With such a stark barrier to entry, why would I spend much time on there? Also, at the beginning of my career I got much more value from "explaining articles", and much less from ultra-specific answers.
Later on when I had more experience, I wanted to give back:
- try to answer -> "you need cred"
- okay, upvote -> "you need cred"
- try to comment -> "you need cred"
- Ask a question -> "Duplicate. You should RT(Free)M we built."
In my experience, offices have simply been judgemental, time wasting, lacking in proper equipment/tooling, and quite frankly just uncomfortable. Granted, it's been a lot of mid-size enterprise/corporate places, but it's been backed up by a lot of middle/upper management that don't bother to think through why such criticism would come their way.
I'm all in favor of a GOOD office to come to, but until then I'm spending no more time on the property than required. Our white-collar culture and urban areas are too dysfunctional for hybrid and remote options to not be normalized. (In the US) If we're going to be "right-to-work", then give us the right to be remote.
Yep, gotta agree. I picked up and moved 500 miles because of money. Sure, ATX is a tech hub and all that jazz. I moved from a place where top-end after 10 years was $80k-100k/yr, and there were few jobs to pick from. I moved and got 2.5x's my old salary.
Now I'm looking at starting my own thing and moving back. Why? Because money. (real estate) Yes, family would be close again. But when comparable homes are $600k vs. $275k...c'mon, I'm ready for these tech hubs to not be as necessary.
I voted company culture, but that's not the whole picture.
I was laid off about a month ago (2 weeks before Christmas; "non-performance business-related decision"), but I was job searching anyway. Why? Because nobody freakin' listened, and my position wasn't taken seriously. Call it strategy misalignment, bad culture, whatever.
After joining, I learned they had 4 CIOs within 3 years. As a mid/sr. level engineer, I was teaching senior management about my position while also learning about it myself. I still don't know how many they laid off during the annual review period, but it was at least several to a couple dozen.
I'm done. I know now why so many retire early to farms, baking, wood working, homesteading, etc. Corporate can have their BS.
I like this one. Reminds me of how I felt moving into software engineering growing up in south Louisiana. I only moved to ATX, and yet others' bewilderment is my amusement.
I'm just a country-bumkin managing to build and secure software, but uh...someone wants to push me around without having the money to do so? Let 'em, my kind are stubborn anyway.
What I left out of my question is my desire and admiration for automotive sports. It's so strange to me that I have no problem admiring to one day build a track car, and waste tires, fuel, and endless hours of amateur manufacturing effort all in the name of "fun". Sure, I'll learn many skills, but it's primarily for fun.
So I'm left with--how do I resolve the cognitive dissonance that "cars" are okay, but "games" need to be justified? I think there's something deeper going on for myself.
Thank you for taking the time to walk through this.
I'm asking because you seem to speak with experience...
Why do we make video games? I've been programming for 10 years, I love games; wanted to make them. But I went into infosec because it felt...justified? Like it's more noble? But that doesn't seem to make sense saying it out loud.
But your points on understanding game design because of that human-software-machine connection, that just feels like it makes sense.
I'm sorry, this question has just been bugging me for over a year now.
The type of corporate-heavy experience the author described is less "directionless" and more draconian. It's just flat boring and borderline useless. You sit through it because you need the paycheck.
Is the author not a team player or tired of the BS? Would you be willing to have a conversation with a team member like this?
If I witnessed your type of response (seemingly defensive) within the first hours/days of starting, I would begin to wonder what kind of change I could impress even if I did take the "approved channels". Ideally, we would pick up on all of this during interviews and go our own ways. It doesn't always work that way though. There is /something/ we have to offer each other.
You put up your defenses, I put up mine. And in a short time you're looking for a new hire, and I'm looking for a new place.
"Anonymous" is a bit much to ask for this, yes. I'm really just asking for the company to--for once--lower its defenses so we can have a conversation. Air the frustrations without fear of immediate professional retaliation.
If a company, manager, exec, or leader can't exercise that kind of humility, then quite frankly they don't deserve the position.