Game Journal #125.5 - Rage Against the Machine

Hey bros. Welcome back to my game journal series. Been a bit, as per usual. I think this was more of a gap year than anything. I'd been working nonstop for 24 years, whether it was work, school, or this project. So while at first I was a bit annoyed that I kept getting burned out and wanting to do other things, when I looked at my life as a whole it made sense.

So why am I writing this journal. New game stuff? Nah. There will be soon though. I've got one last animated personal project I'm working on, then I'm getting back into it. The real reason is that I HATE MY JOB. And I HATE that I HATE my job, because I do enjoy the concept of it, but as of right now it sucks. HARD.

If you don't know, I work for FedEx. I've worked there for 3 years. I really like it because the pay is good, I get to exercise by lifting heavy packages, and the amount of time I have to work isn't that long. It pays all my bills and I have a lot of time left in the day to do what I want, also I get health insurance and a retirement fund. Up until recently I really enjoyed working there. I'd wake up, go to work, come home, the end. Simple life, just how I wanted. So why the hate, you ask. Let me tell you.

Ever since I moved to Arkansas, I've been at the same position at work. We work on a conveyer belt line, where packages come down and you take the ones that go to your area. My area was right in the middle, the perfect spot. It gave me enough time to catch all my packages and load the trucks that they go to without a problem, even if I got a ton of packages at once. Each area gets three trucks, and mine were the largest. For some people that would be a problem, but I liked it because I could fit all the packages I got inside. There is nothing more frustrating than getting more packages than what can fit in your truck, because then you have to put the rest outside, it gets in the way, it's very annoying. I was able to work without issue and be by myself.

The problem started about a month and a half ago when I was moved to a different position. Instead of being in the middle, I'm right near the front. So this means that I have way more packages to sort through to find the ones that belong to me. By itself that's not too bad. It's everything else that pisses me off.

• All three trucks that I have regularly get over 150 packages each. We work for about 4.5 hours a day. So mathematically, that's about 100 packages an hour. But that's only if the packages came concurrently, which they don't. So I'm frequently chasing to get all my packages, which I didn't have to do before. I don't have time to organize my trucks usually. My old area had one heavy truck, and two medium trucks (in terms of package density.) This area has three heavy ones.

• Since my area is at the front of the line, everyone wants to walk in front of it. So many people get in my way when I'm trying to work. Sometimes people stop in front of my area and have a conversation. It's like, why.

• People keep taking my packages off for me without asking. It's supposed to "help" me, but in reality it just pisses me off because oftentimes they'll just throw it in the truck and then I have to load it correctly anyway. I'll be standing in front of my area ready to get a package and some bonehead will literally go right before me and take it.

• The guy working across from me keeps talking to me with the most inane nonsense. This may be surprising but I'm a very solitary person, especially at work. At my old area I was able to be by myself with no issue. I really hate small talk, I just want peace and quiet.

• The guy in the work area before mine is always missing his packages and walks into my area to catch them, so then I have to wait before I can get my packages off. We literally have a system where a missed package will come back around, so it's just annoying.

• I'm always getting these huge, heavy packages for all three trucks. Furniture mostly. I don't mind heavy packages but I don't have time to stop and load them and they just pile up.

• I don't know any of the cities that the trucks go to. For example, my last area was Arkadelphia mostly. I knew how to load each truck exactly. Now I don't know anything. My old area mostly had bulk stops that went to one place, it was easy to sort them. Not anymore.

This pisses me off so much because I was told that this was going to be temporary. I didn't even get a choice or a notice that I would be moved, it just happened when I went to work one day. But then when I asked about it, I was told that I was staying there because I was doing a good job. I'm being worked like a dog for the same pay and I hate it. I guess that meme of "work hard, get rewarded with more work" is true. I used to love going to work each day and now I want to shoot myself just thinking about it. Mind you, I was at my old position for 2 and a half years. I knew it like the back of my hand. Now for some reason, I've been thrown into a turbulent ocean with no life jacket and expected to swim. I hate upper management.

Well, what does this have to do with game development. A lot. You may be surprised but I made most of my game when I was in a situation that I hated as a means to escape from it. For example, living at home with my parents. I love my family, but it became really grating to live at home, especially after college. I hate having to explain myself all the time, say where I'm going, or what I'm doing. I also hated New Jersey in general, the traffic, the price of everything, the ticket happy cops that never gave you a warning and cited you for going 10 over, the violence, the concrete industrial hell that a lot of cities were. Anyway, that's all to say that I was working hard back then to escape that. And I did, two years ago, when I finally saved up enough money to move. Ever since then you can see that my journals slowly became more sparse, because my life got better. I no longer had to grind every day.

Now with this new situation at work I'm starting to feel that same feeling as I did back then, one where I have to escape it no matter what. I want to quit. And in order to do that, I need another source of income, which has to be my game. There isn't any other job here that pays as well as my current one, and I think I'd rather die than go back into the service industry. So yeah. I have to finish it no matter what.

Anyways that's my rant on life. It's been a while since I've had one. When I lived in NJ it was pretty frequent though. Lol. Everything else is good except for my job. So don't expect much else other than that.

I should make another post soonish. Until then, my dudes.