The Escapist, Issue 47: Office Space

[Evil Avatar]

Work and gaming have been together since the PC entered the business world; It's no coincidence that many older games featured a "boss" key. The authors at The Escapist look at the tenuous relationship between work and play in this week's issue of The Escapist: Office Space (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/47). Articles include:

Simon Abramovitch: Cubicle Vision (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/47/3)
Personal phone calls, smoke breaks, email, instant messaging ... there are many ways that office workers fill their lunches and breaks every day. Simon Abramovitch explores why gaming is often not an option.

Richard Aihoshi: All Work and No Play? (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/47/7)
What does it mean when the line between work and play becomes hazy, or even disappears altogether? When play becomes work, can it still be play too? Richard Aihoshi looks at 'fulltime' gamers.

Corvus Elrod: All Play and No Work, A Speculative Fiction (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/47/11)
"As she did every Monday morning, she thought about the stories her mother told of her days as a loan officer. She knew if her job today was anything like Mom's, she wouldn't be so successful." Corvus Elrod takes a speculative look at the future world of gamers.

Cat Rambo: Sponsored by Microsoft and Apple (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/47/13)
Many gamers, especially online gamers, tend to keep a wall between their 'real' and 'gaming' lives, but that's not always the case. Cat Rambo discusses how the administrators of Armageddon have found their game-developing hobby affecting their professional lives, and vice versa.

[AniAko]

Cubicle Vision is something I can definately relate to. At my last job the engineers LOVED Quake3. And during lunch, and at 5PM we played for an hour on our office machines. The sysadmin was a player so, getting it installed on company machines wasn't an issue. However after playing for a year and a half straight, the CEO caught wind of us playing after hours, when we "could have been working," so he banned us from playing it. It sucked, but since most of us had laptops, we'd still play on business trips and the like.

Currently I'm at a small company, and I'm the sysadmin, so people don't bother me really. I report directly to the controller, and he doesn't even question my work hours. I'm in late every day, yet I still put in about 9 hours a day, so he really doesn't question it. If he sees me reading slashdot, he knows it's because I'm keeping my tech-knowlwedge fresh. All in all it's a good gig. I play my DS during lunch, or CounterStrike, and sometimes I work through lunch. It makes my work environment very comfortable, and in many ways more productive. I don't feel compelled to leave work at the end of the day, because the freedom I have lets me accomplish personal and work related tasks. Although this might not be the right environment for everyone, it works for me and I hope the freedoms are never revoked.

[Roc Ingersol]

props to the ArmageddonMUD crowd.