DA journal entry #1

Now I know how they feel


Ever since I was a little kid I remember going home from school and watching the news. Lots of kids would go home to watch cartoons, but my father wanted me to be aware on how cruel our country can be so he would have me watch. While watching this throughout my childhood I was overwhelmed to see how many people brought guns to work and killed or fatally wounded their co-workers, how much pain they caused people. Throughout the years this question always boggled my mind. Why would anyone bring a gun to work and hurt or even kill people? This plagued me for about 10 years up until now. I work in an office environment, believe it or not I’m a video game tester for a respectable company, I work on the technical side of games for the PlayStation 2 making sure that all games meet Sony’s standards. I’m not an employee of the company but I work for them through a Temp agency. I’ve been working there for 1 1/2 years; during this time I’ve seen people come and go. And this is why that question doesn’t pelage me anymore.

Back in April ’03 I was hired on as a Quality Assurance Analyst (Game Tester). Because of my past testing experience I was one of the team in no time and worked as hard as I could. The company started to grow and expand hiring more temps then there was budget. After 6 months (the length of my contract) the company is supposed to decide whether to Hire me on full time or not. When asked about my contract my boss told me I’m now on a “Day to Day” contact because of the recent hiring freeze. During the 6 months a temp who was hired on 1 week before me was hired on full time to be sent to Seattle to work with development, which was fine. But when the extra testes came that’s when the Bullshit started. While on the team we started with 3 tested and grew from there. Soon after my boss spoke with me about my contract a few extra testers were hired on to make our team size to about 17. Our team has a cretin hierarchy, 1 lead tester and 1 asst. lead. When the Asst. lead was sent to Seattle I thought for sure that I would be promoted because of my experience and my knowledge of the game we were testing. I was wrong. Some one with 3 years testing experience got the asst lead position witch aggravated me but I was still cool with it. After 2 months the newly appointed asst lead left for a better position at a (in my opinion) better game company. During the time that the temps were hired 1 got hired on that was a real good friend of my boss. He has no experience with the game or game testing whatsoever. But he got the Asst lead before me (but still a Temp). Witch made me real angry and disappointed. After the original asst lead returned I was sure that the Bosses friend would be demoted. But he wasn’t, they kept him as a second asst lead witch gave him the right to boss me around, so he did which dig a deeper hole of hatred toward the company my bosses.
About 4 months pass and the project now getting to its tail end and people are getting laid off or being moved to other projects, when asked if I was going to be laid off the response was “No way your such a good asset to us were going to keep you”. To my surprise the team went from about 23 back to 3 with the original lead, asst lead and me. After about 1 month my boss came up to me informed me that I was being laid off and offer to move me out of the Testing department and in to customer service to “Salvage Me for later”. Do this would reset my current contract and would have to do the 6-month period all over again. My boss informed me that the chance of me being hired on full time as a CSR was real good. So I took the interview, which went real well, she said she would call me as soon as possible. She also said that it would be most like that I was going to get laid off on a Friday and I could start on that fallowing Monday. Well she never called so I was laid off with out a back up plan. So I collected unemployment for 2 months until they called me and wanted me to work on the sequel. So I went into the Temp agency and an signed a new contract stating that I’m “picking up where I left off” so the company can hire me when ever they feel like so I don’t have to redo the 6-month original contract. So 2 weeks went buy and found out during this time that about 6 people that were temps got hired on. But those 6 were hired on as temps after me.

The company asked me to write a Training document since I know so much about the game, which in the end was 45 pages long, I told myself to write the best damn doc they had ever seen and it was it was so good in fact that the Doc that I wrote is now their standard format in general doc writing. That document won a Tester Achievement award. So for sure I thought I was in the next open position. Every time a fulltime tester leaves a temp can take their spot. 4 full timers left and 4 temps took their spot, not me. Again I am wrong about importance. So 2 months into the sequel project and I get to have a review. During this review I asked my boss about me being hired on full time, to my surprise my boss told me that since I didn’t take the CS position my contract was reset to the original 6-month contract, so now I’m watching allot of people who got hired on after me get hired on Full time before me. I told my boss that I did in deed take the CS position and I have the emails to prove it, he turned to me and said, “We’ll see”. So I’m here got shot down to be an asst lead twice got laid off to get another position that never was even for me only to get hired back on to get “No you have to do the mandatory 6- months again thing” again and watch people who get into fights with other people get hired on before me. I never once complained or started anything with any one. On top of that if our sequel game fails the SCEA submission I get laid off again. Because I test the technical standards of a game to make sure that the game adheres to the TRC and TRC is everything. Well now I know how those people feel who take guns to work and want to hurt those who hurt them, because every time I see that person (the ones who got hired on before me), I wish they were in pain I wish it was me who was hired on and not them. I have a vary bad infected toe and a diabetic wife that need medical attention, but I cant provide it because I make to little money to give to a medical plan. And the company I work for knows it. After this sequel is over I know it’s the “don’t let the door hit you on the way out deal”. It is expected because its a gaming company witch is cut throat in nature, but alls I’m saying is that people who don’t deserve the job are getting it and people like me who work hard and keep to it get the shaft. Its people like me who after so long cant take it anymore and resort to drastic measures, go so far as killing people. After a while I started thinking that way, thinking how can I kill these people and get away with it, then I think of my Wife for hum I love so vary much. Thinking if I do this she would probably slip into a diabetic coma and die, something I would never want to happen. I’m going to do what I have been doing for the remaining life cycle of this sequel project. Keep checking the game to see if it is in violation of any TRC, and when the time comes to pick up resume and throw it out to any game company that will take it and keep liven life.