A while back I was interviewing for a new position.
“What got you in to gaming?” asked one of the people on the Zoom call.
“Well years ago,” my eyes staring off in to the middle distance, “when the world was simpler, and I was much, much younger I used to take apart old electronic toys, back before CPUs were cheap and common, and I learned to build new games out of pure logic circuits.”
“How old were you?” asked one of the interviewers.
“9, going on 10.” I responded
The interviewer looked a little skeptical “That doesn’t sound plausible.”
I smiled that forced, tight lip smile that I have, that people that know me have come to understand to mean “fuck you. This conversation is over.”
“And then I got into traditional game programming on 8-bit home computers…”
“So not real game development then” someone interjected.
“… before moving to console dev, and I also whiled away a few years of my misspent youth designing board games and playing D&D.”
“I hate D&D, it is such a waste…”
*click*
_Justin has left the Zoom meeting_
Three strikes, I’m out. Life’s too short.
Of note, no paraphrasing or recalling from memory needed. I record all my meetings, and I let the people on the other end know that it is being recorded so I can refer back to notes later on.