EFFORTPOST Polish developer apologises following criticism for naked sauna job requirement

Great drama out of Poland as an upstart indie game developer apparently forces his all female staff to go in the sauna naked with him. It's so important to him that he has HR list it as a requirement on job listings:

But what was that sauna requirement even for? We know it's a game dev studio, so they must've been making a game, right? Some kind of tycoon/business sim type thing where you run a sauna?

Thanks to the outraged redditors at /r/g*mernews, we can pick up from the barrage of unfunny puns and other reddit tier shit that the studio was working on

a new groundbreaking game: mix of Life is Strange (Narrative ), Final Fantasy (story, characters ), Heart of Darkness (adventure levels with dog ), The Turyst (exploration and questing) and THPS2 (tricks and specials).” The “Main character will be a saunamaster and will be in charge of performing in various saunas (smells, music, choreography, everything)”

So they were working on absolute kino. As is usually the case some foid just had to ruin it for everyone

In a now viral LinkedIn exchange, Spectrum Studio creative director Jacek Piórkowski approached narrative designer and writer Aleksandra Wolna about working for his studio. Wolna replied to state Piórkowski had previously approached her about a job, and she had declined as it required her to agree to mandatory and reportedly naked sauna sessions.

On a separate LinkedIn thread, Piórkowski said this mandate "is not about getting naked", but rather experiencing different kinds of saunas. The developer said the "wetness" level inside certain saunas can get very high, and if someone was using a towel it "may result with fungal infection", which is why there are times participants are recommended to go in nude.

"You had a lot of time to prove me wrong. To write [a] scene in [a] sauna without being in sauna... Instead, we are wasting time on social media," Piorkowski replied. "My Narrative girls ?? had to go to [the] sauna with me to come up with [an] amazing script for proof of concept... Technically, it's possible to do it without it, but I absolutely adore the fact that they could use their sauna experience to write awesome scenes.

It's impossible to write fiction without actually doing the thing it describes so his explanations make perfect sense. Libtard woman owned

As the drama brew around him he quickly cucked out:

Piórkowski has now released a full statement regarding Spectrum Studio's sauna mandate. In a video shared on the studio's LinkedIn page, he apologised to Wolna. "I didn't intend to embarrass, hurt, offend, or show disrespect towards Ms Wolna. My choice of words was bad. I didn't state my intentions clearly. I didn't explain why taking a sauna is so important and practically essential for me," he said (thank you to Magdalena Kluj for translating).

"I wasn't expecting that it would be received as pretentious and cause negative connotations." He noted his use of "narrative girls" was wrong, and meant only to convey the narrative team at that time was all female.

Piórkowski further spoke of how "passionate" he is about the sauna experience. "In recruiting, I took an iron rule about talking saunas and people's openness to this experience," he stated. "I am looking for people equally passionate about the culture of taking saunas and open to experiences that are part of that culture. I believe that personal experience of a subject helps with understanding the sauna culture."

Piórkowski continued: "I agree that the words I chose could be perceived that it was encouraging to take a sauna session with the company boss; it was not my intention. I proposed and am still proposing candidates to [experience] the sauna session female only and male only, as long it reflects the real sauna experience."

Full video is on https://www.linkedin.com/company/spectrum-studios-games/; I'm a shut in NEET loser and have no need for a Linkedin account so I won't repost it cause I can't see it

Other redditors were being typical reddit smug and dismissive to each other over this

-2 | What I wanna know, is what if one of them said "nah. Not going in the sauna, email me the details." If they were then reprimanded, okay, I can understand the outrage. But can you weaklings stop just enduring uncomfortable scenarios and then rushing to social media to complain about them? Tell people no for fricks sake.

Do you know what the word mandatory means?

Yeah it's a word that spineless people cower at, because they couldn't imagine themselves just telling their boss "no."

"Heya boss, I understand this is mandatory, but I'm not comfortable in a sauna setting. I'm sure you can forward me the details from it and I can give feedback where appropriate."

Just... grow up.

Just risk losing your job in a shitty low paying branch of a industry in a hiring crisis because your boss is a weird butt neighbor. Sure

No, no. The person setting up mandatory Sauna meetings is in the wrong here not the person maybe or maybe not standing up against it. It should never be needed to stand up to a mandatory Sauna meeting because Sauna meetings aren't appropiate.

Yeah yeah... except the real world is filled with moronic, overstepping bosses that will pull all sorts of nonsense bullshit. And they get away with it so often, because their employees have no spine, and freak the frick out over the smallest confrontation.

Being an expat in Finland, I don't see how this is weird. Simply a cultural thing here.

This is not normal in Poland at all. A job requirement for a woman to be naked in a sauna with her boss is nothing short of sexual assault

Polacks are backward prudish imbeciles who cannot appreciate the culture of sitting in a hot room with your peepee and balls out

-13 | It's a cultural thing. Nothing weird about it.

Headline writer had the perfect opportunity to say the studio was "in hot water", and I am a little disappointed that they didn't take it.

Except saunas are steam not hot water

You sure it's not smoke?

34 | Isn't steam just very hot water though...

-14 | It's the gasious form of water

This redditor is already mad at the people he imagines he will disagree with once they say the wrong things:

Watch as some "anti-woke" grifter picks up this story and attempts to somehow defend this as a normal behavior, either by saying that the women fully consented to it or even going on about "double-standards" and that nobody would bat an eye if it was a female director requesting the same of her male employees.

