I feel like a zombie. Every day I find myself doing the exact same thing over and over again. If I had to compare it to anything, I'd say it'd be like living in the movie Groundhog Day. It's a loop that I wish I could break free from, but I have no choice but to work. Working provides me with the needed food, shelter, and payments towards my accumulating college debt. Nearly one-hundred thousand dollars, and a few years later, I find myself in an entry-level position that barely covers the costs. Every day is a battle between the stress of my crippling debt and the depression that rises from it.
My name is Eli Withers and I'm a single twenty-two year old. I work for a large video game company as a game master, or what our players would call a GM. At first becoming a GM was a fantasy realized. I would spend countless hours between homework assignments and work playing the popular online game known as New Life Online.
New Life Online or NLO, is an innovation to massively online role-playing games. There are no specific jobs or classes you can choose. Depending on how you progress, you gain skills related to your experiences. If you want to practice magic, well go to the magus academy and take on quests related to a specific discipline. Perhaps you want to wield a sword; just go to the local barracks and do those quests instead. Heck, if you wanted a little of both worlds you could do that too! Anything is possible in this world, if you can imagine it, it can be.
NLO was created by Bill Ramis, the CEO of our company Hermit Council Enterprises. Bill is a lanky, middle-aged man who dresses like an edgy teenager. Ripped jeans and shirts of his favorite bands seem to be the only type of clothing that would be in his closet. He is the reason that every day here is a casual Friday.
Bill is beyond sociable with all of his employees. When he's not at his desk working on important matters or new ways to make our players happy, he's talking with one of us. He comes by my desk more often than others, and to be honest, I have no idea why. There's nothing at all special about me. I come in each day performing the same routine duties, provide consistent customer service, and once in a while bring up ideas to him when he passes by. I never thought he'd take my suggestion about changing some of the in-game quest rewards that players felt were too overpowered, though.
On my way into work today I noticed a new addition to the event board. The event board is pretty much as what it sounds like. Our human resources department will post any new opportunities, as well as the company hosted events, on the board. There was one flier out of the many already posted that caught my eye. Reading over it I mutter, "Alpha testers wanted for the New Worlds expansion, apply at the HR desk." I'll have to remember to stop by on my lunch, there's no way I'm passing this up. I mean alpha testers tend to get a free copy after the release of the game or expansions to them. Anything to save a little extra cash helps.
The floor that I'm on is nothing but rows and rows of open cubicles. It reminds you of those typical call center environments, but with a fun twist. Our floor is literally a playground for adults. Cardboard cut-outs and life-size figurines of the game's key characters are scattered around the room. My favorite one happens to be between my desk and Charles'. The figure, only known as The Seer, is an older man in ragged-white clothing carrying a lamp in the swirl of his staff. The Seer is the first character that the players see when creating a new game character. He serves as the game's guide and tutorial. Although he is helpful, there is little to no back story for him.
My day goes by quickly and before I know it, it's lunchtime. Luckily, I wasn't taking phone calls from angry players about billing issues related to their accounts. Instead, I get to go around the game monitoring interactions between players. As a GM I have to make sure no one is using unfair means to cheat, that is if our anti-cheating software doesn't catch it first. Other than that, I handle in-game tickets related to player complaints or questions. The complaints are more or less the same. Name calling, racism, or harassment between players is the common theme in all of the complaints. I hand out more warnings than bans, contrary to the popular belief. It gets a bit tedious after a while, but it sure beats the getting yelled at on the phone.
"Is it about that time, Eli?" Charles asks as he puts his headset down. We are both on the same team, so we kind of take our lunches at the same time.
"Yea, I'm going to stop by HR to see about that alpha testing position," I say with a grin.
"Oh, You saw that too? Everyone is talking about it. I was thinking about stopping over later too."
"Wanna go together? Might as well since we don't have much time otherwise." I say as I log off of my account and the computer.
"I'll stop by during my next break," Charles says, "I haven't eaten anything today. I'll catch you later."
