{"id":87614235,"date":"2008-06-18T10:17:06","date_gmt":"2008-06-18T18:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/?page_id=87614235"},"modified":"2013-10-29T12:37:10","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T20:37:10","slug":"where-do-i-work","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/?page_id=87614235","title":{"rendered":"Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Yanked from my LinkedIn profile<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Started doing data entry for a large paper-coating plant to pay bills while I ran a dial-up Bulletin Board System.<\/p>\n

Worked for a small “screwdriver shop” where I first really learned about building workstations and networks in the days of DOS, Novell, and Win3.x Win95.<\/p>\n

Found myself with a subcontracting group, going into anything and everything I was sent into. Learned to calm down panic-stricken customers (and panic-stricken ME), and then figure out how best to get their equipment running properly again.<\/p>\n

Worked for one of Vancouver’s largest legal firms<\/a>, and learned how to deal with the day to day (and once-in-a-lifetime) issues of large corporations, and their demanding environments.<\/p>\n

Eventually, I went “solo” and took on a large rollout of Windows 95 at another firm, almost entirely on my own. Was crazy enough to think I could do it, was lucky enough to pull it off, barely.<\/p>\n

Started at another onsite support company (Voyus<\/a>\/Velocity) in 97, and sharpened my skills as a “road technician,” learning what I needed on the fly, and keeping the customer in the loop at all times.<\/p>\n

2002 <\/strong>brought me to my first gaming company (Relic<\/a>), and taught me the trade of 3d animators and programmers, and what they need to get the games done.<\/p>\n

2003 <\/strong>brought “the call” from a highly-placed executive<\/a> to lead the technical support at a new Electronic Arts<\/a> studio that was opening up at Vancouver’s waterfront. Worked in an office of 400+ as 1\/3rd of the technical support team before being brought to their larger Burnaby campus. Worked there until early 2008, when I was laid off due to cutbacks.<\/p>\n

2008 <\/strong>found me at Nexon Publishing North America<\/a> (Humanature Studio), working with and for some familiar faces until closure in early 2009.<\/p>\n

2009 <\/strong>had me do a little consulting for a small law firm or two, hearkening back to my days at Ladner Downs and others, but starting in April of ’09, \u00a0I’d been working at FranticFilms.com<\/a>‘s VFX wing in Vancouver, helping them move from their Broadway office which houses about 45 people (and would comfortably suit 35, maybe) to their new offices downtown. \u00a0Worked there while they turned into PrimeFocus and grew from 45 to just shy of 100.<\/p>\n

2010 <\/strong>\"\"After a number of months of talks and planning, I left PrimeFocus to work at a small startup that rebooted a small 2d to 3d film conversion house, called Conversion Works Corp. \u00a0Long story short – the CTO and I didn’t see eye to eye, and I left the company.\u00a0 Looked for something new.<\/p>\n

2011 <\/strong>Found Goldtooth Creative in Railtown, another small VFX house, where folks were generally pretty decent, but there were politics outside of performance goals, and paranoia, and generally too many sleepless nights.\u00a0 Not long after I spent a 36-hour day trying to keep a dying licensing server running, I left the company after two years.\u00a0 Burnt out.<\/p>\n

2013 <\/strong>In May I joined www.longviewsystems.com<\/a> which is, as the kids like to say, insanely great.\u00a0 Much more like my late-90s gig working at Voyus, but not we don’t have to drive all over the Greater Vancouver Regional District to get things done, and nobody ever has to feel like they’re the only person that can get the job done.\u00a0 Much much happier with work (and life in general, because of it).\u00a0 They say things like “I want to be there when you retire” during the interview process, which they appear to be sincere about.\u00a0 Truly an alien concept after leaving games (We have ten people lined up to do your job) and VFX (A true “race to the bottom” if ever there was one).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Yanked from my LinkedIn profile) Started doing data entry for a large paper-coating plant to pay bills while I ran a dial-up Bulletin Board System. Worked for a small “screwdriver shop” where I first really learned about building workstations and networks in the days of DOS, Novell, and Win3.x Win95. Found myself with a subcontracting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-87614235","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/87614235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87614235"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/87614235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87614956,"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/87614235\/revisions\/87614956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geckotemple.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87614235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}