This redditor and others like him immediately conjure a conspiracy straight out of pornhub:

215 | Nah, this is freak-butt behavior. I would have that sauna checked for hidden cameras immediately, no way is this not just a ploy to film naked women.

Oh yeah there's a hidden camera in there 200%.

This redditor has the kind of faith in people from the tech world that I can't offer after the whole SBF s*x cult thing

Yeah, while the message does have a whole neckbeardy setup to it, it's also written in a tone that comes across as both non-ironic and straight enough that i can sincerely believe that this guy has just some really, really, really terrible common sense and doesn't realize he comes across as a new-age esque "visionary" with more quirks than skills going to him and as a creep, abuser-in-the-making at worst.

It wouldn't be reddit if it didn't have a bunch of self-hating mayo Americans coughing it up to being the r-slurred burger brain being unable to comprehend the sophisticated European mind Courtesy of /r/LinusTechTips:

lol Americans and their fear of bodies. This is normal in half or Europe

I'm not defending “mandatory” or “require”, and I know the industry is pretty gross when men don't stand up for women in the workplace, but:

“We're doing a game about Sauna Sessions. I don't want to waste my time to explain what's the difference between Ruska Bania or Dry Sauna. You have to feel it.” He then offered to “even organize female only event”.

It would be interesting to see what the rest of the talking points were from someone who isn't a games journ*list.

Edit: “Piorkowski wrote in another post that they are able to organize female-only events, which they already did.” - it is interesting that the original article seems to suggest it was offered after the fact, but this article says they already did female-only events. Curious that was left out, but TechSpot isn't typically a “mecha of accuracy”, so we'll see.

It would be interesting to see what the rest of the talking points were from someone who isn't a games journ*list.

I'm sorry if this is harsh, but frick this shit you said specifically. I know you said "I'm not defending" but it doesn't matter what his reasoning is. Mandatory nudity at a workplace is fricking disgusting from every single angle. You shouldn't need to see anything else.

This is the biggest “America is the only country” statement I've ever heard an American say. I doubt this would have made the news in their country, especially after the article said: “He then offered to “even organize female only event”.”

Yeah molesting women in the workforce is so common in Poland we report it between the price of barley and delays of the TLK. Also believing the obvious copout

“Mandatory nudity at a workplace is fricking disgusting from every single angle.”

I don't recall reading in the article that nudity was mandatory. Can you find that for me? Unless you're just trolling? Which is unhelpful. Since you weren't there your anger seems biased and inaccurate.

The second screenshot of his posts in the article is devoted to him arguing why you have to be naked.

Please actually read the screenshot though. It doesn't mandate nudity. It outlines why nudity is preferred in different types of saunas.

Splitting hairs a bit. It's a mandatory trip to a sauna that he then argues greatly that you should be naked for. It's still a boss telling an employee that they definitely have to go to a sauna that they are expected to be naked in.

Which is why I specifically used the words “It would be interesting to see what the rest of the talking points were from someone who isn't a games journ*list.”

You are assuming from a photo, someone's intent. Using words they didn't use. That's a reach I can't make.

This slapfight continues but it's so read it here

In another comment chain we've got (a slapfight about the belittling of women through the usage of the word "girls" )[https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1djxw2m/game_dev_requiring_mandatory_sauna_sessions_with/l9f1jjr/?context=8].

Why does he call his writing team his “narrative girls”

Strong chance they write narratives and are all girls.

Girls as in underage? Because otherwise they would be called women… also, why the frick all the people hired to write narratives are women?? If that's not the case, then only women who were hired to write the narratives were invited to go to the sauna with this creep?

Is it me or are people actually trying to defend this peepeehead?

Yeah frick this guy for giving too many women jobs

When I hang out with the boys, I'm also referring to men.

What? Are you referring to your work colleagues as boys?

That's actually not all that uncommon, yes.

People are purposefully missing the point of an employer referring to women employees as “girls” as a way to infantilise them. People also don't understand the affects of infantilisation of women in society, which leads to behaviours such as the one described in the title of this post. And we wonder why this behaviour is so prevalent :) just look at the downmarseys I received. In my comment you replied to, I was trying to understand what the other person even tried to say, ie, are they saying they often “hang out with their work colleagues while referring to them as boys”? Is he the employer? Does he have any power over these men? Nope. Its relevance to this conversation is little but it is done to normalise calling adult women as girls because it's easier to assert control over women this way. :)

Watch me get downmarseys and a stream of irrelevant comments.

The smileys is what really got me with this one

You're getting down voted because you're refusing to acknowledge that there are some cultures that are different from your own. I to come from a culture where men and women (adults)refer to themselves and others as boys/girls.

If I tell you that this is infantilising and it leads to behaviour such as this one, your reply is saying “but that's normal in those cultures”? All my other questions also get ignored because of course they would be, because no one has any answers to them.

There is also a thread over on /r/LinkedInLunatics but it has no drama, only some dramatard trying to bait but getting nothing but downmarseys

Finishing up going back to the game developer lady in question, if you look at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aleksandra-wolna-6736a1227_gamedev-activity-7181246336204226560-0C_G she's just lost her job and is probably fishing for attention to get some eyeballs on her resume. Apparently she was never even his employee, she just got him to pay for some writing course and he tried to get her entangled with the weird final fantasy sauna gooner shit. Gotta get that bag somehow I guess