An employee at Hawken developer Meteor Entertainment had only one real gripe about her job: Their office featured a poster of a scantily-clad lady mechanic, and it bugged her to death. She says her boss, Meteor CEO Mark Long, loved the poster. She did not.
So what did she do? As she describes in a new guest-post at The Hawkeye Initiative website, she pulled a clever prank. First, she convinced her friend artist Sam Kirk to make a second poster, this one featuring a scantily clad dude (named, of course, “Bro-sie the Riveter”). They snuck into the office and hung it up, unsure of what the reaction would be. Their boss was surprised by the prank poster, and shortly after seeing it, tapped the prankster on the shoulder and, according to her, said:
“That was a brilliant prank. You called me on exactly the bullshit I need to be called on. I put up pictures of half-naked girls around the office all the time and I never think about it. I’m taking you and Sam to lunch. And after that, we’re going to hang both prints, side by side.”
Ha, well played. You can see the side-by-side prints up top, and read the full story over at The Hawkeye Initiative.
Comments
43 responses to “How A Poster Of A Sexy Dude Helped One Game Developer Make A Point”
Hahahaha. That’s a great result! She’s awesome and great that the boss could accept that he was wrong and adjusted his position 🙂
…perception that all games industry management are massive cock’n’balls: slightly reduced.
Frankly, I have no issue with either poster. I’m a little surprised this was even an issue, but I’m glad the guy took it in stride.
The way the employee handled it was awesome aswell.
She didnt make a big hairy deal out of it, she just played a kind hearted prank to prove a point.
Great stuff.
I wouldn’t like having the guy picture all around my workplace. I wouldn’t hate it, I could still do my job, but it would be a bit yuck.
But I’m totally cool with the chick picture. So I think it’s only fair that if you have one, you have the other.
Something for everyone!
Cool boss. Both posters are fine.
Way to use some guy’s insecurities about homosexuality to make a point. Everyone knows spanners are the gayest of all tools.
I believe the point she was trying to make was that the woman had a lack of safety equipment (i.e. helmet). That was rectified, and now everyone is happy.
She was probably bothered that the mix is all wrong, and that poster woman won’t be able to weld a chuffing thing with a flame that big. It’s like Bonfire Night, too much acetylene.
Hahaha
I feel like a socket wrench would have been gayer.
IM cool with both posters, I wonder if the posters will start dating??
http://i.imgur.com/hUNAo.jpg
As they say, ‘sex sells’.
I was worried that it would end poorly and she’d get fired for messing with his stuff. Good that it ended okay.
I no longer want to live on this planet anymore.
That guys face is kinda creepy…
Why are you looking at his face when you should be clearly staring at his amazing abs?
lower…
Got to love a good set of knees
Lower … >:-(
Loooooove them feet
LOWER..! >:-O
He’s got nice smooth soles?
Don’t look at his junk. Don’t look at his junk. Don’t look at his junk.
That’s pretty cool. Although that dude looks creepy as hell.
Next Hawken patch to include updated crotch-physics.
There’s something off about the boss’ response. He reads like the perfect end to a story, as opposed to what people sound like in real life.
My boss never takes me out to lunch, and I call him on his bullshit at least once a week.
Guess I’m just unappreciated. *sigh*
Bearded dude with a hairless body is all a bit wrong.
Hey! Looks like she shaved her legs. Equality, dood. :p
I agree. Chest needs more hair. Pubic hair needs to poke out from those undies.
If you’re going to draw a semi-naked guy, may as well get it right.
The girl needs to show more armpit hair too. Like I said, may as well get it right.
Well hung!
Indeed. Good to hear the both posters were hung on the wall together.
Alls well that ends well
Haha, classic. Totally get the point she was trying to make, but really – the girl would look just as ridiculous standing there wearing nothing but underwear and a helmet xD
Haha, awesome. Well played
The problem is guys cant work on cars in their underwear. They need protective clothing. Its not realistic at all.
However, chicks are quite capable of wearing skimpy outfits when fixing cars. Ive seen Megan Fox in Transformers.
Reminds me of a recent Penny Arcade.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/04/24
Wait… What’s the point here?
*Man puts up picture of woman.
*Woman puts up picture of man.
*Man admits he was wrong and that she was right.
I understand that the poster made her feel uncomfortable but there’s nothing here that says her boss would have treated her differently if she’d put one up for herself. Is the issue here that he was a pig that was saved by fun-loving feminism? Is she trying to say that to have a sexualised woman, you must provide a sexualised man as well? Is she trying to say that sexualising ANYONE is wrong? If so, she used a sexualised man to prove her point… I just don’t get the story. We’re supposed to side with her – obviously – but i’m not sure he’s done anything wrong.
The point is he ignored the fact that it bothered her until she flipped the situation by putting up an equivalent poster of a male character. He then saw her point and agreed both posters would stay up, side by side. Now there is equality.
Obviously there’s nothing wrong with the content or spirit of the posters, else both would be taken down.
He basically looks like http://archer.wikia.com/wiki/Boris got fit for a photoshoot. Oh Archer.
There are things I agree with, and things i don’t.
– The boss shouldn’t be subjecting everyone in the office to his personal taste. I hate it when my boss does that, it’s annoying. It is a shared space, particularly a shared working space, so it is in the boss’ best interest to have everyone comfortable and happy with the space in order to maximise productivity (isn’t that his job anyway?).
– Men are allowed to like looking at women, we are attracted to them physically. It doesn’t mean that we are degrading women by looking at attractive women. I think there is a BIG difference between objectifying someone in a demeaning way and appreciating someone’s beauty and confusing the two confuses the discussion and lumps things that aren’t negative in with things that are.
– The poster is obviously made as a reference (bordering on parody), of retro style pin ups so it’s ‘sexualisation’ isn’t actually a flat out display, it’s a reference to a bygone era and it’s aesthetic style. This reference isn’t evidence of any underlying malicious or devious intent to undermine women, it’s made as a juxtaposition between the futuristic sci fi setting of the game and the retro style pin ups that accompanied WW2 fighter planes and hot rods etc. The fact that this isn’t taken into account could be seen as an oversight that doesn’t take context into account and skew the argument.
– Also there is definitely some ‘false equivalence’ going on, the male has much less clothes on compared to the female.
I reckon some top-end of the shaft should be peeking out, to compensate for the excessive underboob.