Who'd you fuck to get this job, anyway?

I work in an industry that is predominantly, heavily, overwhelmingly white and male.  Although the face of the people actually MAKING the games has started to change, the common (incorrect) perception is that women in games fall into one of two categories - Marketing or Artist, with a strong skepticism around ability.  As a former Quality Assurance lead and current producer, I've been asked (more than once), "So, who'd you fuck to get this job, anyway?"

My answer is pretty consistent.  It starts with a level, unblinking stare.  "I didn't get here on my back.  And it would you serve you well to remember that for future conversations.  I'm smarter than you know, I have an incredibly long memory, and a low tolerance for people who make assumptions.  Did you have any other questions?"

Success is a hard thing to judge.  I've never wanted to be the talking head behind a podium at industry events.  I don't want to be on the cover of Game Developer Magazine.  I never use the words "Rock-Star" as a preface to my own introduction.  In the Internet meme "Which Muppet are you?" I scored as Scooter.  I'm the competent one behind the curtain, making sure everything gets done.  I'm the Liz Lemon of 30 Rock - all work, no credit, dealing with the Tracy Jordan's of the games industry.  I'm the ego fluffer, the hand holder, the mom that makes sure people eat, the sound of applause, and sometimes I'm the one that says "Gimme a fucking break.  Pull your head out of your ass and get back to work."

In games, the natural path to production is to start in Quality Assurance.  QA is the Ozona, Texas of the games industry.  An armpit that smells bad, wide spot on the map, where your car breaks down on the long drive across I-10, a place you want to get out of as soon as you can.  A place that has an even LOWER ratio of men to women than "real game production".  I worked really hard in QA.  No one helped me out, other than believing that someone with real testing experience would mean more to the team than yet another person who 'just loves playing games'.  That was my lucky break.

Not an actual QA tester - but not far off.

From that point forward, it's been me using my head and paying my dues.  I mixed hard work, passion and pizazz with a refusal to give up.  I became very astute at seeing when the end was nigh, and I left positions before I EVER got laid off, I worked insane hours, traveled the world, and never said "no" - instead I presented options, "That's technically possible, however we will sacrifice x, y and z to accomplish that.  Are you OK with those trade offs?  No?  OK, let's stick with the original plan."

I've never, EVER forgotten that I am one of the lucky ones.  It's very much a sense of "there but for the grace of God go I".  Particularly in Seattle, a town with a high homeless and unemployment rate.    When I throw in a realization of my medical issues, I am constantly grateful that I have a job, I have insurance, and I have a home.  I look at my medical bills and I KNOW that I am two out-of-pocket treatments away from ruin.   I think about the choices I've made, and the turns that life has taken, and I'm glad that I've had the freedom to make the decisions that were right for my life at the time.  One of the most frightening things to me about the thought of Mitt Romney as President is the idea that there is a feasible future without choice in store for so many Americans.


It wouldn't be a rumination from me without a song quote.

Blame it on the television, blame it on the company;  
Don't blame it on the fundamental fact that no one owes you something.  
"I've come about my share, I only want what's fair.  
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not greedy.  
Like everybody else, I wanna pay my dues.  
(I only want someone to tell me who to make the check out to.)" 
 - "Pike St./Park Slope" Harvey Danger

I don't really tag myself as liberal or conservative, democrat or republican - I think those words have evolved so far from their original purpose and definition that they're not accurate any more.  But I know I want to live in a country where people have a chance to work hard, to realize dreams, and where a misstep or a setback is not the end of their participation in a productive society.  I think of family members who gave time out of their lives to the military, and some who gave their lives to the military.  I don't always agree with what their assignments were, but I am proud that they would be willing to serve.  I want to help build a country where a persons need for basic (and not-so basic) medical care is separated from their ability to pay for medical care.  I want to work in an industry where gender is not an automatic flag that the only way you could be doing the job you have is because you slept with someone to get there.  I want to be treated fairly, paid equally, and doing my part to support the country that's made it all possible.

Hell Week(s)

As I've mentioned before, I am a producer for a video game company in Seattle.  I've been in the games industry since 1998, and been a producer since 2002.  I've shipped A LOT of games in that time.  Some of them, I'm very proud of.  Others, I can find things to be proud of in the process and in the way the work was done.  When people ask me what it means to be a game producer, I often reply one of two ways: "I make other people make video games" and "I make miracles happen.", depending on my mood.

I've worked a lifetime in the past 14 years.  60 hour weeks were light, 80 hour weeks were normal, 100+ hour weeks were hard, but not uncommon.  I've always prided myself on never asking my team to do anything that I'm not willing to do.  I turn the lights on in the studio in the morning, and I turn the lights off at night.  I make coffee runs, I order the pizza, I scour the bug database, I run interference for my dev team when PR or marketing come calling, I find the perfect song to fit a mood and blast it out far too loudly late at night.  I've been known to bribe people with baked goods, to wear a stupid hat when things get stressful, to fire off the applause box when the team needs a boost, and to be the bad guy, when a bad guy is needed.

