Jolt Country

Argh, the company that I work for announced their plans today to sell of our division. Goddammit. Looks like they have three months to see what happens and if it doesn't sell we're going down like Spaceman Spiff crashing into a hostile alien world.

On the other hand, we at least got some warning (well, some of us did -- 500 people were layed off worldwide) and the printers all work. Honk, honk.

That's sucks, man. I was actually laid off (immediately) today, too. Oh, well, something will come up, I bet.

Jesus Christ. Sorry to hear that, man. I would have been totally unprepared if they had let us go today. I have a shitload of code that I've written that I need to get transfered to a CD. There's also no official policy when it comes to who owns the books that this place buys for us, so I need to start bringing those home. I feel for you, man. If there was the slightest inclination that this place would be hiring (and, er, you wanted to move) I'd put in a good word for you. Several, in fact.

If I can do anything to help, just let me know.

Guys, you are depressing me. Can we have some Yumiko?

The unfortunate thing is that at 25, I really have no applicable skillz and no college degree or anything. I'm thinking I might get a bartending license or something. Who knows...

k. roo wrote:Guys, you are depressing me. Can we have some Yumiko?

In all seriousness, if you told us a story about the Russians next door it would make this disaster of a day seem a little less disasterific. Have they done anything of note as of late? I'm so depressed I can't even work gruel or borscht or whatever they eat into this message in a decent manner.

Heh, sorry to hear that guys. My current gig runs out in April last I heard, but it's a temp agency, so there's a decent chance they'll have something else lined up pretty quick. Still, maybe we can all move into a shanty together or something.

Oh, and Roody, be careful with that whole bartending thing. I know two people with bartending licences: one is up to his ass in untaxed income, the other was living with my friend's parents for three months desperately trying to find work before moving back to bumfuck, Indiana to bus tables or something. So there's some bit of luck involved, at least in the city.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:In all seriousness, if you told us a story about the Russians next door it would make this disaster of a day seem a little less disasterific. Have they done anything of note as of late? I'm so depressed I can't even work gruel or borscht or whatever they eat into this message in a decent manner.

The gruelling thing is, they aren't next door. They live right here. We used to have borschtsch for dinner together. That is, until the lady of the house tried to play me for a sucker and manipulate me into paying for her upcoming offspring (I'm simplifying here, for my benefit.) After that I found that I had a hard time to be overly lenient on the job where she is supposed to work under my supervision. Which in turn didn't agree well with her husband, who, truth be told otherwise doesn't care about much of anything at all. So let this be a lesson to you, girl and boys: don't share a house with people you work with. IT DOSENT WOKR! Especially if those people spent their formative years in what passed for a communist society, and now are so fucking repressed that they don't even suspect that they might be subpar in the whole interpersonal communication department.

Fortunately, she quit work last week, on account of the fact that she is now twice as round as she was thin before. Bog spasibo, tovarishtsh! One headache less, more time to read Jaycee!

They (we?) have a russian Guest tonight, and they have *gasp* genuine *wink* Ukrainian Vodka!! and they want me to join teh fun!! as a conciliatory gesture, perhaps, I mean, you try to figure out people who never fucking talk until prodded with a cattle, er, prod.

Glenfiddich at night alone at work, or Real? Ukrainian? Vodka with a bunch of creeps. What'll it be, I wonder.

Sorry for ranting, Roody's thing really bums me out.

Ah, things won't be so bad for me. I'm just worrying that I'll let myself get in a bad spot and get too picky about where I want to work once those unemployment checks start coming in.

But yeah, that vodka should be nice. My friend brought me over some vodka from Russia. I couldn't believe how smooth it was; you can see how they drink the stuff like water.

*** OUT OF WORK? ***
*** WANT TO BECOME A VIGILANTE? ***
*** HAVE VAN WILL TRAVEL ***
*** LOOKING FOR PEOPLE FREE FROM COMMITMENT ***
*** WILL TRAIN INTERESTED PARTIES ***
*** NEEDED: PRETTY BOY, LEADER, CRAZY GUY, LATINO GUY, REPORTER LADY ***
*** PLEASE RESPOND ASAP ***

ATEAMINFO@hotmail.com

Heh, heh.

OK, I'll see you guys in a couple days. I'm off to Houston, be back Sunday.

Yeah, that was pretty great. I made a couple people read the whole thread just so they could come across that last post.
I'm off to La Crosse, WI, for the weekend. I figure why not drive around while I can.

Robb send me your resume and I will pass it to my buddy Ilan in North Miami Beach. I think I might have told you about his offer and though you thought you might not fit the bill you may be able to adapt to that job versus unemployment. On the other hand if you were to save all your cash and keep yourself on a schedule you could probably start and finish writing a new game in your "time off". But that will take plenty of self discipline Grasshopper.

