One of the artists at valve happened to live 2 doors down from me. He worked 60-70 hr weeks and was at valve 7 days a week for the past year at least. He and his wife are now legally separated, he lives in an apartment near valve and sees his kid on the weekends (now that HL2 shipped). The funny part is that the guy absolutely loves valve. Every time I talked to him he couldn't stop talking about work and how much he loved his job and the people he worked with and how valve was the greatest company in the world.
From my perspective, it doesn't matter how great a job it is, anyone who abandons their wife and kid for a job isn't living in reality, their living in some bizzare consensual hallucination no doubt carefully propagated by a company to get their employees to work insane hours and love every minute of it.
Now I don't assume for a minute that the guy was working all the time, valve has been pretty smart ab out blending work and pleasure. They have laundry services at work, so you don't have to do your own laundry. They routinely rent movie theaters in the area to go out as a group. They play games and hang out together. So I can see why EpicBoy's friend could say they weren't crunching. None the less, most people were there 7 days a week. Valve became their family, their support system, their entertainment, their home.
Awesome if your a single guy, but if you have a wife and kid, you really don't have that kind of luxury. From the perspective of a wife at home with a kid, you are in crunch time and working insane hours. It's all a matter of perspective really...
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Dan MacDonald
a prisoner of the cause
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