Stick and I are on the phone talking about work, which is a lot better for both of us now than it was in Raleigh. It’s better because we’re both working in games now, instead of stopgap jobs, and also because we’ve regained the ability to have a real conversation, without underlying hostility and annoyance. He mentions that his game’s community manager ends up working with QA a lot, and he starts to explain about the particularities of a persistent multiplayer situation.
“And I told my community manager what you do,” he ends.
“What’s that?” I grumble. “Listen to the players tell me how much they hate the game, triage the players with valid problems from players who just like to complain, format that into a concise summary, and send it out, so that management can tell me that other projects take priority, and my programmers can tell me how many weeks my quick fix will take?”
“I said you make things happen.”
“Oh, Stick.” I tell him, “Only you would make ‘my ex-girlfriend doesn’t know what she does for a living’ into a compliment.”
