Fulfilling Job?
polycounter lvl 14
All right, so I had this one coming for a long time. It's really important for me and I assume it really should be for the others too.at least for some
There's always time when you're looking for a job. A time when you are considering opportunities. Some want to advance with their career, while others are looking to land their first gig. Whatever it is, the goal is to find a job that you feel completely happy about. I once heared, that happines is when you happily rush to work in the morning, and then happily leave it to rush back home in the evening. But what does it take to become happy about your job?
The funny/sad thing about finding a fitting job is that you only know what you realy want and, most importnatly, what you don't, only given it a try. There are just so many things to it. Most of them I had no idea about at first. And I'm sure there are a whole lot of mistakes to be repeated. Situations you could've coped much better with if you ever saw them coming.And there are probably things you were used to taking for granted in one company, that turn out to be messsed up in the other and you are already wishing things back.
So, basicaly I want this thread to be about what makes a job in the video industry a fulfilling one for you. What makes you not want to look for another job. Ever. I even dare to ask what makes a job so great that you can come home after work and not want to do any art, since you feel completely and fully expressed/fulfilled.I heared a fella from Blizzard say such a thing. And I remeber MoP saying that he's "been living his dream". Thats really great and I'm really happy for those guys. But the funny thing is that I can't imagine what it feels like actually...
So I tried to sit down and figure out what makes some people think like that, but then I thought why think if I could ask=)))))
I'll try to sum all the answers in a while. Create a little statstics of what people love or expect about their industry jobs and what they don't. Maybe even some great employee-friendly companies that create all the nescessery conditions, that some of you might be so kind to name.
So, please, speak up. I would love to hear your thoughts, opinions, facts or whatever else you have to offer. Be it positive or negative. It's really veryvery important for me.
I'll be coming with my view on the subject in a little while...it just that it comes out kinda hard right now...don't know why...=)
There's always time when you're looking for a job. A time when you are considering opportunities. Some want to advance with their career, while others are looking to land their first gig. Whatever it is, the goal is to find a job that you feel completely happy about. I once heared, that happines is when you happily rush to work in the morning, and then happily leave it to rush back home in the evening. But what does it take to become happy about your job?
The funny/sad thing about finding a fitting job is that you only know what you realy want and, most importnatly, what you don't, only given it a try. There are just so many things to it. Most of them I had no idea about at first. And I'm sure there are a whole lot of mistakes to be repeated. Situations you could've coped much better with if you ever saw them coming.And there are probably things you were used to taking for granted in one company, that turn out to be messsed up in the other and you are already wishing things back.
So, basicaly I want this thread to be about what makes a job in the video industry a fulfilling one for you. What makes you not want to look for another job. Ever. I even dare to ask what makes a job so great that you can come home after work and not want to do any art, since you feel completely and fully expressed/fulfilled.I heared a fella from Blizzard say such a thing. And I remeber MoP saying that he's "been living his dream". Thats really great and I'm really happy for those guys. But the funny thing is that I can't imagine what it feels like actually...
So I tried to sit down and figure out what makes some people think like that, but then I thought why think if I could ask=)))))
I'll try to sum all the answers in a while. Create a little statstics of what people love or expect about their industry jobs and what they don't. Maybe even some great employee-friendly companies that create all the nescessery conditions, that some of you might be so kind to name.
So, please, speak up. I would love to hear your thoughts, opinions, facts or whatever else you have to offer. Be it positive or negative. It's really veryvery important for me.
I'll be coming with my view on the subject in a little while...it just that it comes out kinda hard right now...don't know why...=)
Replies
Atmosphere....
And , the people you get to work with.
If you have a fun loving group to get through the crunch with, then your laughing .. ..
I work for a small indie dev been around for 10 years now and we've only put out one game.. but we are still plugging along. I could look for another job but I'm still a noob although I've been promoted and I have lots to learn still but I love going to work, I do however wish everyone around me took as much pride and initiative in their work as I feel I do at my office, so many of them seem jaded and I think a few of them would be surprised at their options if the office suddenly closed like so many great studios have done in the last few years.
I think it's a personal outlook thing. You either are a half glass full or a glass half empty kinda person. Either way, you'll have crappy days at an awesome job too..
Looking forwards to what others think though. This is just my .5 cents.
The dream, I think, is making games that you'd want to play, isn't it? Fulfilling some kind of childhood fantasy.
The Team is most important to me. Being surrounded with like minded people, people who you feed off of creatively and like enough to have a beer with after work. That's what makes a place fulfilling. At the end of the day, it's business and you're making a product that needs to sell x amount of copies. Just like any other place. You need to get enough out of the work to scratch the creative itch...but you also need to have enough respect and confidence in/from your teammates to get the work done. Knowing you can go home and the place won't burn down.
You could work on any title, for any company, but if you don't get on with your team and respect their work...it's not going to be a good place to be for you
How many people actually get multiple interviews like that a year?
And if its crunch time and your working 80+ hrs a week it just might kill you
I've been on 3 in the last month, would of been more but the holidays kind of slowed things down. Granted, when I go into job hunt mode it's a 50+ hour a week job in itself.
If you want to hear about bad pay and long hours look into TV, the armpit of the entertainment industry.
If I could make art for games in those conditions, that would obviously be a pretty major bonus. But honestly, if such a job existed that met all those other criteria, I'd be all over it. I doubt such places even exist though, or that they'd ever need to hire more people. I can't think think of a single job (other than oddball ones like paperback writer or something) that would be like that.
what makes it so?
well, for me:
the people: Everyone at work is cool. I have some great conversations and the feel of the company as a whole is very comfortable. awesome crowd.
the work: I've been put on stuff that I really enjoy doing, and this makes me happy and fulfilled. I don't think I can think of a project I'd rather be on right now.
the potential: it seems like there's a lot of opportunity for growth there as well, so it's even more incentive to stick around and do my best. and on the flip-side: the company has a bright future, and one that I'm extremely happy to be a part of and contribute to.
