Things are looking SLIGHTLY better

I'm getting somewhat of a break. Things could be better, but I'm not complaining.

First and foremost, my visit to EA Black Box. I was invited by one of their talent sourcers who contacted me, saying someone I knew at EA gave her my contact information which was why she was extending the open house invite to me. I thought that was pretty cool but couldn't help wondering who it was exactly that forwarded my information to her. Turns out it was Gord, which is a pretty big surprise. I just thought he didn't think enough of me to seriously help me out. Then Cody goes off and tells me Gord is referring me and him to his EA buddies and all of a sudden I feel like a jackass for not keeping in touch with him since graduation.

I also applied to the User Interface position at EA Black Box. I'm not sure if I'll even land an interview and frankly I'm not surprised if I don't, which was why I asked Gord to help me out. He wrote back saying he'll forward my information and put in a good word for me so we'll see what happens with that. I appreciate the time he's taking to make sure we get jobs - never expected that out of him.

Oh right, the visit to EA Black Box! So after an afternoon spent arguing with Loi over why Final Fantasy VII sucked and why Final Fantasy VIII was cool, haha, I rushed to get ready cause Ian was gonna come get me at 2:45. The open house was downtown and started at 4. So we get down there about half an hour early, went to Blenz while waiting for the event to start and were one of the first people there. EA spares no expense at customizing the floors of the buildings they take up. The elevators had artwork from their various games painted all over them, fancy glowing lights, a view of downtown Vancouver and the seabus harbour. They checked us in, gave us stickers, led us to the lounge where there was FREE gourmet appetizers. Battered shrimp, sashimi on some kind of biscuit, mini scrambled egg-looking things with sour cream, vietnamese springs rolls, and FREE BEER. They had a PS3 in the corner with Rockband hooked up, 2 foosball tables, a pretty lax atmosphere overall.


The first guy who came over to talk to us was some kind of project manager on Need for Speed - everyone there who mingled with us was on the Need for Speed team. He gave me Amanda's card and I gave him mine. Talked to me and Ian abit about the company, his background, what it was like at EA, nice guy over all. Then we met ... her name slips me right now, but she was a producer. A software engineer from the UK, an Asian guy with a nasty cut on his lip - don't remember what he did, another producer, so many faces and names to remember, I'm likely forgetting one or two people as I write this.

Anyway the girl whose name still slips my mind - she took us and 8 other people on a tour around the offices. During the tour i heard someone call my name, turned around and it turned out to be Ken! He's working there as a designer which is pretty surprising but good. I always thought getting a job as a designer was hard. Maybe he just got lucky, who knows. Couldn't really talk much to him because the lady was still giving us a tour and I didn't want to talk over her.

We left at around 7:30, half an hour before the event was over. I met Amanda in person and she was already familiar with me, which was awesome. She told me Gord gave her my demo reel to look over and she would try to find a fit for me. Again, I've heard that before so I'm not expecting much. Upon leaving they invited us to choose what free game we wanted! By the time we got there, the only Xbox360 game left was skate and I already had it so I chose to go with a PC version of an earlier Need for Speed.

Ian drove me home after the event. I was kinda tipsay after two beers, haha (but hey, they were FREE!). After getting home, found out from Shiach that there was going to be a problem with getting EA to hire me if I signed the contract with Volt the next morning. Apparently if I were to sign that contract, EA, as a client of Volt, would not be able to hire be for 6 straight months. Had a discussion with the parents about that, and Shiach via msn at the same time. Dad said it was expected as Volt didn't want EA hiring people through them since Volt was the one doing all the hiring for their company in order to get the QA duties done for their client (EA). So if EA were to take Volt employees, Volt would have to find replacements which would take up more valuable time that could be spent QA testing for EA. I went to bed that night not knowing what to do. My best option was to buy as much time as I could with Volt.

The next morning I woke up earlier than originally planned so I had enough time to go down to AI and discuss with Charina what my options were. She said my situation was a sticky one and agreed that the best option for me would be to buy more time with Volt beore handing in the contract, so I decided that's what I'd do after the orientation later that day.

After heading out of career services, I still had an hour left to kill before I was due at EA headquarters, so decided to kill some time by having a smoke and then walking all the way from AI to EA. And even then I was about 20 minutes early, so I played Bantaumi and Space Invaders for a few minutes while killing time. At about 20 past 11, headed over to the security desk who told me to wait by the couches for Sanaz, who would be my orientation leader that day. The couches were filled with about 20-30 other people waiting for the same orientation. As we were heading into the conference room, I ran into Shan who I haven't seen since she dropped out of our GPW. After talking with her for the entire duration of our orientation, I still have little respect for her work ethic.

The orientation went longer than the hour it was expected to last, and it was spent filling out ALOT of paper work. At the end of the day, I didn't end up handing it in becuase I pulled Sanaz aside and told her about my situation with EA and how there was a chance they might be contacting me. Charina said she was going to contact Amanda Pugh, the sourcer at EA Black Box and see what was going on over there. Meanwhile, Sanaz suggested I wait until it was clearer what was going to happen between me and Black Box before handing in the signed contracts (upon signing the contracts, it would be slightly more difficult for EA to hire me, since I'd be with Volt at that point.) I was surprised with how accomodating Sanaz was but I guess this must happen with them all the time. Another guy was in the same boat as I was. Sanaz told me to take as much time as I needed, up to a month which was pretty generous. So I told her okay and I'll probaby give it 3 weeks maximum to hear back from Black Box. If not, I'll hand in my signed contract to Volt.

That's my situation at this point. I hope something comes out of it. I read my horoscope yesterday and it said good things would happen from Monday to Wednesday. I'm not the superstitious type but I'm hoping the horoscope is right this time for my sake.