So what I meant to talk about: my fleeting minor experience with the video game industry!
I was reading this article and felt compelled to be a voice in things because hey we all want to be heard, right?
ANYHOO. My story is one that begins as a clueless nerd driven to figure out what the hell to do after obtaining an English degree and was neck deep in a teaching program he wasn't 100% sold on (not the program's fault, just wasn't sure it's what he wanted to do*). Freshly out of a job to focus on said program, he decided to take a semester off and in that time... landed a contract job testing video games!
Oh but let's rewind oh-so-slightly. I applied to the job, and got a response, and a "we like you, you're in, but have nothing for you right now. In the MEANTIME hows about doing customer service for us?" I accepted because I wanted to look eager and stuff. What I encountered was a one-week gig that to this day was the worst job of my life.
Yes. Let's start there. Doing customer service for a video game company...
I arrived late on my first day so I missed a good chunk of training, so to some degree it could very well be my own damn fault. BUT THIS SAID, I had two remarkable experiences that day that almost shooed me away from the industry entirely.
First event needs this introduction: I've worked in customer service. I've been lower-level leadership in a phone room. Being available is basically priority one in that position. So when I had questions, I went to the guy who trained me with those questions. First time he said "you can just reach me on chat too." I thought he was just throwing that out there as if I were uncomfortable in the interaction that just happened. I preferred in-person so I did it again, and this time it was "Just use chat if you have questions." So... this guy who was two to three seats away from me... chat with him? This made no sense to me. It seemed impersonal as hell and just awkward. Like... why is this even a problem? Either way consumes your time. Perhaps I should've been clued into this when we were instructed to "sound as much like a robot as possible" when chatting with customers (prefab chat messages and the like were used abundantly), but I didn't think that included us to each other.
The second thing was being yelled at by another manager. To this day I don't know that manager's name, and he doesn't know mine. Call me a prissy friss all day (I am one fuck off), but 1) halfway decent managers met people. Everyone. I was late. I fucked up. Fine. But getting yelled at by, basically, a complete fucking stranger is shitty. Full stop. 2) That's shitty management. Chewing someone out on day one when I was told by their recruiter about the pressing need for agents on phones and chat was about the most counterproductive thing imaginable. Like... I think I see why you're not keeping people. 3) He laid into me HARD. Like, steaming pissed face like I ruined the company. What I did was minor, easily correctable, and didn't upset much of anyone's day (except his, surprise... for a few minutes).
That was day one of working in the games industry for me. "I don't want to talk to you in person" and "Fuck you you piece of shit for making a minor mistake on your first day."
I drove home in tears seeing, essentially, the most tertiary and ill-regarded department of any company treat its very own like absolute shit. "God..." I thought. "I have four more days of this."
The second day is when I really noticed aboslutely no one in that room talked to each other. They did their work, took their assigned breaks, came back in, and resumed working. Not only were we to act like robots to customers... we were kinda routed toward functioning like them as well. On day 3, as I was heading out, I thought I'd try something weird...
"Have a good night everyone!"
Some, not all, necks turned and looked at me. The expression was one of "what the fuck did you just fart?" It lasted roughly a second, and then they turned back toward their screens.
There's really nothing else to go into on this job. It sucked. The end.
I was called up that Saturday, though, saying they liked my work and wanted me to come back. I promptly said no. They asked if I just wanted to hear about QA jobs, and I ALMOST said no to that because of how fucked their CS department was, but I said yes. I didn't expect to hear back anyway. Several CS people were in the same boat just waiting for a QA spot to open to get them out of that room. I figured they'd get first stab and I was so disheartened anyway.
Less than a month later they had a QA gig for me. I almost didn't accept. If this company ran its customer service room like that, what the hell was QA like? I'd heard the stories and that week made me think they were all true. But also, it was a separate department, maybe things go differently there? Also it's QA on a video game. You'd be doing THE JOB. You'd be PAID TO PLAY GAMES. But also... I felt like I'd validate this company by going to do work for them again. That wasn't cool either.
I accepted the spot. They won. And what followed was a job that I enjoyed immensely but had to embrace some core flaws. We can talk about that one later, I suppose, as this is pretty long by itself.
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