What I want to know is: What are you doing about it? Look at this as a chance to move on, rather than a terrible, terrible loss. You never really liked colorado anyway, except for a few Solid Citizens. Let's look for work. You should be sending in your CV to countless games-companies, all across the US. Why aren't you?

Get your but in gear. you know what happened last time, at the expense of my capitols.

don't get me wrong; I felt really bad for you, yaddah yaddah, it's a terrible thing, and the tech-centre marketó[ is going out, true. But find a job in the industry you've wanted, or waste another 5 years. Get it.

Seriously, I want a report of what you've been doing to apply to these companies. I don't care if they're newly formed or
f[r] hugely famous; any employment will get you into the iterative circle of becoming a Game Designer, and <sniff> selling text games.

I'm sorry if that sounded heartless, but really, get your arse in gear while you have the chance; don't go for another bleeding-heart BIOS-dumping job.

BIOS-dump, sure.

But do it for the Xbox.

I have to say, when all is said and done I'm rather fortunate that I still have a semblance of job security, 3 1/2 years at Time Warner, our stock price having gone down fairly dramatically (with the rest of the stock market) and we're still hiring...

-LG

danzaland wrote:Robb send me your resume and I will pass it to my buddy Ilan in North Miami Beach. I think I might have told you about his offer and though you thought you might not fit the bill you may be able to adapt to that job versus unemployment. On the other hand if you were to save all your cash and keep yourself on a schedule you could probably start and finish writing a new game in your "time off". But that will take plenty of self discipline Grasshopper.

I'm pretty close to having one done now, so hopefully I won't be out on the streets before I finish it. I hope to have it in beta test by March 3rd.

I will definitely keep your offer in mind. The thing is, I don't know a soul in Florida. But yeah, it's definitely better than getting on unemployment for any length of time.

I've spoken to one of my bosses today, and what I got from the conversation was that while he is pretty much unfireable, if something doesn't work out with Samsung and this other unnamed potential suitor, the guys the company hired to facilitate the sale will be snaking around. I don't think we quite have to interview for our jobs ala Office Space, but it's not much better.

The thing is, there's been four layoffs since I've worked here. Yeah, the economy sucks, but am I really leading any kind of life worth leading constantly in the shadow of the atom bomb?

Lex wrote:What I want to know is: What are you doing about it? Look at this as a chance to move on, rather than a terrible, terrible loss. You never really liked colorado anyway, except for a few Solid Citizens. Let's look for work. You should be sending in your CV to countless games-companies, all across the US. Why aren't you?

Starting today... I shall be! Actually, if you guys want to proofread my resume, I'll link to it before I send it out.

Get your but in gear. you know what happened last time, at the expense of my capitols. don't get me wrong; I felt really bad for you, yaddah yaddah, it's a terrible thing, and the tech-centre marketó[ is going out, true. But find a job in the industry you've wanted, or waste another 5 years. Get it.

Again, an excellent point. I've known for ten years that I've wanted to make video games. Time to seriously apply myself towards that goal.

Idol Minds (the guys that did the Cool Boarders games) is based on Louisville, Colorado and they have three positions open according to Gamasutra. I could physically drop off a resume and CD this week in fact. The job being advertised on Gamasutra means that they are probably flooded with applications, but at the same time who knows how many people that are in the game industry want to move to Colorado? So I'll give it a shot.

Hello.

I am glad I didn't come on too strong there; I didn't mean to sound so very nasty, but I really don't want you to enter another job where you're going to be wishing you were inthe games' industry; I just want you to doo it, y'knwo?

Ach. Cold han ds.

Lex wrote:Hello.
I am glad I didn't come on too strong there; I didn't mean to sound so very nasty, but I really don't want you to enter another job where you're going to be wishing you were inthe games' industry; I just want you to doo it, y'knwo?

I didn't take it in a nasty manner at all. At 28, I really ought to be getting my life in order. After going to the wedding of one of my best buds, I'll admit that the thought of having an actual woman play a significant role in my life and putting together a real future is something that I'd like to have. How on earth am I going to be able to do that if I am spending 8 hours writing code at work for profit and then another five or six writing code at home for fun? I can't live like that any longer. (Well, until I finish this current work-in-progress, natch.) It's severely impacting the quality of my life.

No, instead, I am going to try to make my hobby my job. I am also going to try to get a date this weekend, so when you wake up at whatever hour you wake up on Sunday you won't find me on ICQ blathering non-sensible comments written largely in caps like you have for two of the last three weekends as it's still my late late Saturday night and I've gone mad writing long_desc entries.

WOO HOO, go Robb!

Oh, and regarding said date please see my post in Best Of base Topic "Eew" page 3. Except replace the words music with games, and replace the Beatles with Zork*.

-LG
*This is not to say that Jonsey does in fact dislike Zork it is only being used as an example. Thank you, please drive through.