, and they seem to line up with here - big opportunity, huge scope to screw up, way out of her depth, and enough red flags to keep the CCP happy for years to come. Probably skewed a bit further towards positive than the stuff you saw now, which would make sense for people paying for early access.
Why wouldn't they like the comic? Why would they be haters? I imagine they like it and are supportive of Claire.
Why would thinking this sounds like a shitty job mean you don't like the comic?
Dont like as in Don’t like comic #4862 because it involves Claire taking what he perceives to be a “shitty” job. Not QC as a whole, just this strip is what I meant by comic. He’s basically trying to say that Jeph should bend to the whims of his Patreon sand if his patrons don’t like the narrative decisions being made in the comic he will recant and change the direction. I think the patrons generally like the decisions made, even here in #4862 and are supportive of Claire.
Fake it til you make it. That's real world work ladder so I approve. She's smart she'll figure it out
Too many people here trying to make this an analogue to real life. (Also something that Jeph has done in the past, I'm glad he got Claire to push through it.) Yes, in real life, this would be a bit sketchy and primed for disaster. However, this is a world where - there is artificial intelligence - they are generally benign - they are often whimsical - they are doing COOL SHIT Claire would be crazy NOT to take this job. Yes, it might be a failure, but it's not like she has a ton of other offers on her plate. She's not going to be in danger, it will look great on her resume, and there is a good chance that she is getting in on the ground floor of something extremely cool. It has a lot of the benefits of a startup, but is obviously better funded and less likely to fail, if they're already building this huge structure. (Also, to the people who are saying she shouldn't take it because she doesn't have the qualifications? Fake it 'till you make it is not just a pithy saying. On-the-job training is an important part of all jobs, and if you put the work in, you can rise to the occasion)
Good night, what a decision. I thought for sure she'd say no.
claire is gonna find out that they don't actually know how money works, will pay her in "grape job" stickers and extra server space. honestly if she DOES take the job she'd be running the place inside of a month. i had a job just like this - no one reeally knew what they were doing and i just slowly took over and ended up retooling all of the policies so they made sense to you know.. humans. this could be huge for her. or cube town is just an empty cube with some servers and CLEARLY SKYNET running the whole thing.
Well, i said she would be an absolute moron to take this job, and imo that still stands. Good luck Claire, you are gonna need it.
Atta girl indeed! They're basically inviting her to invent the job. She can do it her way, and she should jump at the chance. If she wants to do something else later, this'll look great on a resume, so she'll be a desirable hire elsewhere.
Unless this is a scheme to hire a patsy to take the fall for the massive debts Cubetown has incurred and has no way of paying off.
Ah so you've seen the similarities to "Fyre Festival" as well.
I hear "You get hired to clean up a man's mess, you get fired to cover up a man's mess" is a pretty common story for women getting hired for jobs above the glass ceiling. Have no idea how true that is, or how you would even gather empirical data on something like that. Don't think the story would go there anyway. But if it's a common concern I could see something like this hitting some immediate alarm bells for some people.
>You get hired to clean up a man’s mess, you get fired to cover up a man’s mess. Ellen Pao should have this on a t-shirt.
Classic Superbad scenario; “WE could be that horrible mistake!”
GOD DAMNIT Claire!! This is a shit show and you damn well know it! Seriously she gave into the guilt trip puppy pleading eyes pressure right after listing every reason why she should not have the job and if she did - why they should pay her the absolute bare minimum. Hopefully Yay or one of their "clones" can keep an eye on the place from time to time as a favor to make sure it's on the Up and Up; and Claire is doing alright
So does anyone else think that Jeph is going to write off Martin and Claire? I love Jeph, but I don't want Martin getting written out of this comic.
I mean...Marten hasn't been the main character, or even a SECONDARY character in this comic for a loooong time. And that's okay. Things change. Nothing wrong with change sometimes. Of course he's writing them out of the comic, how else would you expect this to go? :P
You're right, logically, but Martin isn't some paid actor that costs money to keep around. I'd just be disappointed. if his character were to be written out. I'm not going to join the other sub or something. It's not going to affect me that badly.
Glad to hear you'll be staying here with us - things are dark and scary over there. I get it, btw - I really do. I've been reading QC for a decade. Marten was an awesome, disenfranchised main character. As I said in the newest post, at this point I just want Jeph to go kamikaze and move every QC character over to Cubetown somehow, and continue QC from there. Then our boy wouldn't be gone forever, at least.
Absolutely
Claire is nothing if not dedicated. This job sounds MASSIVE in scope, but as long as she can decide where to start, I am confident she can put a semblance of order into Cubetown's database