5 ms·

EA's practices described in this article make me angry, but I'm also baffled. Why the hell would you stay in this situation longer than about 48 hours? I can't

EA's practices described in this article make me angry, but I'm also baffled. Why the hell would you stay in this situation longer than about 48 hours? I can't imagine working for a place that told me it was mandatory that I work 12 hours a day, seven days a week with no extra compensation. Ummm...go fuck yourself? Companies don't own their employees. Especially as a programmer, why would you put up with something so ridiculous? It's not that hard to find work doing development elsewhere.

wisty 16y ago
Computer game programming is a glamorous industry, like fashion. If your boss told you to give sexual favors to a client, you'd probably quit, and hopefully press charges; but it's rumored to have happened in the movie / modeling industries (which are also glamorous industries).
- oldgregg 16y ago
  I worked in the talent booking industry for years and saw people put up with the same endless shit stream because ultimately they are using their jobs to give them self-worth. If you want to maintain your dignity there are always other companies or you can just leave the industry. It's not at all easy to do once you've invested so many years of your life, but the decision is still up to you.
- kiba 16y ago
  I think it rings true for any industry that is about arts, design, or entertainment.
  - lenni 16y ago
    I do wonder though why these industries have such an attraction on many people. Sure, I'd love to work on a Hollywood movie in a plush office but I love my dignity even more.
    - gaius 16y ago
      Humans are predisposed to seek high social status positions. In our culture, those are people whose name everyone knows, even if they're only "famous for being famous".
liedra 16y ago
You'd be surprised what people will put up with due to subtle manipulations of people in charge, peer pressure (of others working similarly, especially if your boss works harder than you do) and the promise of future reward for slog now. It sounds like the working hours started out fine, with the emphasis on it being temporary, and then the realisation started to dawn much later that although they said it was temporary it was anything but. I've been in a similar situation and didn't realise how badly it was destroying me until I was complaining one day to my SO and it suddenly dawned on me that this was not something I could continue doing.
- wushupork 16y ago
  In the startup world the carrots called stock options. Having been a consultant at a few dotcoms during the boom, I have seen many a developer work themselves to death because "their stock would be worth a lot" someday. Unfortunately that day never came for my colleagues.
  - liedra 16y ago
    Yeah. I was promised days in lieu, but these were conveniently forgotten or "unable to be taken" due to other, new deadlines. I'm actually surprised I got any holidays at all, apart from the fact that HR got involved. My boss certainly wouldn't have let me have holidays, and I was terrified of losing my job at the time so I didn't want to question it.
thefool 16y ago
The foot in the door principle. They don't spring the hours on you, they increase them gradually. First its - well 45 hours a week isnt so bad. Then after a few weeks its 55, and eventually, you get to working 85 hour weeks and not really knowing how you got there.
- megablast 16y ago
  What I have seen in advertising industry, is that people just stay longer. Nothing is ever said, there aren't even any dirty looks if you leave at 5 or 5:30, it is just that you will be first to leave. Then, when someone else does it once, they make an excuse, and you feel like you need to make an excuse. Fine if you are a contractor, that is the way to work at those places.
  - pyre 16y ago
    I've heard that that is the way the Japanese salarymen put in their long hours. A lot of them end up just sticking around at the end of the day doing nothing. They are just waiting for other people and/or 'the boss' to leave so that it looks like they are being very productive.
    - patio11 16y ago
      Let's hypothetically say we have a young turk in a Japanese engineering department, where the unspoken departmental standard is 6 hours of work in a 16 hour day. If he works 10 hours in a 16 hour day, he is going to quickly draw the ire of his older colleagues, because he is making them look bad. The boss will start cracking the whip and get them to meet or exceed his productivity, and then an arms race ensues. If, on the other hand, he works 10 hours in a 10 hour day, he is going to quickly draw the ire of his boss, because he is leaving six hours before everyone else, despite the project being horrifically behind schedule. There is an entire genre of aphorisms to tell our young turk. Let's see: the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. The clever hawk hides his claws. etc, etc. Work diligently, but with sufficient deliberation to achieve the company's exacting quality standards. Document your steps religiously. Hammer out hundreds or thousands of pages of specification documents, since specs always resemble forward progress. Teach your junior employees, who might be ignorant in the way of the world, how things are actually done, and most particularly how they are actually done here. With due deliberation. Now, of course, my company was totally different, because we would never slack off like that. But, you know, I've heard stories of how things are done at places I don't have near-feudal loyalty towards.
oliveoil 16y ago
> Especially as a programmer, why would you put up with something so ridiculous? It's not that hard to find work doing development elsewhere. I think this is partly because they feel specialized in what they are doing and their feeling of specialization sort of binds them to the game industry. The other part being the glamour wisty is writing about.
niktech 16y ago
I used to work there a few years ago and now I work at a 'big, boring organization', as some might call it. Having interacted with people who've been at EA most / all of their careers, I can enumerate the following reasons why they stick around and put up with crazy overtime: 1. Glamour: being in the credits of a multi-million dollar game that millions of players will play worldwide is pretty cool. 2. Love for gaming: I have not met a single developer there who wasn't a regular gamer. 3. Love for sports: EA is the biggest developer of AAA sports titles out there. If, for example, you love gaming and basketball, can you think of a more enjoyable way to earn a living than being one of the developers on a AAA basketball title like NBA Live? 4. Guilt: This might come as a surprise to some but when you actually enjoy what you do so much and when 'reproing a bug' to you means playing through five minutes of the game with the debugger attached to your Xbox, you kind-of start feeling like you're cheating the organization for money. As a result, you start overcompensating by staying later and doing more work even when overtime is not mandated.
- alttab 16y ago
  1. Glamour: "I want to be recognized" 2. Love for gaming: "I love gaming, why would I leave?" 3. Love for sports: "I love sports, I enjoy it." 4. Guilt: "I feel like I'm cheating the company" What a great list of selfish bull-crap. The woman in the article ended with how much it effects not just the person - but your family and the people who care about you. Sure, you have a handful of reasons to stay, but what about your kids who have grown up for the last 4 years without you? What about your wife that hasn't had a romantic, stressless dinner and a night out in 5 months? What about your parents, who never get to even talk to you on the phone anymore? Staying for any other reason in an environment like that, whatever your interests are, is piggish, self-centered, and short sighted. What makes you think your family would stick around for that? They don't get the glamor, they probably don't love gaming as much, sports is a hit or miss, and you'd have another thing coming if you really believed the "guilt" option.
  - robryan 16y ago
    There are many career paths which are pretty bad for family. By that logic something like a job in the defence force or as a sports star or travelling reporter would all end up in the same boat. Their families have every right to decide it's not for them and leave but equally the person being employed has ever right to choose what they want to do, it's their life.
EliAndrewC 16y ago
In grad school, a friend told me he wanted to go into videogame programming, so I described this post to him. His response was immediate and unwavering: "I don't care, I want to do game programming so much that I'll do whatever it takes." I suspect that enough people like this graduate every year that EA can maintain their high employee turnover indefinitely.
- Tamerlin 16y ago
  Sadly, you're probably correct. The games industry might be a bit on the extreme side of this, but I don't think it's limited to game programmers.
jcromartie 16y ago
Sometimes you just keep going on doing something that makes you unhappy because it actually seems safer than trying to change it. You have a paycheck, you have something dependable, you have something to talk about...

