Two Months Out of Work

The past 8 weeks have been a blur. After 15 ½ years of stable employment, my work-home laid me off along with about a quarter of the staff. I did NOT see that coming, though in retrospect I really should not have been surprised. Statistically most gigs in the game industry don’t last a quarter as long as I was at ArenaNet. And I saw problems at work for the past several years, but since everything had been so stable for so long I just kept my head down and figured we’d weather the storms like we always had. But not this time. I've worked at several game studios over the years and have never quit any of them. I think I’ve just been really lucky to land at places with good people that matched where I was in my journey.





The beginning of my time at ArenaNet was a new beginning for me in a lot of ways. I had just escaped a suffocating marriage, moved back close to my parents, and shortly after I started my new job I found the love of my life then married her. ArenaNet provided stability during some VERY tumultuous years. Years of custody battles. Years of worse and worse medical diagnoses for Heather. Years of teenager problems so bad I shouldn’t put them in writing. Through all of that I had steady employment with people I loved and was working on a good and popular game. Sadly, ArenaNet seldom fully utilized my talents. I had a lot of promising starts to taking on the leadership roles I could have excelled at, only to see them peter out. I got to work on exciting new projects that also petered out. And I was never paid what I was worth. But the plus sides I already mentioned, along with the massive peace of mind that stability and a good work/life balance, kept me quite content.





But it was more than those perks that kept me there. Over the past decade we’ve discovered more and more about Heather’s health problems, and she’s gone through COUNTLESS doctors and specialists before FINALLY getting a diagnosis that explained everything a couple years ago. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is still fairly newly understood, and a lot of doctors don’t know how differently they need to work with people who have EDS. For that reason, the ‘shackles’ that actually kept me at ArenaNet was their premium health care plan, under which we had access to the best specialists who know and treat EDS. Heather has had 14 surgeries now, many of which have basically been preemptive patches to slow the entropy that her degenerative disease causes. And she’s going to need many more. For that reason, I feel like I NEED to get a LOCAL job that has the SAME health insurance. Even other premium plans might not cover the same doctors and specialists. What that means is that there are maybe 2 or 3 companies in the world that meet those two requirements. Compromise on this matter feels to me like I’m literally jeopardizing Heather’s life, or at least her longevity/quality of life/amount of continual pain she will be suffering.





On the plus side, I’ve had a really great couple of phone screenings, then an all-day on-site interview at one of those places. On the down side, it’s been two weeks and they haven’t got back to me despite the customary “Hello, I’m still really excited to work with you!” email reminder I sent. I’ve been on the other side of the hiring process, having interviewed many candidates at ArenaNet and former companies, so I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on. They probably have another candidate they like better for the position, but are keeping me in stasis until they lock that down, THEN they will send me the rejection letter. At that point… I honestly don’t know what I’ll do. I haven’t had so much as a nibble from any other local studio. On top of that, it’s a really bad time to be looking for work in the game industry. Several very large companies have also had massive layoffs recently. There’s instability all around.





The slow realization that I’m probably not getting this one-and-only life preserver tossed my way has led me into an emotional cave that feels like depression. But I won’t claim that’s what it is. I’m very lucky to have only brief dips in my generally sunny disposition. Every couple of weeks or months I’ll be struck by an epiphany where I “see through” the constructs of culture and psychology that we all play in. I’ll realize that love is just candy coating on basic selfish impulses, friendship is just fancy dancing around approved ways to use each other, our bodies are just really gross sacks of degrading meat, etc. I think, ultimately, these insights are true to the extent that we dwell on them. But to do so ignores the experiential aspects of life, and it’s ok to hold both the dark and light as true for the proper context. Then I’ll “snap out of it” within minutes; a day or two at most. From what I’ve read and heard, that’s NOT depression. But it’s as close as I’ve come in a long time.





I keep a daily log where I track my weight, exercise, projects, media I consume, medications, etc. My Mood number is between 0-5, and 95% of the time it’s at 3. But this past week has been all 2s and 1s. I’m so tired. But not because I’m not sleeping. When I’m sad I get sleepy. My natural defense against stress and sadness is sleep, so I’ve been doing a lot of it.





But I’ll tell you what… when I’m NOT sleeping I’m tearing myself to pieces trying to get things done. I’ve always seen the time when I’m not at the office as more precious than gold. So now I’m sitting on a giant pile of gold. 8 weeks of it now. And NOT tearing myself apart to take full advantage of this abundance would be too much mental anguish for me to handle. So ask me how many movies, games and TV binges I’ve been doing in my “funemployment”. Very little. The answer is almost none. First, I spent every waking minute of the first month after getting laid off finishing my first book. My mom/co-author, and my… first book. Then it was crunch mode to get everything ready for our big debut at the Norwescon convention. Since then it’s been getting the advertisements for the book created, the next YouTube video out (I’ve been committed to a new video on the 1st of every month) Cleaning and re-organizing my disaster of a garage/studio, and as soon as that’s done it’s balls to the walls to get the cover and maps done for book 2.





Oh, and if I don’t get this job, I’m going to need to expand my opportunities by teaching myself a new tech-art program that all game artists need to know these days. (I’ve been trying to get a level design job, but I can also do art as soon as I’ve updated my skill set with the latest software)





Anyway, that leaves me feeling like a slice of bread with too little butter scraped over it. I’m tired. I’m flabby. (My normal gym routine was based on having access to my office gym) I’m sad. I’m terrified I’m going to let my wife down and that she will be the one to pay the consequences with her life and health. She’s already literally always in pain. Now she gets to … what? I don’t even know. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.