Weekly Update - 212 - 4/1/2024

Happy April 1st! Speaking of which, everything you read in this post is true! Or at least true to the best of my memory.

April Fools snuck up on me. I don't have anything prepared to fool anyone, and I believe the best jokes are ones that require some actual effort put into them. I'd rather not try to half-ass something in here or in any of my communications today in search of a pity-chuckle. Instead I shall sit back, treat this like any other day, and enjoy the effort that others put into their jokes today!

Max has been declared the winner of the last poll, so you can expect to see art of him soon!

Comic this week? Yes!

Drawing: Page 192-193, Kiera character sheet (the main art is done, she still needs a mini portrait though), Max art!

Playing: Waiting not-so-patiently for Rimworld DLC.

Ramble:

Thank goodness whatever mood I was in last week has left me. Feeling much better about everything this week! And in the spirit of April Fools, I want to share, I think, a real-life story that happened to me.

I was working my job in the games industry, and we were at the peak of crunch time. Admittedly the "peak" of crunch time is a hard time period to define, really, because after about the first few months of 60-hour weeks, it just never stopped, and all those years kinda blend together.

I remember it was April Fools, and the jokes circulating around the office in our various email threads and chats were helping to raise our normally crushed spirits. Both Apple and Google had announced some silly new product, and there were fake articles galore about all kinds of silly things going on in the games industry and the rest of the world. We were all having a good laugh about them. A much-needed laugh.

It was this day my supervisor came to my desk and told me that myself and a few others would be needed outside for some "special task." Now, this was the games industry, and "going outside" didn't fit any of our job descriptions, so that was kind of a red flag. The first thought that occurred to me was that this was some sort of prank. After all, it WAS April Fools, and our managers had played pranks on us before, some of them could be quite elaborate. The overtime was soul-crushing, but our office wasn't completely unfun. I was in the middle of something important though, work I needed to get done, and I didn't really feel like interrupting it to get pranked, so I told him nah, not really in the mood for a prank, thanks though.

My Supervisor must also have not been given any details about this "special outside task," because once I planted the seed of doubt It took some time for him to find HIS manager and ask for clarification about it. Eventually the higher-up of managers came to me to clarify that it was, in fact, important and that I was actually really needed outside.

So at this point I'm thinking like, okay, so it's probably still a prank, or at least something that might be silly or fun, but if they're going to insist on it, it might be something they've perhaps put effort into, so I'll play along. Put my job on hold and go see what's going on.

So we get outside, there's about 8 or 9 of us who've been summoned, and there's these tables set up on the patio outside our building's breakroom. Pretty soon someone backs up a truck nearby and it's filled with goodies. Boxes of sodas and bags of buns and condiments for hot dogs, chips and snacks, beers, it looks like a good time. So now I'm excited, like, oh cool! Our managers are throwing us a party! What fun! What a great way to raise our crushed spirits and devastated morale at a time when the order for "temporary" Mandatory Overtime seems as if it might as well have been etched permanently in stone!

Our "task" it turns out, was to move the sodas and food from the truck to the tables, and that was it. Looking over our array of 7 or 8 managers standing out there as they watched us work, it was obvious just how much they needed our help. Without us, these minor physical tasks were quite plainly impossible, because none of them were capable of lifting a finger. I remember at some point I asked one of the managers if all of these snacks were secretly for us, cuz if I was gonna be doing some of the work, I wanted to be in on the surprise. They were pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing, in general, but eventually I got one of them to tell me no, this wasn't for us, it was for some manager/executive meeting. I laughed it off, because that made absolutely no sense. We were at a satellite building, across from the main campus, and we were setting things up on the small patio right outside of our department's kitchen/breakroom. It seemed asinine that the managers and executives and higher-ups from the company would hold their party here of all places, compared to all of their options of much bigger and better courtyards and conference rooms across the company's campus. By that point I was utterly convinced this was all just a prank, and that we were about to have a much-needed morale-boosting party! There was plenty of food after all, enough to supply our whole department. Surely far more than would be needed for just the managers and executives.

Once we'd finished unloading the truck, we all went back inside and I eagerly awaited the e-mail that was to inform us of the party outside.

Well, turned out it wasn't a prank. The e-mail never came.

No, in fact, the managers and executives actually did show up. They arrived to our shitty small patio. Where they proceeded to drink all the beer, eat all the food, and have a big party on our patio. It looked like they had a lot of fun at their party, which I got to see through the window every time I went to refill my coffee. We were never invited to join them. And to add insult to injury, they didn't even leave enough food behind for us to pick through the scraps. I think I worked until midnight that night. And for every day that week. All six of them.

The moral of this story? Don't ever work in the games industry. Or for shitty managers who are too damn lazy to move some damned boxes for their boss's fun party without abusing their employees.

This is funny to me now of course. It was so long ago, and it's silly I didn't realize just how poorly they treated us all while gaslighting us into believing that we had the best job in the world! Hah!

Happy April Fools!