wisty 16y ago

Computer game programming is a glamorous industry, like fashion. If your boss told you to give sexual favors to a client, you'd probably quit, and hopefully press charges; but it's rumored to have happened in the movie / modeling industries (which are also glamorous industries).

oldgregg 16y ago
I worked in the talent booking industry for years and saw people put up with the same endless shit stream because ultimately they are using their jobs to give them self-worth. If you want to maintain your dignity there are always other companies or you can just leave the industry. It's not at all easy to do once you've invested so many years of your life, but the decision is still up to you.
kiba 16y ago
I think it rings true for any industry that is about arts, design, or entertainment.
- lenni 16y ago
  I do wonder though why these industries have such an attraction on many people. Sure, I'd love to work on a Hollywood movie in a plush office but I love my dignity even more.
  - gaius 16y ago
    Humans are predisposed to seek high social status positions. In our culture, those are people whose name everyone knows, even if they're only "famous for being famous".

liedra 16y ago

You'd be surprised what people will put up with due to subtle manipulations of people in charge, peer pressure (of others working similarly, especially if your boss works harder than you do) and the promise of future reward for slog now. It sounds like the working hours started out fine, with the emphasis on it being temporary, and then the realisation started to dawn much later that although they said it was temporary it was anything but. I've been in a similar situation and didn't realise how badly it was destroying me until I was complaining one day to my SO and it suddenly dawned on me that this was not something I could continue doing.

wushupork 16y ago
In the startup world the carrots called stock options. Having been a consultant at a few dotcoms during the boom, I have seen many a developer work themselves to death because "their stock would be worth a lot" someday. Unfortunately that day never came for my colleagues.
- liedra 16y ago
  Yeah. I was promised days in lieu, but these were conveniently forgotten or "unable to be taken" due to other, new deadlines. I'm actually surprised I got any holidays at all, apart from the fact that HR got involved. My boss certainly wouldn't have let me have holidays, and I was terrified of losing my job at the time so I didn't want to question it.