I wave him off as we go separate directions. The company cafeteria is located on the first level of the building, while the HR department is on the tenth floor; with the other administrative offices. It takes about five minutes before I reach the desk for human resources. The human resources office has the nicest view of the city in the building. From here, anyone would stand in awe at the beauty and grandeur of the skyscrapers.
"Hello," a woman's voice calls out, "How can I help you?" I shift my direction towards the counter that was empty just a moment before. Darleen, the person who handled my orientation, stood behind the counter. From what I remember when she introduced herself, she mentioned that she's around a decade older than me. This is the first time I have seen her in a while. I never really have a need to stop into the human resources office. It's kind of hard to forget the beautiful auburn-colored hair and freckled face. I'm a sucker for these two qualities.
"I was um, wondering about how I can apply for the alpha testing position." I approach the desk.
"Oh, that's what you needed," Darleen says, "Let me go get the application quickly, it'll be a moment." She disappears into one of the rooms in the hallway behind her. While I wait, I find myself gazing back out of the windows in thought. I feel that there was something I missed doing today. Something important, and for some reason my mind is drawing a blank. If it's important enough, it's sure to come back to me.
A few moments go by before the clicking of a door sounds from in back of the hallway. Darleen is returning with what looks like is a stack of applications, at least I hope it is. She throws the impressively large stack down on the counter.
"Here you go, just make sure to return it by tomorrow, that's the deadline the bosses came up with." She says.
My jaw drops from her statement, "Wait, you mean this whole thing is the application? There has to be a least a thousand pages in it." I flip through the first few pages. The first page is what I'd expect out of an application. You know, asking for a name, identification number, other personal identifying information, and a few open-ended questions that I'll have to read later. You can barely see, or understand for that matter, the rest of the pages. Some pages are written in small font that I would need a magnifying glass just to read. I can understand an embargo agreement or even a non-disclosure to prevent employees from leaking game-play ahead of time, but this is too much to just imply that. There must be more to it.
"So I have to read and sign all of this?" I said scratching the back of my head.
"Well, you just have to have the application filled out for the meantime if you want to do that now," She explains, "The legal disclaimers and agreements are due by the time of the interview if you are selected. If you have any questions in the meantime, please forward them to Bill Ramis."
"Thanks, is it cool if I sit down and fill out the first page quickly?" I ask.
"That's fine, just leave it on the counter when you are done. Good luck." She smiles briefly before returning into the back. I go sit down and begin the application process. It takes me about fifteen minutes to fill out everything legitimately so people can read. My handwriting is dreadful so I always take extra time to make sure it's readable. My writing looks more like chicken scratch than English. The open-ended questions were typical. Asking things like, why are you best fit for this position, or do you have experience testing and reporting bugs?
However, one question threw me off. Do you ever dream of living a different life? Of course I do, who wouldn't think that from time to time Why is this relevant to the job, and why are they so eager to know this? The only answer I can come up with is that these questions are trying to feel for the personality of the individual. That would make sense for the first few questions though, but not for the last one.
I place the application on the counter and head back down to my desk. Placing the pile of papers on my desk, I realize I'm not going to get enough game time tonight. With this much paperwork, I know I'm not going to have enough downtime during the week. Maybe if I were to start reading a bit between each ticket, I could squeeze in some time tonight. If I can pull that off without getting caught, I can finally get to work on clearing that event dungeon tonight.
Time drags by as I count down the remaining few minutes to freedom. Three pages is what I manage to read up to this point, about half of the non-disclosure agreement. All that it talked about was not sharing the information of the application process or interview to come if selected. I just skipped over the next four pages and wrote out my signature on the bottom of the last page. It's not like I'm going to tell anyone about company secrets. I know it's irresponsible to just sign something I didn't read, but, I really don't want to spend the rest of my week doing this.
I'm still surprised that Bill didn't pass by our desks today for his usual rounds. I wonder what he could be doing. He most likely must be going over the applicants with human resources to see who could be a considerable asset to the testing team. I'm crossing my fingers that I do get selected. There's been so much hype about this expansion. New Worlds has been kept on the hush for the past three years as the developers worked on it. No one has ever seen a video of game-play or even concept art for that matter.