I think in your case first and foremost you need to get a job doing SOMETHING THAT YOU LIKE TO DO. it might not be the #1 thing on your list that you'd like to be doing at the time, but god damn make sure that whatever it is you enjoy doing it if at all possible. everything past that is bonus.
and fly_soup: places like that exist. go for it man! don't give up.
oh, and please have passion. there's nothing worse than a teammate that doesn't give a shit about your project in my opinion.
Being able to work on game art for me is not something I just thought ' wow that would be cool ' its something I knew I would end up doing no matter how long it took me to get good enough, once I had made up my mind.
And being able to get there and reach that dream is extremely fulfilling.
Im yet to be able to work on a game that I ultimately would love to play... hopefully that will be changing soon!
Once, browsing through Rollings Stones Magazines' best rock quotations I stumbled upon something, that I consider golden. I unfortunately don't remeber whom It belongs to, but it's still great. It went something like this:
"Don't play music, that you want to play. Play music that you want to listen to."
I really think that it's applicable to anything in life and in other words would mean, that when you yourself are your best customer, you'd always care about the result, you'd be motivated enough to put everything you've got into it, and could always enjoy the outcome both as the creator and as the consumer. So basically yes - make games you'd love to play.
But. There's a major issue that arose for me yeasterday once going through "R* SanDiego Wives" thread. Read Dead Revolver was looking so great to me. It's pretty much the kind of game I would've loved to work on. As are most of R* games. Well fuckit, I gotta be honest I was considering R* the kind of company I would've loved to work for. Intially guided by a will to do games I'd love to play. But then it hit me, that someone sometimes would be wery happy to use your love to save some money. Some R*SD employee comments were so pitifull, that it really made me feel bad. They guy was talking about how he loves his job and the game they are making, so he just hopes things get back to normal.
This thing they are doing there. It's their baby. Not managements, but theirs. They feel for it and they love it to much to abandon it, nevermind what. And crap, that differs with what I replied in the original thread but, having thought about I would've done the same thing. Just sit and work.=(
So that lead to a reasonable question, that your infinite love for what you do could be the reason you end up in a pretty miserable situation. I don't want to feel indifferent for my projects and I probably couldn't abandon one even if I was severely mistreated...That would mean I am making a game I would love to play...But does that make ofr a fulfilling job? Or a happy person?
I would actually love to hear your thoughts on how to avoid that kinds of situations, since it really has put do-the-games-you-love concept on its knees for me.
And even though I'd still roll with it no matter what I will consider a tonn of other factors know.
Btw. I worked with people who hardly loved what they made. I guess working on a factory would be somewhat similar. I knew only 2 guys over there, from the whole art team who actually played the game we were making(and they didn't enjoy it). As you can imagine, the coefficient of not giving a shit about work was over 9000.
So yes the team is of great importance. Not only it should be interested in what you do, but also as proffesional as possible. I've been through a pretty sad situation when your lead/management obviously is a lousy one, so I had to just ignore them and do what I know was good for the project, since they didn't know or even care. So this obviously led to a conflict where I just tried to make better games and could back up all my actions with some solid arguments, while more important people were more worried about keeping their face. And overruled stuff just because they could.
So I really wish for a team full of great people with each and everyone I could look up to and learn alot from them. Yeah. That would seem like a dream job for me. Just great guys who love games and game art as much as I do.
But. From a person who's looking for work point of view. Is there any chance of knowing? Or is it just a lottery? especially when you live somewhere overseas and can't just drop by to check things out...What say you?how to know that the company your applying to has the right people and atmosphere for you?
Space for professional growth. Thats just to important If want to feel like a good artist. And I amreally interested about how good companies handle it.
Since the place I woked for had this ussue upside down. That means the better I worked the shitier work I got. And that easily explainable. I really put all I've got into my work, so after a month or two at the studio I taught myself to work really fast, expecting to get some interesting stuff to do. I thought I was sort of proving myself to be worthy. And here comes the fun part. Since I was doing so good, I was to make all the crashstate LoD models for every unit ready at that time. And there was a shit ton of them. It's a boring routine job that had to be done and since I did it like 4 times faster then everyone else it was all just given to me. So you can imagine me feeling like a machine for month to go doing nothing but LoD. Managements decision is very logical, but it just makes you wish you didn't work so good or for a second.=(
So yeah. Room for growth and your need for self-development being recognized by the management. I've seen management talking all sorts of stuff about how company cares about you, but I hardly bought that gestapo crap anymore. The copmany did something for you only when it actully is for the company, but they will made it look like they care about you so much, so you would feel like you owe them something.
So the question is, if there are companies that actually recognise their employees professional needs as an issue worthy of taking into account when making desicions? How that could be organised(if it could)?
And most of all how can you know when applying for a job that at this company you'll a have a chance to develop yourself?
A life. Thats also nice to have next to a videogame job. A crunch is fine. I'd even gladly stay for extra hours when I feel like it in non crunch time. But being forced to take extra hours for more than a couple of weeks would be very bad. I don't like being forced at all, so that could become a problem.
I'm glad to see all your replies guys.) It's also nice to see that most of you consider your buddies to be of utmost importance.)
so...I hope I didn't forget something.....and that pretty much be my opinioin for now
- do games that you love
- have a professional and interested crew(that includes managers by the way)
- have a need for professional growth recognized
- have a life