One of the surprising things of the last few months is that I’ve had reason to think about what a new job for me would look like. And there’s a lot.
I mean, I’m privileged as fuck to be able to even consider some of these questions. But I do get to consider them, and so instead of blindly doing the “default”, I’ve gotta think about what the best, most sustainable, most fulfilling version of work looks like for me.
Full time? I don’t know. I think probably if I was working 9-2:45, that’s about the right amount. Which means about 30 hours a week. Work when the kids are in school, and when they’re home, they’re priority #1.
Remote? Sort of. This is probably the biggest open question, because there’s two things I know for sure:
- I never want to work full-time in an office or commute ever again. Period.
- The thing I miss about work is the people, and the kinds of interactions and idea-acceleration and spontaneous nonsense that comes from being in the same place at the same time.
So while I really worry that it’s trivial to end up with the “worst of both worlds”, I think something like working co-located a few times a month for those in the area, and ensuring that about once a quarter we’re in the same place at the same time makes some amount of sense. And it’s probably an evolving thing. Early on, at the very beginning, more face time, but as we coalesce on the details of what we’re building and how, more independence. But even when we’re in the same place at the same time, temporal flexibility is required, and the ability to go deal with family stuff is #1. How to manage that? I still don’t really know.
There’s also questions of how much I’d be “in charge”. I expect that if we were to do a thing, I’d mostly be focused on high-level stuff. Team structure/culture, game direction, focus, process. But the details of what we’d be building would not generally be my focus most of the time. I think that makes a “not full-time” schedule more compatible with my actual job.
Will something actually happen? I have no idea. I think the opportunity to think about this, and potentially make something really cool with people again is alluring. But yeah – the world’s changed since the last time I had a job. Much of what I know about work is different, and learning to adapt to all the new bits and pieces, and wielding the old experience that still works… it’ll be an interesting challenge to navigate.
Most of the studio leads I’ve seen fail over the years failed because they couldn’t adapt. It’s not that they weren’t smart. It’s not that they lacked experience. It’s that the world changed, and they couldn’t see that the things that brought them success before wouldn’t bring them success again. For me, as a team lead (and also in my personal life as a parent) – missing this transition is one of my biggest fears.
We’ll see what happens, I guess.