And I thought *I* had it bad because all we have in the building is Charbucks. There's a Carabu down the street, but it's like 25F out, and very windy. So, I suffer through with charbucks venti tripple skim latte's at $4.46 a pop.
Broadway Café's coffee is better than Starbucks' (and there's like 4 Starbucks within two blocks of here, and they're all always busy!) and as long as there's cream and sugar it's decent. It's also only $1 for a large, which is equivalent to (I think) a "venti" in Starbucksese.
It's not a matter of the subject matter... I like the sorts of programming I'm doing. I don't like the environment so much. A lot of pressure, a lot of broken promises, and a lot more stress than I was led to believe there would be.
The main issue is just that we keep on being thrust into unrealistic production deadlines which keep us in permanent crunch mode, same reason that EA employees currently have a class-action lawsuit pending against their company. My wrists suck, I'm always tired and drained, and I'm just plain feeling blah about the whole situation.
Also, it feels like people are bearing down on me extra-hard because I'm writing the graphics code (of course), and for a lot of what we're doing on the cellphone game means writing a new animation system. Right now Antoine and James seem to think that we could just add some new capabilities to the old animation system and I'm wasting time by writing a new one, but the old animation system was crap and designed for totally different requirements, and so adding on the features we need would take just as long and be even more bloated (and on cellphones, every byte counts).
The old animation system was also a pain in the ass to put characters into, while the new one is way simpler. So that's more time saved, which Antoine still thinks is wasted because we're not using his code anymore.
Overall I'm just not liking my job much right now.
Right now we're working on a Brew version for cellphones. Don't really want to talk about it though.
Oh, no, I meant that since you hadn't been writing much lately, maybe you got a DS yourself and were addicted to the games (Feel The Magic XY/XX, etc...)
"I like the sorts of programming I'm doing. I don't like the environment so much. A lot of pressure, a lot of broken promises, and a lot more stress than I was led to believe there would be.
The main issue is just that we keep on being thrust into unrealistic production deadlines which keep us in permanent crunch mode, same reason that EA employees currently have a class-action lawsuit pending against their company. My wrists suck, I'm always tired and drained, and I'm just plain feeling blah about the whole situation."
Wow, do I ever feel for you there. And I wish I could say it gets better.. But after the 2nd or 3rd project, it'll feel like a perpetual nightmare. Like night time that never ends. Once we started working such late hours that we ended up sleeping there until morning, it was time to get out. I understand that the video games industry moves at an extremely fast pace, but the deadlines are beyond outrageous. You have to beat the other guy's product to market, afterall..
The money was good. But I'll be damned if the stress involved wasn't a real killer. I miss working for employers with an "It'll be done when it's done" mentality.
The money isn't that good, either. I'm in the lower 10th earning percentile for software engineers in NYC (according to salary.com, anyway). Entry-level programmers with a bachelor's degree make twice as much as me working for financial institutions, and they only have to work bankers' hours.
Granted, I'm making a livable wage, but it could still be a lot better, with a lot less crap.
I'm in the lower 10th earning percentile for software engineers in NYC
I expect that this will quickly change over the next few years. I haven't glanced through salary dot com, but I'd be surprised if most of the people in the lower 10th percentile weren't almost straight out of college. Unless the economy tanks, I'd be willing to wager that you'll be earning over twice what you are now in five years.
Why? Video games are one of the highest-grossing entertainment industries right now (even beating out the movie industry now) but yet video game programmers are basically at the lowest earning ranks of all programmers, and always have been. After adjusting for cost of living I'm making about half of what I was making as a tech temp in Albuquerque, and even then I was being paid pretty poorly.
Comments
Wow, I hope I never get indicted for anything that makes me test that thory.
The main issue is just that we keep on being thrust into unrealistic production deadlines which keep us in permanent crunch mode, same reason that EA employees currently have a class-action lawsuit pending against their company. My wrists suck, I'm always tired and drained, and I'm just plain feeling blah about the whole situation.
Also, it feels like people are bearing down on me extra-hard because I'm writing the graphics code (of course), and for a lot of what we're doing on the cellphone game means writing a new animation system. Right now Antoine and James seem to think that we could just add some new capabilities to the old animation system and I'm wasting time by writing a new one, but the old animation system was crap and designed for totally different requirements, and so adding on the features we need would take just as long and be even more bloated (and on cellphones, every byte counts).
The old animation system was also a pain in the ass to put characters into, while the new one is way simpler. So that's more time saved, which Antoine still thinks is wasted because we're not using his code anymore.
Overall I'm just not liking my job much right now.
Oh, no, I meant that since you hadn't been writing much lately, maybe you got a DS yourself and were addicted to the games (Feel The Magic XY/XX, etc...)
The main issue is just that we keep on being thrust into unrealistic production deadlines which keep us in permanent crunch mode, same reason that EA employees currently have a class-action lawsuit pending against their company. My wrists suck, I'm always tired and drained, and I'm just plain feeling blah about the whole situation."
Wow, do I ever feel for you there. And I wish I could say it gets better.. But after the 2nd or 3rd project, it'll feel like a perpetual nightmare. Like night time that never ends. Once we started working such late hours that we ended up sleeping there until morning, it was time to get out. I understand that the video games industry moves at an extremely fast pace, but the deadlines are beyond outrageous. You have to beat the other guy's product to market, afterall..
The money was good. But I'll be damned if the stress involved wasn't a real killer. I miss working for employers with an "It'll be done when it's done" mentality.
Granted, I'm making a livable wage, but it could still be a lot better, with a lot less crap.
I expect that this will quickly change over the next few years. I haven't glanced through salary dot com, but I'd be surprised if most of the people in the lower 10th percentile weren't almost straight out of college. Unless the economy tanks, I'd be willing to wager that you'll be earning over twice what you are now in five years.