Speaking of Crunch. A question.

oXYnary

Since it is mismanagement sometimes. Do you then have periods where you are twiddling your thumbs (or ebaying, or visiting here) waiting for more work?

If so, can you go seek more work on your own? Also if you keep yourself busy during these slow times, can you bring that up during crunch as far as having more leeway to leave earlier?

Or is it more the point of given work, and then the manager gets back to you a week later with "Opps, wrong asset! My bad, can you get this new one done today?"

SouL

If there is work... then there is work and you need to get it done.
If there is no work... then you find other means to keep yourself busy.

oXYnary

Can't you seek your own work? Like in those jobs where they ask "are you a self starter"? Or is it they expect you to be a headless chicken?

b1ll

I used to own at flash games.

oXYnary

thats nice.

MPBirdman

I'm working in QA.. we don't have the time to twiddle thumbs during crunch, since there's always something else to be tested.

JKim3

I don't think you can build up a bank of pre-emptive crunch hours. That would be lame. People would probably just tell you to fuck off.

Soul's words are pretty much it.

Slayerjerman

Every job has down time and crunch time. Some days (or weeks) its like OMFG busy-busy. Other times is OMFG zzzzzzzzz...

But most jobs/employers expect you to keep yourself busy if you finish a task and have nothing else to do. Busy with other work, not surfing that is.

danr

if you run out of work in crunch time, there are usually plenty of other people around you with too much still to do ... help out where you can.

If no-one wants your help for fear of breaking stuff at a crucial point, make coffee or something. Go to the all night petrol-station for bottles of coke. Tidy the place up. There's nothing more infuriating than someone dicking about while you're tearing your hair out.

"Waiting for work" is bad management of your own time. Get up and find something.

oXYnary

^^words of wisdom.^^

ElysiumGX

What other work could there be? Like, what do concept artists do during crunch? You telling me people get paid an assload more than me just to go grab bottles of coke, make coffee, and play flash games?

Scott Ruggels

If there is down time? I read soemthing technical, or practice Photoshop, or update LJ< or something.

Scott

danr

elysiumgx - every artist, every coder, every scripter, designer, producer, tester, whatever, is paid to be part of a team. While the team is struggling, every member - regardless of what they get paid - should be helping out.

the claim "i don't get paid enough for this shit!" is common enough ... but the claim "i get paid too much to do this shit!" should be met with a big solid punch to the face

ElysiumGX

So even if you're just a character modeler, you can be expected to so some texturing, animating, map editing, and so on? That means companies look for talent that can do one thing well, and everything else when they need to. It's good to know.

sumguy

download porn. play games until they tell you to stop. scream in the producers face until they tell you to go home. Break your computer. pretend your mouse is a nerf ball and throw it at your creative directors head. spam email people you don't know in the company with limecat.net.

The time will pass............ quickly.....

danr

ElysiumGX - did i say that? Help out where you CAN

Prs-Phil

They get payed assloads more (esspecially in the US) because they know their stuff. So even if "they" from time to time go out to get some coke that isnt their main task.

On Tuesday I got another 3 days to finish a char before on Monday I should start on a different project. I went to the producer and said I can spend my time making every pixel on texture sit perfect wich nobody would really notice anyway or I can call it a wrap and hand it to the animator and start on something new.
That was a good idea because the new project is very thightly planned and I´m saving myself alot of hassel in the future. When this post is posted I´ll go back to texturing and by Friday I can (if I don´t laze around to much ) start with the second char on my list.

Ryno

I've taken to creating generic environment textures in my down time, and have single-handedly built up the company's texture library quite substantially. I actually kind of enjoy the work, and it's actually pretty useful for the other artists.

Josh_Singh

during down time at work I usually find a contest or something to enter. It's a good time to work on portfolio stuff. Though if anyone asks your making a tutorial for the company on the Max normal mapping workflow.

Daz

There's always masturbation.

oXYnary

So I take it ghost or Daz, that making anything for the benefit of the company at your locations is worthless for you and them in the downtime?

I mean that they are disorganized or what not that anything you create isn't used anyways, or that they don't even bother to give you a kudos for your fortitude?

Daz

Apologies for the flippancy :-)

No, it isn't worthless at all. I honestly haven't experienced true 'downtime' for years. I get moved around the studio and even company a lot. If I'm done on one project they pack me off to another. If there's any *serious* between project downtime to be had? Then I'm outta there. Not at work. That's how it is for me.

When I used to have downtime, I'd model my own stuff or work on gaining new skills. Both of which are of benefit to the company.

Eric Chadwick

I spend slow time learning new tools & techniques. Or editing our help docs. Or demoing new engine features. Or taking some of the workload off another artist. There's always something constructive to do.

Definitely can't bank slow hours against crunch ones. Although I have seen an incentive that kinda worked... crunch overtime hours were counted towards paid time off after the project finished. It worked for a little while, until it seemed like people were abusing it... staying late because they wanted to rather than it was asked of them.

But that's a real slippery slope there. How much pressure is unspoken? You can bet it's a lot, depending on how sneaky a manager tries to be. Personally, I always try to be real up-front about it.

But it's difficult. Some artists take a real ownership of their work, and want to work beyond the schedule (even when they had a hand in determining it) because they don't want their name on an asset unless it is completely top-notch. Others are like Prs-Phil.

About working on another pay job in your down-time, this is mostly forbidden in the company contract you sign (although people do it anyway, and rarely get caught). Usually something like "you must get approval before working for someone else" even if it is on your own time outside work hours. Usually it's "Work For Hire," the company owns everything you make during company time. And everything you make if you use their equipment or software, regardless of the time of day.

If you work on your home computer, you may have to get permission to do paid work for someone else, if the work is considered competition. Depends on how draconian your company is.

OK, another long post by me. Sorry.

FatAssasin

There's always more to learn in this industry. Personally, if there's no company work to do I spend my time researching new techniques, plugins or scripts, polishing old work, or writing new scripts myself to save time in the future.

There's really always something productive to do. If you're just playing games or surfing the web, you're wasting a valuable opportunity to improve your skills and become more valuable to the company.

JKim3

The company where I work has overtime hours turned to paid vacation. It does have to be approved, though. Like, because of this, it seems like there's attentioned paid to scheduling to minimize everyone having huge amounts of overtime (although, there have been people who take a full month of vacation off with their overtime bank). People here don't seem to abuse it because the office is pretty empty come 6 o'clock. Only people here are usually the people that need to be.

Asthane

EricChadwick: I don't speak from experience, but I've heard it from multiple sources that most non-compete clauses are not enforcable, depending on the laws of the state they're in. Of course, it's usually a case of being able to work after you've left a company, but I seriously doubt they could take any legal action on an artist doing (paid) freelance work off hours-- especially if you freelance to a company in another state.

Eric Chadwick

Yeah, in my experience it's not about strict legality, more about wanting to stay employed and promotable, and avoid being black-listed by other companies. It's a small world, word gets around surprisingly fast.

But the work for hire thing has been enforced in court, IIRC.