I've had a critical realization in the past month.  I still take great pleasure in shipping games, I still love the energy that flows during the weeks where we final, I still get a thrill when I see that finished product and I KNOW that I played an essential role in bringing the team to the place where we could say "It is finished, warts, feathers and all, it is done, and we can be proud of this.".  But that's not how I define myself any more.  I'm not as young as I used to be, a 16 hour day at work takes it's toll on me, but it's not just that.  I will continue to give it my all in a fair days work, but I do not like missing bed time with my boy.

Hubby was very supportive, he's known me long enough to know how I get when I'm in shipping mode. My eyes get a little crazy, my brain gets laser focused, and everything else takes a back seat.  The difference this time around is this is my first time shipping a game at the end of an arthritis treatment cycle, and with a pretty significant jump in the severity of arthritis.  I actually delayed treatment to be in the office for my team, a decision that I really struggled with at the time.  There were people at work pushing me to do what I needed to do to take care of myself, and people asking me if I could delay longer so I didn't have to miss any time.  That was another eye opener for me.  I compromised and pushed treatment out by two weeks, and came into work in the late afternoon after resting a bit at home to work a full day's work with the team that was trying to make a final build.

There were several nights where Hubby picked up BabyBoy and brought him to work for the three of us to have dinner together, before taking him home and putting him to bed while Mommy stayed and worked.  Other nights, I sang lullabies to BabyBoy while I was still at work and he couldn't hear me.  There were Saturdays where I brought BabyBoy to work with me, in hopes he would take his normal afternoon nap in a pack and play at my desk (he didn't).  We tried to make it work, and I certainly do not think BabyBoy OR Hubby are worse off for the experience.  But that doesn't mean I liked it.

Crunch time is crunch time, whether it lasts 3 weeks like ours did or 3 months like it used to in the early days.  We only had 2 nights that went past midnight; most nights wrapped up by 8.  We worked three 10-6 Saturdays.  In the grand scheme of things, it was a mild crunch.  I tried hard not to laugh like a cynical old man, telling stories of my "up-hill in the snow walk to school back when I was a boy" when the others complained of how hard we were crunching.  People still gave up time with their families, and with their lives and I wanted to be respectful of that reality, while thinking "you suckers wouldn't have survived the path I've lived to get here today", really loudly in my head to drown out their complaints.

The good news, my new game has cleared Apple certification and will be released in early March.  I've taken a week off for R&R (and for gathering up baby stuff to donate, finishing BabyBoy's quilt that I haven't touched since he was born, catching up on writing this blog, and perhaps cooking a meal or two for my family). I also had a pretty good response with arthritis treatment, there are spots where I have pain, but I am able to simply notice that pain and then move onto the next thought, instead of having the primary brain power dedicated to not whimpering out loud in pain while I attempt to process coherent, professional thought with what's left behind of my focus.  I also got lab results that show that my Ferritin level is at 260, 4 months after treatment (and I have to tell you, that is a MIRACLE number for me.  It will be fascinating to see how long the new type of infusion holds anemia at bay).  B12 and Vitamin B are both in single digits, so there's still work to be done, but I'll take my successes where I find them.

Last week, I went and spoke at a career day at a local college that is focused on video game disciplines for their degree programs.  I actually don't much enjoy public speaking, I talk too fast, turn bright red, and tend to throw up in garbage cans from stage fright before I speak.  This talk went incredibly well, I was on a panel with 5 other discipline leaders from my company, and I was surprised that there were several questions directed at me during Q&A.  Afterwards, the coordinator came over to ask me if I would consider facilitating a women's group for the semester, mentoring their 1% female student population.  I thought about that for a moment, and I told her "yes".  I've been doing this long enough I feel I have valuable information to share, and as a woman who was 1 of 4 women in the active production group in 1998, I've done a little path-paving for the next generation.  Perhaps I can refocus some of that old satisfaction from working harder and longer than anyone else to ship games into the satisfaction of knowing I might bring insight to a woman just starting out in the industry and help make her first steps on the path a little easier.

Tardiness

As a professional, I've always taken being on time seriously.  In fact, I'd much prefer to be early than to be late.  However, I work in the games industry, and there's a certain "we're creative, we don't follow rules" attitude to that culture.  Meetings that start within 15 minutes of scheduled time are celebrated as a success, but it drives me absolutely ape shit.  I'm a project manager, my time, much like a lawyer, is tracked in billable increments, which all go against the bottom line of project overhead.  If I stopped to count up how many meetings start late in a project, you start to see why project deadlines often get blown off and missed.  Lateness is lateness, and it all adds up.