The whole project has been in mystery. No updates, no promised release dates, nothing. The development team has only posted one thread on the game forums in all this time. Just an announcement of a planned expansion that will completely redefine the concept of multi-player gaming. Since then rumors have been spreading; as well as people claiming to have inside knowledge. Some of the rumors suggest that they are working on some kind of new technology, or that the expansion itself was just a joke by the company.
I turn towards Charles as he is packing up for the day, "Hey man, are you going to be playing tonight?"
"NLO? What else would I be doing on a Friday night? I need to level up my monk-warrior a little more to clear Gyzak's quest-line."
I shake my head, "Why the hell would you choose a monk as your main class? Let me guess, PVP?"
"You know it!" Charles grins, "I gotta get on the weekly board for those sweet rewards. Especially for the reward next month."
"Hey boys, how's it going?" Bill says as he quickly approaches our cubicles.
"Good, How about you?" I rise from my seat and extend my hand out to shake Bill's.
"Can't complain. Not that anyone would listen anyway." Charles says following my lead.
"What are you guys conspiring about over here?" Bill laughs as he motions us to sit down. He pulls out a chair from an empty cubicle and sits down beside us.
"Charles and I were talking about playing NLO tonight. I was about to offer him some help in leveling up his monk." I start loading my laptop into my bag as well as the documents Darlene had given me earlier.
"That sounds like fun, would you guys let me join in. Maybe I can help with the leveling." Bill smirks as he takes a drink from his coffee mug; letting out an exhale of satisfaction. Bill loves his coffee, you never see him without a cup in his hand. I was never the one to enjoy the bitterness of coffee. Its taste was never that appealing to me.
"Do you mean giving a ten times experience blessing? If so you can play with us any night." Charles teases.
"I can do a five times experience boost, but not anymore," Bill says. Charles has a glimmer in his eye that speaks volumes of gratitude and shock.
"That would be absolutely crazy man. What's your in-game name? I'll send you a request." Charles pulls out a notebook and a pen from his bag, awaiting eagerly.
"The one that I play on privately is Calar. If you share that info, I'll ban you," Bill gives a stern warning before letting out a chuckle, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But seriously, please don't share it. Players bother me enough as is on my main character."
"I could only imagine," Charles writes down the name in his notebook and stores it back inside his bag, "I can't even imagine the number of messages you get when you're patrolling. It'd drive me nuts."
"You have no idea." Bill shakes his head as he takes another drink.
"Well, I'll see you guys tonight! Can't wait for that experience boost!" Charles waves us goodbye before walking out towards the elevators.
"Could you walk with me to my office, Eli? I wanted to talk to you about something." Bill stands up.
"Uh sure, I'm not in trouble am I?" I ask hesitantly. I feel a knot begin to tie in my stomach.
"No, not at all! I just wanted to talk to you about something job-related. It'd be better not to talk about it in the open, do you understand?" Bill motions for me to follow him as he begins walking off. I quickly grab my backpack and laptop case before getting up to follow him. We enter the elevator and the door closes. Bill presses the button for the tenth floor and reaches into his back pocket for his phone. A minute passes by and we exit the elevator. Heading down the long hallway, I look towards the walls and notice all of the pictures of the administration. I never realized how big a team must be to run things smoothly in a company this large. The picture frames seem to go on for the duration of the trip, as well as the many faces that are on them. Some of them long gone, and the rest still viable members of the team.
We reach the end of the hall where a wooden rustic door is shut. To be honest, it reminds me of an entrance to a medieval dungeon. Bill opens and holds the door open for me. A welcoming scent wafts from out of the room. Cinnamon. I've always loved cinnamon, the taste, and the smell. My grandmother with this knowledge would always bake an apple pie for me whenever I came over during the hot summers. It's a taste I've grown accustomed to and associate with those summer days that I would spend with her.
What I find inside the office are an oak desk, a large leather v-shaped office chair, and a few seats facing towards the desk. The floor is a bit messy with papers and coffee cans littered around. On top of his desk, three monitors and a computer rest. Three monitors he has and the rest of us on my floor only have two. A little jealousy rises up in me. If my desk had an extra monitor, it would make it so much easier to organize all the programs I keep open.
