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Trenches comic: Tuesday Oct. 18, 2011
Bogey
I'm back, baby!Santa Monica, CAModerator Mod Emeritus
I'm back, baby!Santa Monica, CAModerator Mod Emeritus
The hole of no glory.
10/18/2011 - Anonymous
I used to work for a a large game company (who shall remain nameless) testing DS games. Now, this company is rather big and their facility is big as well, so they have a lot of wireless traffic which made dropped connections etc. pretty common.
As you could probably put together the DSs and handhelds were constantly falling victim to the interference due to the airwave traffic, so it was tough to say whether or not issues we were running into was the game or the shitty connection… That’s where the RF shielded tent comes in.
This thing was a tiny 2’ x 4’ tent placed behind an empty desk on the floor in the corner of the office, it just enough room to “barely” fit a person and would eradicate any outside wireless signal. To make use of it you step in, slouch down and test whether or not your game has decent connectivity.
It’s really tight and warm inside that thing, and as you’d suspect, one of the big things we would test in there was multiplayer…. which meant two people have to crawl and squeeze inside that stupid thing.
What happens in the RF tent stays in the RF tent. Nothing… wireless signal or otherwise… escapes from it.
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XBox LIVE: Bogestrom | Destiny
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I think it is finally the day I send an email out with this comic to my whole office.
Maybe
maybe someone will tell me where the rf tent is
:winky:
So... you come here often?
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
lets find out if we connect....
I have one too.
Well two non fictional people have it at least.
I can relate to the story. At wal mart navigating the stock rooms with two people tended to be a very crowded experience
Server closets, man. Especially when the closet is a literal closet.
I had a similar thought about testing in a prefect vaccuum (RF tent) or testing in a real life situation, such as the wireless at a B&N. I imagine they did both, but the tent was for the quick check, then back to fixing the problem, then another quick check to see if it's fixed, without all the hassle of backing your crap, letting a boss know (getting permission), hitting the elevators, walking to your car, driving to a populated place and then testing and having to go all the way back afterwards.
Woo WP7!
I liked today's story too. Short, but unique. The amount of wireless traffic caused by DS game testing is something I hadn't thought of before.
Reminds me of the bunkers in Afghanistan, 40 dudes in various states of undress taking cover from IDF. Is that your rifle in my pocket?
Hellloooo Sailor!
Well I guess Bogey found the joke crafted for him! :P
For some reason it has me thinking about the PDA type thing from The Dig.
In a normal company, that RF tent would be something like 8x8x8 with some chairs so that you're employees wouldn't be squished and they would comfortable.
To: All Employees
Stop farting in the damn RF tent for fucks sake!
Now I can't stop thinking about guys going over to the tent, opening the flap, sticking their rear-end in, and saying, "test THIS wireless signal" while letting one rip.
I'm still unsure what his whole thought process was.
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Reminds me of the old tv show Taxi (where the guy behind the glass was a psychopathic Danny Devito). Don't know if this is supposed to be a reference to that or what.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Hmm... could be on to something.
International Diabetes Federation?
How can you force your staff to work overtime, not pay them for that time, and do that regularly?
"I...WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING, HOW DO I TEXT MESSAGE"
(Bogey your phone so cra-zay)
Because otherwise they get fired
Now, I was often contracted out by my employer, who then charged the client company hourly for EVERY hour. So that, obviously, makes for a great situation for them, and less so for me.
Uh, I have to stay past five basically every single day. I'm on salary and I have deadlines to meet. The complaint about Crunch Time long hours is something completely foreign to me that I can't really feel sympathy with. Hell, my best friend is a high school teacher and he spends hours after work coaching soccer for the school and preparing his lesson plans.
Based on my family and close friends' work experience, I'd definately say that once you get an actual career with aspirations of success and climbing the career ladder, working extra hours is the rule, not the exception. Not having to stay late or take work home with you is a perk.
Sure, but your high school teacher friend gets paid for soccer. And his union has likely negotiated mandated hours. At my teaching job, we have our hours laid out. They can't make us stay past a certain time. Nor can we leave before then. We're free to stay extra, of course (and you often do), but nobody can scold you for leaving on time as long as you work is done.
More jobs need unions. The "perks" should be part of a civilized work environment.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
At the large telecom where I work, when I was first hired, the recruiter told me that while lots of overtime was available, I'd rarely, if ever, be forced to work overtime.
Once I got the job, forced overtime was in effect. You had to work 10 hours a day, 50 hours a week, whether you wanted to or not, no exceptions (we did get paid time and half for that work, of course). If you didn't work those hours, you could be written up for "insubordination", and if you did it often enough, you could be fired - so they said. The ironic thing was that the union contract supposedly forbade forced overtime. The management got around this by calling it 'emergency' overtime, despite the fact that this lasted years (about 3 years for me, I think it was more like 5 for people who had been working their longer). You weren't even allowed to trade your overtime with people who wanted to work longer hours for the pay. I eventually got moved to a different department within the company where overtime was no longer required. Now I can't even get overtime if I want it - something of a mixed blessing.
I expect this would be salaried workers. At the telecom where I work, supervisors have been occasionally called in to work extra hours due to emergency situations - union strikes being one example. Supervisors also routinely stay longer than their normal hours if they have work to finish up under a deadline.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
While I admit there are jobs and environments that need unions, every interaction I've had with unions was a poor one. I despise them and wish I could opt out of my own right now, but for some odd reason my state hasn't passed law to make that legal.
But yeah, testers and the whole video game industry could probably use a unionized push to get some payment for "crunch" because the amount of horror stories you hear is ridiculous.
But this isn't a case of career aspirations or corporate ladder work. It's menial dead end jobs that routinely enforce 14+ hour days.
So
That's different?
What are you talking about? QA? QA is often, sometimes, magically a starting point for people who want to start at the bottom rung of games and move up to being Devs. For Devs, well, uh. Yeah, it is career aspirations and 'corporate' ladder work. It's not necessarily a dead end job that forces 14+ hour days constantly.
If you occasionally throw in an extra hour here or there to meet a deadline, then great, good job. Sometimes it's just the thing to do.
If your employer says "we will pay you for 40 hours a week, however you will work for 60," and you don't laugh in their face and walk out the door, you are a sucker.
Caught the latest unemployment numbers? It's harder than it sounds to walk away from an income.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf