[Lemon Drop Disaster]

It seems that most accounts here about game companies in general, and EA in particular, are pretty negative, so I figured it would be worth while to give the other side of the story. So here's what working for EA is like for me.

First of all, I did sign an NDA when I hired on and I didn't read it too thoroughly, so erring on the side of caution I'm going to try to make this as anonymous as I possibly can. For obvious reasons I can't tell you what project I'm working on, but I'm a QA Tester (yes, the lowly grunt) and I hired on fairly recently.

Quality of life here, as best as I can tell, is great. I absolutely love the work environment, I love the team I'm on and all of my immediate supervisors are amazing. We're constantly rewarded and thanked for doing our jobs well, although the opposite is also true: When we're not performing up to our potential, we do get the lectures. Standards for improvement when we're not doing our best are very fair and reasonable, and any improvement at all is definitely recognized positively, even if we're still not up to where we should be ideally. Overall, positive reinforcement outweighs the negative.

The pay isn't amazing, but it's good enough for what we do. QA Testers at Tiburon start out at $8.25 an hour (for reference, minimum wage here is $6.79) for a temporary six month position, with the possibility of conversion to permanent employment at $9.50 plus benefits depending on performance and corporate budget for new hires. Testers who are laid off at the end of the six months are nearly always given another chance after the legally required 3-month off-time if they so choose, and the percentage of temporary re-hire conversions is much higher. We do get time and a half for overtime (anything over 40 hours a week).

Hours are bearable, but only if you really like the job. Normal hours for a project are a guaranteed 40 a week, the first crunch ups that to 50 or so a week depending on the project status, after which hours are normal again, then another crunch of 60 or so hours for a few weeks, and then the dreaded final crunch where we basically live at the office for a few days to a couple weeks right before we submit the title for standards compliance checking. (Ideally this last crunch should only last a few days, but if the project bounces for standards violations [which is fairly uncommon] then we keep pushing until it goes through.) It really takes a certain kind of person to be willing to devote that much time and energy to the job, but personally I have no problem with the work schedule, and it all pays off when the overtime checks come in.

The office environment is a little rough, especially compared to where the developers and artists work, but it's still pretty awesome. The worst we have to deal with is old and occasionally malfunctioning equipment, wired Xbox 360 controllers that get tangled up in our chairs, and somewhat cramped space during the peak season. (But it's worth mentioning that management is doing everything they can on a daily basis to improve these conditions; they're constantly adding new workstations, replacing old equipment with brand new gear, replacing old chairs with nicer, more comfortable ones, and from what I hear there may be an expansion of our workspace as a whole somewhat soon.)

And then there are the little things. Not the sort of things that make you decide whether or not to apply for the job, but nice little touches that do make a difference. The break room is stocked with vending machines that run cheap as hell. $.25 for name brand 12oz sodas (it's worth mentioning that one of our vending machines has three slots devoted just to Mountain Dew), and snacks for less than half what you'd pay at a convenience store for them. (Unless I misunderstood, they're actually selling these things at a loss just to make the work environment nicer.) On top of that there's boatloads of free coffee (and not the cheap or crappy kind either), free hot chocolate, and free cereal and milk. Yes, that's right. Free cereal and milk. Score!

We get plenty of breaks every day (an hour unpaid for lunch, two 10-minute breaks at even intervals, and another unpaid break if we're working more than eight hours, the length of which depends on how late we're working). Management is relatively lenient on tardiness and absences (it's frowned upon, obviously, but they're very understanding and not at all assholes about it unlike most other places I've worked).

Opportunity for advancement abounds if you have the potential. EA regularly mines the QA department for talent in development and production, so if you're looking to use QA as an opportunity to move "up" in the industry and work on the creative end, you have a great chance of doing so at Tiburon. Alternatively, if you want to move into Lead/Management positions in QA, there's also plenty of opportunity for that.

I think I've pretty much covered all the bases. The people are good, the work environment's good, morale is high, the pay isn't spectacular but is still pretty good considering it's an unskilled no-experience-necessary position, and there's plenty of room to move up the ladder if you want to build a career in the industry. I don't know what it was like to work for EA a few years ago, and still don't know what it's like to work in development/production, but for my part, this is an absolute dream job for me and an opportunity that I'm really, really blessed to have received. I love what I do, and—yeah, I'll say it—I'm extremely proud of the company I work for. I know it's not a popular thing to say among the kewl kids, but I'd highly recommend EA Tiburon to anyone who's looking to break into the industry and willing to put in the effort necessary to succeed.

