Mom (accountant): so I was looking at your income for 2011, it’s uh…
Me: Yeah, yeah… I know.
Mom: So, what’s happening?
Me: Well the situation is pretty bad, as you know.
Mom: Yes, only 2% of my clients are paying taxes on benefit, worst ever.
Me: Wow.
Mom: So are you searching? I mean I know you work on some stuff…
Me: Yes, it’s tough companies are in trouble, they close or lose money or certainly don’t hire. It’s all about 4 or 6 months contracts at the very best.
Mom: Are you searching in the US?
Me: Yes, first and foremost. But it’s not great there either. I applied for a great position for a great company where I could do a great job but you know, I don’t know.
Mom: I see.
Me: Sigh.
Mom: And uh, do you plan to do something else than sound in games or?
Me: You mean joining dad and my sister to do some woodworking? Ha, I don’t know I’m not against completely switching careers but it’s tough, I want to apply what I learned in twelve years, at the end ditching the all thing when I know it’s right here… But yeah, I know what you mean.
Mom: Because you know…
Me: Yeah mom… I do.
There’s such a gap between gen X and boomers, it’s really tough to have sane conversations without the classic “you don’t know SHIT” ending them.
The funny thing is she never knew unemployment, she started her own accounting company only after a couple of years at a bigger firm and never stopped since. I always knew unemployment even before working and I only have been able to start my own thing after 9 years, when Sarkozy did something that fucking everybody could have done way earlier but I digress. My mom uses a ten or fifteen year old accounting software and support ends this year. She told me she won’t change her old habits, they are working! I am so used to learn new software it’s a second nature for a game developer. And she’s asking me if I could forget about knowing how to produce a full sound spectrum from blips to soundtracks applied to software, game and UX design and start something else, are you shitting me right now. No, I can’t. I love it, it’s deep I’m good at it and games and apps are too huge to feel that I should give up because my timing in this world was worse than my mom’s. That’s not cool.
See you on Sunday mom, and thanks in advance for the champagne we will have for my 33.
3 replies on “Over the counter”
I believe in you.
Some are more realistic I guess. My parents were AMAZED that I could even get a permanent work contract in a company and progress without real studies after the bac… I was lucky. Also they are pretty surprised by my career change.
My dad is like “yea you need to adapt to get a job nowadays” and my mum is more like “you need to do a job you love” because she never worked or lived to make money, but to do a job she’s great at.
Let’s do jobs where we’re great at, we’ll have the fancy houses in another life. Inch’allah.
Thank you, my Verdell.
Sara one side of a job is to sustain yourself, which I have been able to until a lot hit me in the face but loving what you do or not doesn’t change this reality. Loving your job or having a partner sustaining your life for you is not great or more like, unbalanced. It creates a security breach and I know we’re all in the same shit here and solutions are custom made for our lives. My parents always felt a little anxious even when I was on big companies payroll. They could see my face and also, I think they really don’t like computer games. Actually games in general.