Hired!

First of all, I come bearing welcome news: I have a job!

I just received and accepted an offer from J. Lodge, a New Jersey-based company. I applied for a position with them in October, but didn't hear anything from them until the day before Thanksgiving. To make a long story short, nothing came of those initial discussions and I didn't hear from them again until I sent in my résumé a second time. In the interim, I began to think J. Lodge was bogus and wasn't very hopeful.

To make a long story short, this wasn't the case, and one thing led to another fast; I have been offered a position, which I (obviously) accepted, and training should start on Wednesday.

Most of you remember that in December and January, I worked for Alpine Access, a call center outsourcing company in Colorado, taking calls for 1-800-FLOWERS to help with their holiday overload. I thought that would be a great job for me, but such was not the case. In general, I simply couldn't make my body move and react to situations fast enough to meet Alpine's standards; my disability got in the way, and I discovered that the need to think, listen, type, and speak--simultaneously--was simply too much.

J. Lodge essentially works "on the other end" of companies like Alpine; they provide quality assurance and monitoring for other companies' phone, e-mail, and chat support and sales services. In the first place, this means that I will only have to listen to calls and fill out needed forms based on those calls, which should significantly increase my speed and comfort level with the job. Secondly, it looks like I'll be auditing for Time Warner's cable Internet service, Road Runner, which is right up my alley expertise-wise.

The situation didn't look quite as promising initially, though. When J. Lodge's representatives and I first started to talk, and I told them I had Verizon's FiOS Internet service (essentially DSL delivered over fiber-optic wiring, producing cable-like speeds), I was told I would need cable. Something didn't seem right, particularly after I ran some speed tests and discovered that my throughput was just ans fast as a cable connection. Apparently, J. Lodge's employees with traditional DSL were sapping too much of their corporate bandwidth, forcing them to get another T1 line installed. I asked to have the chance to "test connect" to J. Lodge's systems, but my request was essentially ignored. I resigned myself to accept that I was going to need to spend about $45 a month to get cable access in my room, despite the fact that I knew I didn't truly need it.

Luckily, though, I held out until I got the chance to speak with Mike, J. Lodge's CEO (who made the final decision to hire me). When I explained the situation, he confirmed that all they're interested in is the speed of the connection, not what type it is. Phew.

Anyway, I'll fax back the application and other forms in the morning. As far as I know, training will start on Wednesday. Once I'm trained, I could make about $12 an hour, paid per audit. I'm excited, to say the least!

On to the video at the top of this post. A few days ago, Travis sent me the first two Gabriel Knight games, which I had never played. I have the third, but only because it was Sierra's "last hurrah"--its last adventure game to date, and probably ever. Most of you know that for most of my life, I've been a huge adventure game fan, to the point that my career goal through much of my childhood was to be a designer for them. I resigned myself to accept that it would never happen, particularly after Sierra's lamentable downturn in the late 90's. However, through an interesting and often bizarre series of events, I think the dream is within my reach again. For the past 5 years, I've been working on the story for a fantasy adventure game with Travis and Rick, and have more recently started to develop connections in the gaming industry (with Himalaya Studios and Infamous Adventures). The idea for the game slowly morphed into a novel, but now that I know Rick, it has a chance of becoming a game again. We're not sure whether it'll be just a game, or first a book and then a game, but we're nearly positive it'll be a game at some point or other.

What's this have to do with GK? Well, GK is a deep, heavily-story-driven game series, largely unlike Sierra's flagship games, King's Quest. The story we've got up our sleeves combines the fantasy atmosphere of KQ with the depth of GK. I've really taken a liking to the GK games, and have even begun to feel the wheels of inspiration turning in my head. To whet your appetites, I've embedded the introductory video to the first chapter of the second game.

I was hoping to get together with Rick last week, but the plans fell through for some reason, and hopefully we'll be able to see each other this week instead. I did, however, see Eddie last Saturday, which was certainly a treat. We've resolved never to grow apart again, and something tells me we can truly manage that now.