That Time The Gaming Industry Worked Me To Death

The Damage Done

I started to work, and only work. When HR sent me home, I’d work from my tiny bedsit, or learn techniques for work tomorrow. I stopped eating during lunch breaks. All I cared about was the pursuit of work, and everything else became peripheral. The most frustrating thing was, when this all started, I thought I was going to be climbing the career ladder. Now, I was literally working to save what I had.

During this period, colleagues started disappearing - likely having been dismissed due to the cutbacks.

My peers and I recall a time we call the “staff cull”, where HR walked around the studio, tapping people on their shoulder, bringing them into the office, and they returned to their desks in a sullen, broken state to pack their stuff up. The “grim reapers” broke the spirits of the studio, and we all feared that they’d come for us next.

Thankfully, I survived to work beyond the worst of it, but mentally, the damage had already been done.

I started to get so fearful of a situation I couldn’t control, that I started to regress. My world in so much chaos, I started obsessively counting my work hours, my calories, and my steps and reps done. I’d try to “beat” the day before - staying at work a bit longer, shaving more time off my breaks (and therefore time spent eating), and doing more exercise when I got home at night. Naturally, I lost a ton of weight, but I couldn’t stop myself. I thought, “they’d never fire the guy who does as much as me, would they?”

Some of my colleagues got promoted, and I didn’t.

At my next performance review, I got a startling comment which explained why.

“He’s very enthusiastic, naturally talented, but we are concerned about his health and his limited integration with the rest of the team.”

I hadn’t realised myself, but in my focus on work, I had missed almost every team party, every team meal, and having purposely taken no consistent breaks in almost a year, all the chances to integrate with the people I was supposed to be working with.

I didn’t care. I wanted to do more. But I couldn’t. I started to feel unwell.