thefool 16y ago

The foot in the door principle. They don't spring the hours on you, they increase them gradually. First its - well 45 hours a week isnt so bad. Then after a few weeks its 55, and eventually, you get to working 85 hour weeks and not really knowing how you got there.

megablast 16y ago
What I have seen in advertising industry, is that people just stay longer. Nothing is ever said, there aren't even any dirty looks if you leave at 5 or 5:30, it is just that you will be first to leave. Then, when someone else does it once, they make an excuse, and you feel like you need to make an excuse. Fine if you are a contractor, that is the way to work at those places.
- pyre 16y ago
  I've heard that that is the way the Japanese salarymen put in their long hours. A lot of them end up just sticking around at the end of the day doing nothing. They are just waiting for other people and/or 'the boss' to leave so that it looks like they are being very productive.
  - patio11 16y ago
    Let's hypothetically say we have a young turk in a Japanese engineering department, where the unspoken departmental standard is 6 hours of work in a 16 hour day. If he works 10 hours in a 16 hour day, he is going to quickly draw the ire of his older colleagues, because he is making them look bad. The boss will start cracking the whip and get them to meet or exceed his productivity, and then an arms race ensues. If, on the other hand, he works 10 hours in a 10 hour day, he is going to quickly draw the ire of his boss, because he is leaving six hours before everyone else, despite the project being horrifically behind schedule. There is an entire genre of aphorisms to tell our young turk. Let's see: the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. The clever hawk hides his claws. etc, etc. Work diligently, but with sufficient deliberation to achieve the company's exacting quality standards. Document your steps religiously. Hammer out hundreds or thousands of pages of specification documents, since specs always resemble forward progress. Teach your junior employees, who might be ignorant in the way of the world, how things are actually done, and most particularly how they are actually done here. With due deliberation. Now, of course, my company was totally different, because we would never slack off like that. But, you know, I've heard stories of how things are done at places I don't have near-feudal loyalty towards.

oliveoil 16y ago

> Especially as a programmer, why would you put up with something so ridiculous? It's not that hard to find work doing development elsewhere. I think this is partly because they feel specialized in what they are doing and their feeling of specialization sort of binds them to the game industry. The other part being the glamour wisty is writing about.

niktech 16y ago

I used to work there a few years ago and now I work at a 'big, boring organization', as some might call it. Having interacted with people who've been at EA most / all of their careers, I can enumerate the following reasons why they stick around and put up with crazy overtime: 1. Glamour: being in the credits of a multi-million dollar game that millions of players will play worldwide is pretty cool. 2. Love for gaming: I have not met a single developer there who wasn't a regular gamer. 3. Love for sports: EA is the biggest developer of AAA sports titles out there. If, for example, you love gaming and basketball, can you think of a more enjoyable way to earn a living than being one of the developers on a AAA basketball title like NBA Live? 4. Guilt: This might come as a surprise to some but when you actually enjoy what you do so much and when 'reproing a bug' to you means playing through five minutes of the game with the debugger attached to your Xbox, you kind-of start feeling like you're cheating the organization for money. As a result, you start overcompensating by staying later and doing more work even when overtime is not mandated.

alttab 16y ago
1. Glamour: "I want to be recognized" 2. Love for gaming: "I love gaming, why would I leave?" 3. Love for sports: "I love sports, I enjoy it." 4. Guilt: "I feel like I'm cheating the company" What a great list of selfish bull-crap. The woman in the article ended with how much it effects not just the person - but your family and the people who care about you. Sure, you have a handful of reasons to stay, but what about your kids who have grown up for the last 4 years without you? What about your wife that hasn't had a romantic, stressless dinner and a night out in 5 months? What about your parents, who never get to even talk to you on the phone anymore? Staying for any other reason in an environment like that, whatever your interests are, is piggish, self-centered, and short sighted. What makes you think your family would stick around for that? They don't get the glamor, they probably don't love gaming as much, sports is a hit or miss, and you'd have another thing coming if you really believed the "guilt" option.
- robryan 16y ago
  There are many career paths which are pretty bad for family. By that logic something like a job in the defence force or as a sports star or travelling reporter would all end up in the same boat. Their families have every right to decide it's not for them and leave but equally the person being employed has ever right to choose what they want to do, it's their life.

EliAndrewC 16y ago

In grad school, a friend told me he wanted to go into videogame programming, so I described this post to him. His response was immediate and unwavering: "I don't care, I want to do game programming so much that I'll do whatever it takes." I suspect that enough people like this graduate every year that EA can maintain their high employee turnover indefinitely.

Tamerlin 16y ago
Sadly, you're probably correct. The games industry might be a bit on the extreme side of this, but I don't think it's limited to game programmers.

jcromartie 16y ago

Sometimes you just keep going on doing something that makes you unhappy because it actually seems safer than trying to change it. You have a paycheck, you have something dependable, you have something to talk about...