Alex's first fortnight

As is traditional now, we asked Alex to write a few paragraphs about his first weeks working with us here at Moviestorm Towers. We told him to be honest, so the bits where he says we're all great are not made under duress and are therefore admissible in court.

So I’ve been at Short Fuze for two weeks now and I’m glad to say that I’m surviving. Now I’ve got over those first week jitters, I’m feeling a lot more settled as part of the group. That's mostly due to the great hospitality of the Moviestorm team, who have welcomed me with open arms (and an open dev build). I began to feel at home right away, and fell straight into the work - despite having to make an hour and a half commute morning and night. Thankfully, today's Friday so I get a well earned lie-in tomorrow.
For the second week in a row, I’ve been placed firmly in the QA department. I’ve been giving new user experience input for the latest version of Moviestorm, finding bugs, submitting feature requests and generally trying to break the software. I have to say the work can be repetitive and sometimes frustrating, but if anyone knew my circumstances beforehand they’d know how much I’m enjoying it. As this version is close to being released I found myself somewhat thrown in at the deep end, but as we all know, beggars can’t be choosers and I love a challenge. Andrew has requested that I help him design some of his sweet-looking movie gifts so I’ve definitely not run out of things to look forward to. That’s much better than writing DVDs that each take an hour and a quarter to burn, yawn.
As my placement with Short Fuze is open-ended I have no idea how long I will be working here. I would very happily work here forever, so fingers crossed that investment starts flooding in and Moviestorm becomes bigger than The Sims! I guess as long as I’m making myself useful here there'll be a place for me, so its eyes down, tea in hand and tappity tap tap on the keyboard.
For me the significance of this placement is huge. Moviestorm isn't a game, of course, but I still consider this to be my first experience working in the games industry. It's built my confidence and taught me that I can work in one of the most competitive sectors of the media and make a name for myself. On a more constructive note it's inspiring me to start kicking down game company doors (metaphorically) to get my voice heard and my face out there for all to see (no matter how unpleasant).
In conclusion, this has been an amazing experience for me so far. Despite sitting in an office all day staring at a monitor screen, I’m relishing every moment of it. Perhaps it's because I’ve began working in the industry in which I want a career, or maybe it's because I’m working with a great bunch of guys (and one gal). Either way, I’m definitely richer for the experience.
That's got to be better than playing Counter Strike: Source all day. Hmm actually...