IonSwitz Unleashed

The Corporate Gamer discovers the True Enemy

“That guy over in accounting is a jerk!” , “The QA people are so lazy!”

Have you heard these kind of statements? Unless you are exceptionally fortunate, you have. If you are like me, you might even have made these kind of statements yourself.

What is your gut reaction?

These days, those kind of statements makes me all angry and Dexter-like inside. The guy in Accounting is not the Enemy.

Who is the enemy? Can we identify the true enemy of The Corporate Gamer? If we can, I bet we can make work more fun, and we can focus on combating this Enemy — together.

What is an Enemy? An Enemy is targeting our ability to play the Corporate Game. An Enemy wants to take our customers, steal our business, and rob us of our money. An Enemy wants us to die.

Is the guy in accounting the Enemy, then? No. Of course not. The Enemy is our competitors, the companies that try to hurt us in the market, who try to recruit our top talent, who establishes offices in our own home town, just to steal our business, our customers, our employees. This is the Enemy.

When we realize that we, as employees, are constantly under attack by the True Enemy, we can take steps to prevent the Enemy from hurting us.
We work together, we overcome differences in the work place, we team up, just as if we were playing a fun board game together, and we make sure that no one can prevent us from playing the game, i.e continue to reach unparalleled success — together as one team, one group of friends.

“Co-worker” means “Gaming Buddy”, and we care about and support our Gaming Buddies. Right?

Fun at Work is Created — by You

Working in an office is a social event, just as any party or feast. The way you behave and the way you act at a party — or at work — can radically alter your own level of enjoyment. Having fun, enjoying yourself, is the topic of the day here.

The main difference between a day at the office and an evening at a party lies not only in the level of alcohol you may consume, but that you get paid to be at the office.

Now, what difference does that make? What does the company buy from you with this pay check, and what demands can they reasonably make of you? They purchase your skills and your time. They purchase your loyalty (to a certain extent) and they purchase your engagement in getting work done.

What demands can you reasonably make of your employer? I will completely ignore labor laws and workers rights in this article, so let’s look at the softer things. You can reasonably demand that you get to work with tasks that correspond to what was agreed when you were hired. You can reasonably demand that your work has meaning, will lead somewhere, to an end product.

Outside of that, there is very little you can demand that the employer supplies — except for one more thing: You can demand that they allow you to organize your work — together with your co-workers — to be able to maximize your fun and enjoyment of getting the job done.

When you gather a bunch of smart people in an office and hand them tasks to solve, they will come up with good ways to solve them. When you allow smart people to have fun while solving tasks, they will enjoy it more, and get more work done.

Now, being responsible for your own enjoyment can be a scary thing. It can be easy to fall into the trap of saying “My Job Sucks”, and create a ridiculous self-deprecating spiral of bad morale, lousy attitudes and even self-induce illness and aches. All of a sudden, there you are, browsing the web, sitting idle, ignoring work and muttering about how the people in another part of the office are idiots.

Good thing that The Corporate Gamer — i.e You, dear Reader — knows how to make fun happen! We know how to play games, we know how to create situations where fun is generated, where jokes are shared, while getting the job done.

Everyone in the office is your play date for the day. Everyone is part of this fun game we are playing together. If there are kinks in communication, or arguments about the best way to solve a problem, make sure you work to solve it, not to entrench the situation. Be open, direct, honest. Smile, make a joke of it, and get your play date that second cup of coffee. It’s how we solve things among friends, around the gaming table, and it is how we should solve things at the office as well.

If you are now asking “What’s in it for me?”, I have failed. I have failed to show the importance of having fun while solving your work related tasks — not for the company’s sake, but for your own sake, and for your co-workers sake.

Having fun is a reward in itself. If you have fun solving your work related tasks, you will be more efficient. You will be able to take a higher pride in what you do. With pride comes self confidence and self esteem. You will feel better, be healthier, come to work with a skip in your step, rather than moaning about “Mondays”.

Not only this, you will spread that attitude around, like cream cheese on a bagel. Your co-workers will become more friendly, they will feel better, they will appreciate coming to work, and soon, everyone is feeling fantastic.

The Company and the Owners? Oh, yeah, they will love this, sure. They will gain more from their workforce. They will make more money. They will invest in new, fun projects, new challenges and the office will soon get even more Gaming Buddies for you to play the Corporate Game with.

So it’s a Win-Win. The one thing you have to do to unleash this unstoppable force of positivity and creativity is to realize that you — yourself — hold the full responsibility of generating this level of fun at work.

You, yourself.

Understand? Good. Now, go Play.

View your job as a Game Session in order to Succeed

Hearing people complain that their job is boring sets my teeth on end. Hearing people in the game industry complain that their job is boring makes me absolutely furious. We are the most privileged people in the world. We make games for a living. If we can’t make our daily work fun, what right do we have to push our games onto customers? What does it say about us, if we can’t create fun in the work place?

So, instead of seeing your office as a place where you go to compete with your co-workers, or where you go to hang out for 7 hours a day before you sneak off home early, try seeing your office as a game. The Corporate Game. The game you and your co-workers (actually, your Gamer Buddies) build — together. This is game development, this is game play. So start acting as if you played the game to enjoy it.

Helping out is what Gamer Buddies do

When you play a game with some friends, the goal isn’t always personal gain or leaving early. The goal is, instead, to have fun. To have fun with a game, you all help each other. You keep an eye out if your gaming buddies need something. Maybe you even get up to get coffee or sodas for everyone?

At the office, we should do the same thing. Help a troubled co-worker out, even if she’s very focused on her task, get her a hot beverage or a soda.No interruptions or quid-pro-quo arrangements are needed. Just do it.

The goal is for all to have more fun and be more productive. Sometimes this means sacrificing a tiny sliver of personal comfort, to help a friend out (and, yes, all your co-workers are considered friends. The Enemy is always on the outside of the office walls, your competitors who want to see you all fail). Other times this means that you get that cup of coffee, or that assistance you desperately needed.

We help each other. It is what Gamer Buddies do. Especially at work.