"Have a seat, Eli. Make yourself comfortable," Bill says as he navigates his way around the desk, "Would you like some tea or some coffee?"
I nod my head, "Coffee would be nice." Bill reaches under his desk, and a door shuts. He tosses a can towards me, catching me off guard in the process. I managed to catch it, open it, and take a sip.
"So I noticed you applied for the testing position," Bill starts typing away on his computer, "What made you take interest in the initial alpha stage?" Bill leans back into his office chair and stares at me, awaiting an answer.
"Well, I love the game, sir. I've been playing it since it's release and I feel that I would be one of the best candidates to give feedback as a player." He flashes a smile.
"That makes me happy to hear," Bill goes back to typing, "When I first started planning the game I always had a fear of failing. Since it's different."
"Different is the selling point though. If it were to be mundane like the rest of the competition, it would've died out." I explain shuffling in my seat to get comfortable.
"Maybe so," Silence looms for a moment before he speaks again, "I honestly would hate to lose my best customer service rep." My heart sinks. What does he mean by lose? Is there a chance I won't be able to go back to my old position? Is it not just a temporary job for employees?
I hesitate asking, "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you wouldn't be down on the fourth floor doing things the way you are now," Bill lets out a disgruntled sigh, "Almost everyone else just under performs. It's kind of why our ticket queue is so long lately."
"If you really need me there, I don't mind retracting my application." A bit of guilt fills my heart. I don't want to let him down and I don't want the company to suffer for my own volition.
"No, no. It's fine. Asking you to stay there wasn't the reason for me bringing you up here." Bill takes a long drink from his coffee mug and places it back on top of his desk.
"What was the reason you brought me up here?" I ask.
"I'll cut straight to the chase. I want you to lead a testing team." Bill says. I expect him to let out a laugh, but that doesn't happen. He's serious about this.
"You want me to be a supervisor? I have no idea on how to lead." I stutter. My insides feel like they're twisting around one another. This news makes me happy because it means I would be able to get a pay raise, and not to mention a chance to prove my worth.
"Don't sweat the small stuff. If you want the position, it's yours. You still need to interview with me and the director of the program as a formality, of course."
"Of course I want it!" I say with strong determination in my voice, "But what will happen after the job is finished?"
"You wouldn't return to it. This position will be a permanent placement due to the nature of the newer technology needed to play it." Bills explains. The new technology he's talking about, could it be a new console? Or is it something that will completely revolutionize the world of gaming?
"I don't understand, sir. I thought that a testing position would only run on for a few months at most." As confused as I am at this revelation I feel comforted by the fact that I won't have to worry about not having a job after. This company is infamous for it's overturn rate. Employees come and go because they either can't meet the metrics, or they slack off. We are all expendable cogs in the machine. If needed we are simply replaced in haste; no second chances, no hard feelings.
"After you finish your interview, you'll be given the information you need. You'll also have to take a few company classes that all our supervisors go through. The boring stuff, you know." Bill stands up and carefully navigates his way around the desk towards me, attempting not to trip over anything in the process.
"I'm sure you'll do fantastic. You already do a better job than anyone down thereā" Bill pats my shoulder, "Be up here at two tomorrow, we'll interview you then."
"I'll see you then, have a good night Mr. Ramis." I shake his hand before grabbing my bag and heading off with a huge grin on my face. I'm getting a promotion tomorrow, and on top of that I am going to be part of something big for the company. I'm finally making it somewhere. I'm finally going to be able to put my skills and passion towards something I actually care about.
"Call me Bill, Eli. Have a good night." Bill gives a warm smile. I wave goodbye and head out of the building towards the parking lot. I got the job, now all that is left is the interview. I'll have to figure out what I'm going to wear. I'm sure that I have some nice dress clothes somewhere in my closet. It's been a while since I would've last worn them, but I'm sure that won't be a problem. It's time to rush home for the night and play a little before the big day.