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Brad is a freelance writer trying to make it big in the video game industry. When he's not desperately pleading for your attention with his weekly Employee Evolution column, he is an editorialist for 
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This may come as a surprise to anyone who actually reads the mindless rants I put on paper (e-paper?) every week, but I fancy myself a bit of a journalist. As you may have gathered from my bio, I’m a lifelong gamer, and my love of video games and their culture led me to start writing for a couple websites not all that long ago. Last week, one of the sites flew me out to San Francisco to cover the Game Developers’ Conference, and now I wonder how I’m ever going to go back to work again.
Before I get to the joys of playing and writing about video games for a week, let me go into the negatives. Why, you ask? Because I’m a cynic you silly goose! You really should know that by now.
First off, it rains in San Francisco… a lot, as in, every day. I did not know this the first day I was there, and spent my time wandering around a city I did not know soaked to the bone. Thankfully, I didn’t come down with a case of Martian Death Flu and spend the rest of the week in a quarantined room with doctors in clean suits taking blood samples and saying things like, “Well this is new.”
Aside from that, the conference was in San Francisco but I was actually staying with friends in Oakland. Now, I have nothing against the city, but we all have preconceived notions of places we’ve never been, and when it comes to Oakland mine include getting shot and mugged, just hopefully not at the same time. Really, the only thing worse than being shot and mugged simultaneously is having season tickets to the Raiders.
Everything turned out alright though, and I left Oakland with more respect than when I found it. I even rode the buses and subways and the worst thing that happened to me was that I almost fell down during a couple sudden stops. However, I do need some hand sanitizer after holding onto those bars…
Now then, the conference itself was sheer bliss. I was working 14-16 hour days, but they were the best 14-16 hour days I’ve ever had. I was running from appointment to appointment, seeing all the latest and greatest gaming has to offer and furiously scribbling notes along the way. In the evenings, I was hanging out at studio parties that featured open bars and a lot of happy people, life couldn’t get much better.
It was around Day 3 that the epiphany hit.
“Wait a minute,” I said to myself as I stopped cold while walking down the street, causing a six-person pileup behind me, “this feeling…this is the feeling that people who love their jobs have every single day.”
Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to go to my next event, regardless of what was being presented. My feet that had been aching for days suddenly didn’t hurt anymore. I was tired, but it was the best kind of tired, the kind where you know that you’re going to get up tomorrow and do it all over again, but you can’t wait for tomorrow to come.
I don’t get that feeling at my regular job. All I know is that every morning when I get up I silently hope that somehow, someway Ed McMahon has found me and is waiting with that big cardboard check that I didn’t even register to win. Someday I’m hijacking that Prize Patrol van, and fleeing with its giant cardboard contents as far as the roads will take me.
Either that, or I wait for some random contact I made somewhere along the way to send me that special email, the one that offers me the job of my dreams, starting tomorrow, with relocation expenses covered and a salary that would make the Queen of England look like a pauper. Then I’d be the one parading around with a jeweled crown and scepter and using words like ragamuffin and urchin.
For now though, I am the ragamuffin, and I must accept my place in life. Other people love their jobs, I merely survive mine. Maybe someday I’ll get that feeling of happiness again, but in the meantime I’ll just keep “paying my dues,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Is Ed McMahon reading this?
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I’m with you the whole way Brad. Being a 23year gamer, dreaming of a more exciting existence in Cali I hope I can experience that joy sometime soon, if only for a short while. It is easy to get frustrated dealing with the entry level blues but for now I’ll embrace being a ragamuffin.
Brad, terrific (and hilarious) stuff as always.
To be honest, I suspect that loving one’s job is a mixed blessing. I’m really not interested in loving my job. I like my job, which I realize is better than many can say, but if I loved it the way you loved covering that conference, I’d probably have trouble prioritizing anything else into my life (family, friends, hobbies).
Not to mention, without a healthy daily dose of angst in your life, you’d have to stop writing articles like this one, and that would make all of us faithful readers sad.
Great one, Brad. I wish I couldn’t relate … but I can.
During the 2006 election cycle, I was driving across the city at 2am after a 16 hour day (for about the 12th day in a row) and I realized that even though I was exhausted and when I got home my apartment would be a total disaster because of my forced neglect, I was the happiest I’d ever been.
I’ve decided I can’t really work 80 hour weeks of the rest of my life and have other things that are important to me (ie a family), but I still keep my eyes open every day for the job that can make me feel that complete again. *insert listless sigh here*
Brad - funny and interesting read. I understand that feeling of exhaustion, but then you get excited, like you drank a 5 hour energy drink, and you keep going because you love what you are doing. Unfortunately the last time I felt that was in university working on an art project. I guess the good part is I have only been out of school for over a year now…so I hope there is still time to find that exhausting loving dream job. Thanks!
While I can’t confirm if Ed McMahon is reading this or not, I can say that I’m very jealous of your trip to SF! Business travel for things like that sounds awesome, and I hope to be able to take part in it sometime in the near future. I can sort of relate to the way you felt in SF because that’s how I’ve felt on trips with friends. Having been to Europe, we’d be busy all day long going to the sites and staying up all night going out, getting very little sleep, and be more excited to do it all over again as each day passed. Clearly this wasn’t work and I can’t be a professional trip-taker, but it was a “good” exhaustion like you said and we were always ready to get up and do even more the next day. In the middle of these trips we’d realize, “uh oh, how do we go back to our office jobs after something like this for a week and a half?” If only we got paid to go on vacations regularly… *sigh*
To all those who have mentioned the work/life balance, that is definitely a concern. Right now, I’m pretty happy to go home at night, and I’m all too ready to leave the office when the clock strikes 5:00. I was definitely ready to come home from SF too, but more due to missing my wife and wanting to sleep in my own bed than from burnout. The funny thing is, I think if I had a full-time journalism job, I’d actually have an even better home life, because then I wouldn’t be spending the hours I wasn’t at work trying to break into the industry I’m actually interested in. I suppose I’ll never know until I get there, and I know having the life you want requires sacrifice, but if it came down to job or family, I’ll pick family every time.
Outside of seeing my wife though, I’m ok with no free time, many of us writers are quite the homebodies, and our extensive exposure to artifical rather than natural light makes our skin burn instantly when it comes in contact with the sun. We’re like vampires, but without the mystery and intrigue, and with worse B.O.
And Sean, no worries about me being angst free, I’m in this job until at least May so you’re guaranteed no less than 2 more months of me caturwaling about how miserable I am.
Brad,
This is a very relevant post. Not only to those already in the workforce, but to students even, who are having trouble keeping interest in their studies. In the end, this is an issue that is all too prevelant. I believe that it begs for one to prepare for their future. The more prepared we are to, let’s say write full time about video games (which I believe you are well on your way to doing), the more fulfilling and successful your transition into that dream job will be. We need to find contentment in our misery, and to look at life as a hill that we are constantly climbing, constantly reaching new heights.
Funny funny funny, though.
Todd S.: How very zen, after reading your comment I feel tranquil, even though I’m not quite sure why. I feel like we should devise some sort of “office yoga” together. You’ll provide the wisdom, and I’ll come up with poses that represent strangling bosses or slamming doors on annoying coworkers. With the “life coach” fad that’s going on I’m sure we’d make millions.