Wacky day at work today. A misunderstanding with my boss made me believe that he thought that I was running slow on the work I was doing. This made me really upset, because I’ve been basically doing the work of two people, faster than two people would have done it. I’m writing, from scratch, an entire character, picking up the slack for errors in the schedule by doing process work on other characters, and doing new, system-level scripting that few people, I think, are even capable of doing.

So, I spent the afternoon pretty pissed off.

I’d also heard that a friend had gotten a substantial raise, and was now making almost twice my salary. Congratulations to her! But, sad to say, this made me jealous, and on top of the misunderstanding, I felt like I was being paid pretty well shit for the work I was doing. Also, given that I’m making now EXACTLY what I was making in Sept. 2000, that means over the last six years, my salary has gone down proportional to inflation. That’s pretty depressing. So, again, I spent the afternoon in a pretty venomous funk.

The salary thing shouldn’t bother me. Logically, it doesn’t. I have a really good life. I live in a nice house, however much more work it needs – I mean, the remaining work consists of fixing one part of the roof, doing some interior cosmetic work, and remodelling an upstairs bathroom and the kitchen. Then, there’s exterior cosmetic work that’ll eventually need doing, some cement repair on the front yard’s retaining wall, steps, walkway around the house, and back patio. But once that’s done, this place will be a freakin’ PALACE. I mean, it’s huge. For two people, it’s more than twice the space that we could reasonably need. We comfortably house four people, and there’s a good room worth of space in the downstairs that we simply don’t use – not because it’s awkward or weird, but because we just don’t have any idea what to do with it, or the time to inhabit it, even if we did find a good use.

So, what am I wanting a bigger salary for? Between Ei-Nyung and I, we save a reasonable amount every month. We support her family. We live comfortably. I mean, I sure wouldn’t mind being able to afford some camera goodies and a Tesla, but if I made twice what I make now, I’m sure I’d be jonesing for some other ridiculous thing I can’t afford. Whatever. So, the salary thing – I can’t say I’m not jealous, and I can’t say I don’t feel underpaid for what I bring to the company, but things are what they are, and being bitter about that isn’t helping anyone.

I think the key, though, is that if I ever really want to get rich as a game designer, there’s no alternative to starting my own thing. That much is pretty clear. So, really, it’s just a matter of doing it. I don’t lack for confidence in ideas – I have absolutely no doubt that among the group of people I know, we have absolutely stellar ideas, and enough competance to execute them well. It’s just a matter of doing it.

In terms of the misunderstanding, a little bit before I left, I put my frustration into a calmly worded, very rational, and most importantly, short, e-mail, and sent it to my boss, who I also consider a friend. He turned around, and responded (we sit in adjacent cubes), telling me it was a misunderstanding, and that he has complete confidence in my work, and knows that I’m taking on a lot of stuff. So, that got resolved cleanly, and happily for all involved (I think).

The coming days are going to be tough – there’s a lot to do at work, and some of it is really going to depend on whether I can get the creative process revved up at the right time. There are some days when I’m on fire, and can crank out two or three units of progress in a day. Other days, maybe one. To hit the deadline, I’m basically going to have to be at maximum output four of the six working days remaining before the deadline – a feat that I find exceedingly unlikely. So, probably means longer hours, but it’s a little worrisome, because longer hours doesn’t ensure good work, for something like writing character dialog. We’ll see, though – it has to get done, so it’ll get done.

Then, this weekend, starting Friday, is a trip to NYC, to hang out with some friends, visit the parents on Long Island, and go to a wedding in Philly. Gonna be a hectic week…