If you get a job in the video game industry

[aamesxdavid]

I genuinely hope it's nearly as cool as mine.

As of an hour from now, I'm going to be paid to go bowling for the rest of the day.

Peace.

[Falco Girgis]

Rofl, you dirty bastard.

[avansc]

being a tested is pretty nice as well. getting paid 18-20 an hour for playing video games.....

[MarauderIIC]

You got paid to go bowling, too, Falco, so I don't think that you have room to talk.
http://elysianshadows.com/phpBB3/viewto ... ing#p27184

[Falco Girgis]

Haha, this is true. But that's because I'm government, I never hear of private/commercial companies doing that stuff. :D

[programmerinprogress]

somehow I doubt any british companies would take the whole staff bowling...

But then again, my view of UK employment is a little warped since my first weekend job was awful (actually no, the job wasn't too bad, it was just the management pissing me off!)

EDIT: this was just a crappy shop job, i'm sure our IT/Programming jobs have btter perks

[MarauderIIC]

Doesn't everyone else (non-USA countries) get a reasonable amount of vacation time? For everyone in general, how much vacation time do you get/what country are you in?

[mimir]

While I'm only in the IT industry, my job is still pretty awesome. I get paid to drink coffee all day! The production of code is meerly a by product of said coffee consumption.

Edit to reply to:

Doesn't everyone else (non-USA countries) get a reasonable amount of vacation time? For everyone in general, how much vacation time do you get/what country are you in?

I get 30 days here in Germany plus about 10 national holidays, so around 40. I am at the bottom of the ladder though, most of my team members have about 60 days per year. Bare in mind though long hours are the norm, the job is all consuming, you spend all day at work even if you don't have much in the way of work to do. If we didn't have so many holidays we would never see family or friends!

[avansc]

yeah, the US get the least vacation, 10 days on avarage for the year, as apposed to european countries that get 8 weeks.

[trufun202]

I work for an ad agency, which is probably pretty closing to a game shop's culture. A couple times a year, teams are given a budget to take a half day and go do whatever. Last time we went and played golf. This time we might race go-carts or something.

As for vacation days, I get 20 per year. (But that includes sick days as well.)

[MarauderIIC]

The only vacation time I know for a fact is the DoD here in the US: after 3 years, you total to 4 weeks vacation (not including sick leave), but you get the hours for said 4 weeks on a weekly basis and can cash them in whenever.

trufun: US, right?

[Falco Girgis]

Trufun lives in Texas.

I actually don't get any vacation time.

[aamesxdavid]

being a tested is pretty nice as well. getting paid 18-20 an hour for playing video games.....

You'd have to be at a really big company or very high up in the QA team to get that much, most companies (especially now) don't pay nearly that much. And the amount of time that you're actually playing the game is quite low. It's not the glorious position it's made out to be, but it's great for entry level.

But it's the extra things like this that really make you realize what a great company you work for. Between the annual clambake (a day spent on an island with lots of food, volleyball, and other games), annual bowling, release parties for each game, etc. I have yet to even use any of my vacation time.

[Kros]

I never hear of private/commercial companies doing that stuff. :D

Intel does "team building" events sometimes, right after I left I heard that they did a fencing event within our group; and they'd done bowling and other such things also.

[Trask]

I accumulate hours every week for sick and vacation that can max out at 2 weeks a piece, but my company has been real bastards lately and have been forcing us to use up nearly all of our vacation every fiscal quarter making it very difficult to plan an actual vacation.