Let me add a disclaimer here:

This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. I'm not going to tell you who my employer is, but if you happen to figure it out, I'm not representing them.  Got it?

There.  That's out of the way.  I work for a game developer that is sort of notorious for not following traditional schedules or milestones.  Our games ship when they're done, not when we say we'll ship them when we first start a project.  This has been the single hardest adjustment to my style as a producer since I started with this organization.  In my past positions, I live and die by the schedule.  I've primarily worked on branded product that is tied to events: movie releases, ad campaigns, major sporting events, etc.  Those dates do not change.  The product that you deliver might change during the course of the project for a variety of reasons (contract signed late, customer made a change in the scope of work, approval process delays, as a few examples), but the date DOES NOT CHANGE.

It is bad enough at work that each clock on the floor is set to a different time - varying between 5-15 minutes ahead of the actual time.  That doesn't solve anything, it just makes people MORE likely to ignore the clock and make excuses.  I've never been a fan of the "I'll set my clock ahead, so that way if I snooze I can still be on-time" mentality.  You're not actually fooling anyone.

My meetings start on time.  I start talking when the designated time arrives, even if I'm talking to an empty room.  And I do not repeat myself.  If no one shows up by the time 15 minutes has passed, I walk out and I do not rush back in to cram through the topics when the tardy ones come looking for me.  I will send a follow up e-mail that covers off on why no decisions were made, and propose a new time for the meeting.  I've become a bit notorious for this, and it's becoming a less common occurrence that people are late, at least not to my meetings. I've heard muttering about "Oh, that's Rae's meeting.  You better be on time because she will bust your balls if you're not!" and the like, but that's something I can live with.

To me, if you accept a meeting, you accept your role and responsibility in that conversation.  Yes, things happen and if you call or text and say "I'm 5 minutes away, I apologize.", I will say thank you when you walk in the room. But just wandering in because you can't allocate your time and honor the commitments you make says that you do not respect me, you do not respect what I'm doing, and you don't respect yourself as a professional.

Doesn't that sound so admirable?   Let me just say, this is something I've had to work VERY hard at.  Ask my best friend, she can probably account for a year of her life spent waiting for me during our time sharing rides to school in Junior High and High School.  She never left my ass, but she SHOULD have.  I was always in a state of "hair on fire and ass is catching", I always had an excuse and and apology at the ready, and at some point, I finally grew out of it and started taking punctuality seriously.

So, here's the reality of my life today.  Despite my best efforts, the ONLY PLACE I'M ACTUALLY ON TIME IS AT WORK.  BabyBoy is 14 months old, and I haven't been on time to 99% of the things we have done since he was born.  We were late to the birthing center tour.  We were late the morning of his scheduled c-section birth, we were late to freakin' CHRISTMAS BRUNCH and we were bringing the main course!  (Hubby's reasoning: "They can't start without us," which was technically true, because we had at the FOOD for 15 people, and we were nearly 45 minutes late!  How rude can you possibly be?)  I've become fanatical about being on time at work because it's the only place in my life where I feel like I have any control left.

There's got to be a balance here, somewhere.  We're both adults, we're both professionals, we both understand the value of time.  Starting our shared time together in a mad rush for the door, with me in a state of low-grade piss off  because I've done all the work to prepare BabyBoy and straightened up the house and have STILL been kept waiting is no way to enjoy our time together.  I've started padding the time I tell Hubby that we need to be places so at least we hit closer to on-time than we have in the past, but that feels manipulative and childish. Knowing our relationship, knowing myself, and knowing Hubby, the change will most likely have to be with me.  We're not known for our ability to talk rationally and compromise.  And that just makes me feel resentful.  This isn't a topic like "what direction does the basket for zippy cup parts face in the dishwasher?", it's common courtesy.  If you say you'll be somewhere, be there when you say you'll be there.

How do I get the point across without being a shrew?  I hate being late.  I think it's disrespectful and it makes me anxious and edgy to do everything in a manufactured emergency rush.  It's that simple.

Brass Balls - the night I danced with Dale

The other night, my hubby and I were lying in bed - I was playing a game on my iPad, and he was patting on the cat.  I made a joke about how "all cats are grey in the dark."  He's been reading through the classics on his Nook, and made a comment about that's almost a direct quote from "The Three Musketeers".

I asked him if I'd ever told him about dancing with Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and he said "I know you met him, but I didn't know you'd danced with him."

It went like this:

Back in 2002, I went on a NASCAR vacation called Beach Bash, in Jamaica.  There were a dozen or so drivers, pit crew chiefs, and media celebrities, and the number of fans was limited to around 150 fans.  The idea was you could spend a week in Jamaica with your favorite drivers.

I am a HUGE Junior fan, and I think he's cute as cute can be.  I was single, and I harbored a small little fantasy that I could be Mrs. Earnhardt.  A girl can dream, right?

This was right around the time I left Quality Assurance and became a producer, and Hasbro Interactive had the NASCAR license and was about to release a new game called "Dirt to Daytona."  I convinced management to let me attempt to promote the game while on vacation.  They didn't expect much out of me, but if I could get a picture of two of driver holding our game, ok.  Our main competitor, EA, did not have even a clue about this opportunity, and I thought it could be a nice little feather in my cap as a new producer.

I made calls, I was persuasive, and I descended on the Wyndham Rose Hall with a suitcase full of video games to give away, t-shirts, game consoles, and I was ready to meet some drivers and prove a point!  I had a commitment from the hotel that they would make tv's and tables available to me in common areas to allow fans to play the game, and I'd reached out to the tour coordinator (who became a great friend) to have some time built in to play.  If I could convince the drivers to race against the fans, this was ALL going to come together.

The trip was an all-inclusive vacation, and the rum drinks were very, very good.  I think I drank my body weight in rum that week.  On the first night there, we were rumming it up at the bar when the word spread.  Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (and his posse) had arrived from Homestead, FL (last race of the season) and they were headed for the bar.  I decided I would go pee to gather my courage, and then I'd figure out how I was going to approach him to introduce myself and talk about video games.

I went to the restroom, practiced smiling and looking natural (and not completely sauced) in the mirror, washed my hands, and headed out to face the beast.  I walked out of the ladies room and collided directly with Dale on his way into the mens.  I looked at him, smiled, and said "Would you like to play some video games?"

He wrinkled his incredibly cute brow and said "Nah, I'm good", and continued into the mens room.

 I went back to the bar, and put my head down.  "I asked if wanted to play some video gaaaaaaaaaaaaaames!", I wailed.  "And he said Noooooooooooooo!  It was like that scene in "Dirty Dancing" where Patrick Swayze asks "what are you doing here" and Jennifer Grey says "I carried a watermelon."."

My friend patted me on the shoulder, ordered me another rum drink and reassured me it was a long week and everything would be fine.

After some mingle time, I decided to try again.  I walked over to Dale, stuck out my hand  and said "OK, so, I realize that was TOTALLY random.  Can I try again?  Hi!  My name's Rae, I work at Hasbro Interactive and we have a new racing game coming out.  I have some advance copies and thought you might like to check it out, maybe race against some fans or something?" I took no chances, I did not pause for breath, and I had a big, stupid, 'please like me' smile plastered on my face.

"Yeah, 'Dirt to Daytona'.  I've been wanting to play, that would be cool.", he said.  We chatted a bit more and I wandered off, elated.  I had redeemed myself!

The week went on with lots more rum, tons of fun, beach all day, dance club until it closed, and some video gaming.  There were autograph sessions and we had become friendly enough to smile and wave back and forth in passing.

On one of the last nights, I was in the dance club and I decided, this is it.  If I'm going to be his wife, we're going to have to fall in love.  If we're going to fall in love, we're going to have to dance.  I guess I'd better ask him to dance.  (Did I mention I drank my body weight in rum that week?) So I did!  And he said yes! It was like 8th grade, when Danny Shook finally asked me to dance, after I'd glanced longingly at him from the sidelines all year long.  I talked through the whole thing, except with Dale, the song was Nelly's "It's Getting Hot in Here", and not Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart".

Future Mr. & Mrs. Earnhardt

"So, Dale, I was wondering - what's your preference?  Really obvious bottle blond girls with bleach blond hair and fake boobs who fall on the ground with their legs spread for you?  Or cool redheads who play video games and are lots of fun?"

He looked at me for a heartbeat or two, and I tried to redeem myself with a winning smile and some encouragement.

"Come on, you know you want to say cool chick." I pointed two thumbs to my chest, and reiterated, just in case he was confused, "Cool chick!"

And then he said, (and I cannot do the drawl justice), "It's all the same in the dark."

This is where my husband interrupted my story.

"HOLY SHIT, YOU HIT ON DALE EARNHARDT, JR.?!?!?"

"Hey, how many chances was I gonna get?" I replied.

I looked at Dale and said, dripping with saracsm, "Well, don't you know how to make a girl feel special?"  I switched to disappointment mom-mode.  "Charming, Dale. Really charming."  The song ended, I shook my head and thanked him for the dance.  I guess I didn't want to be his wife after all.

My hubby said, "Wow.  You've got brass balls."  and I gave him a kiss and reminded him "That's why you married me, honey."