You know what they are, right? The cloaked ringwraith inspired specters that act as jailers , and whose sole source of sustenance is the sweet taste of hope and joy. They literally suck it right out of you (not that way, pervert) and leave you a withering sack of fear and destitute. That, in my opinion, is the best thing about them. They don't actually kill you. Sure they can, but it's kinda like being stuck on a desert island with a bunch of chickens. Yeah, you could just kill them all and eat like a king for a few weeks...or you could keep them alive and feed off of the eggs they produce. It's just a matter of what your priorities are. Dementors don't need to kill to feed, but they can sure make you wish you were dead. The same can be said for my current place of employment.
I work for a multi-million dollar video game company, whose titles are shipped and enjoyed around the world. Without mentioning titles, I can almost guarantee you have heard of at least one of our games, if not played a few for yourself - we are that large. The problem is, when you are that large, there are always problems and a lot of red tape to go through to get anything done. I understand that, and really no problem with that specifically; but when you keep throwing process after process in, and the new one directly contradicts the other process previously enacted - things start to get complicated. To make matters worse, they let go of team members, and turn around and expect higher productivity that you had before the layoffs. I'm juggling the jobs of 5 people, ranging from Producer work to administrative (paying bills) and a shitload of things in between. I understand the need of this at a start up, but at a company that makes millions in profit each quarter? Yeah, there is no excuse.
So, every morning I wake up, drink some coffee, eat some breakfast, listen to the morning AM raido and generally enjoy my drive to work. It's relaxing, and most of the time I come in bright eyed ready to tackle the day. I feel even better after weekends. Yet as soon as I walk into the door of the office, and I don't mean that in a general sense, I mean literally as soon as I walk in the door, all of that joy and ambition gets sucked right out of me. Woosh. Like the company itself is draining any joy I have and beaming it directly to the brains of the CEO and President, as they sit on their thrones of gold. A bit like the Riddler did in Batman Forever, though, not quite as gay. [Ed - That's debatable. Depends on who you talk to]
So I now have the theory that my company, is in fact, a big-ass dementor. Think about it...no one I have ever met working here is happy. Not a single person. Sure some VP's or Executives are content, but that mostly due to the paycheck, there's no real enjoyment there. I know a lot of people experience this at their jobs, the boring dull-drooms of the corporate world, but take this into consideration: we make games. That's what we do. Our workweek is spent making and playing video games! Don't misunderstand and think that a lot of work is not involved when it comes to making games - you have to put in a fuck ton of hours, arguments with the team are commonplace, and you're likely to go gray at 25. As strange as this sounds though, that's all...FUN. That's what makes game development so exciting and worth the journey. You pour your heart and pride into a title and when it finally comes out, you can sit back and breathe and enjoy the fruits of your labor, before you jump back in and do it again. It's that sense of reward at the end that keeps you coming back.
You don't get that here. Any feeling of jubilation you might begin to feel at the conclusion of a project is almost immediately snuffed out. We have an ongoing joke whenever someone laughs or smiles, we say they need to stop immediately as they are going against company policy. It's that bad
I've been making video games for over 8 years, and have worked at a number of different places - some well known corporations, some not. I have never, in my entire life, worked at a place so hellbent on making it more difficult to make good product than here. They complain we don't have enough content, we present ideas - they shoot them all down without giving any reasons or other suggestions. We finally get a project approved, and we get flack for spending to much because they force us to use a grossly underdeveloped budget. We can't even set it. The Japan studio refuses to share/communicate with the other studios, the European studio fails to deliver promised content screwing over release schedules, content gets released in the US market without US consent...and the list goes on and on.
I know I'm bitching and moaning, and need a violin accompaniment, but FUCK, dementors are no joke. I need a patronus charm. Like right now.
Save me harry.
FUCK~Konshus