[Arty]

Y'nkow, I've never been good at discerning mild satire online. Tone of voice carries a lot of information.

Either way, please come back in a few years, especially if you get married and have a child or two, and maybe a mortgage. It'll be good to hear how or if things have changed.

[erin]

I think it's sincere. Lemon_Drop_Disaster (interesting nick, btw), welcome to Gamewatch, and please do keep us posted, good and bad. There is nothing wrong with speaking well of EA here. I would be pleased as punch to hear that they had permanently turned their ship around and stayed on course for fair waters. I just have plenty of reasons to retain skepticism. But I will never speak against or object to accurate positive reports coming back on any company, certainly including EA. The company seems to have been on its best behavior the last two or three years, and the things I hear back about them have been generally positive. Just please don't play the victim about it ("I know it's not a popular thing to say among the kewl kids") -- and rest assured EA is getting as much out of you as vice versa.

@ Arty - There was someone from Tiberon QA who was posting on the ea_spouse blog recently -- I suspect this is the same person, and I directed them here, as I have been for some time with those comments because I'd like to keep the data all collected together.

The general gist of the QA situation at Tiberon seems to be that for what it is, it's great, and I can generally believe that. It wasn't THAT long ago that the QA reports coming out of there were severely negative, though, and Tiberon's human resources department is still, as far as I know, guilty of some extreme, litigation-worthy negligence and malice. But as far as QA testing at Tiberon being better than a whole host of other lousy part time jobs -- laying brick, digging graves -- I can easily believe that, and it is a generally good thing.

[Anguirel]

I'm hoping satire, but I'm suspecting this is just the stars in the eyes of the new-hire.

Problems with this work environment as described:

• 6-month temporary (not uncommon as many states require temporary workers to be hired full time after 6-months, but if they hire a new temp to replace you as you go out, its a bad indicator)
  
• Absolute minimums for break and lunch periods.
  
• Crunch is not mentioned as voluntary OT, and no obvious efforts are being made to curtail or reduce it.

There's other possible issues, but you didn't give enough detail either way to really talk about them. Also, they may or may not be taking a loss on the vending machines (convenience stores mark such things up by a remarkable degree over wholesale pricing) -- but there are also many places where such things are provided without charge. That provision, however, isn't always a good thing, since it also indicates wanting to keep people from leaving to go get such things on their own.

That all said, it could be just what you, personally, are looking for. That is a big part of Quality of Life, in my opinion -- having it match what you want out of your life. I wish you the best in this, and encourage you to return, at the least, in 5 months or whenever you are terminated from your temp contract to update us with how you feel after it all.
_________________
Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good. - Lao-Tzu

[Arty]

Well, I can understand that this report is better than what it used to be, but it's still not where it should be. To me, a happily married parent of two, the work situation described is intolerable and irresponsible.

Call me hardline, but I still say that producer-induced crunch is always bad, and is a failure on their part. If someone wants to stay late to finish that one last thing because they are on a roll, that's fine. Producers should not take advantage of that mindset, however. Weeks of mandatory crunch is a completely different thing from a motivated employee.

...still, Anguirel is right with this:

[Lemon Drop Disaster]

[Lemon Drop Disaster]

Oh, one thing I missed...

[Anguirel]

[Lemon Drop Disaster]

[erin]

It should be noted in here when talking about the labor issues that none of us are lawyers, and there are usually a lot of assumptions about what does and doesn't apply in the labor law. FL has very lax labor laws, but they also must comply with federal standards, and that's where a lot of places will get themselves in trouble, complying locally but ignoring federal labor standards.

I don't mean to keep stomping on Tiberon (okay, maybe I do), and it certainly isn't the case that everyone there is unhappy, but they've been "trying to improve" for nearly ten years now. I actually had someone fairly high up inside the studio brush off the whole ea_spouse thing on the grounds that "yeah, we've known about those problems and been working on them for four years", to which I said O_O?!!

There are certain things we've had reported right here on this board that are just outside the realm of conscionable ethics, fair business behavior, and basic humanitarian decency coming out of Tiberon. There's only so long they can 'be aware of' and 'working on' problems before one has to take a very serious look at what they mean by that and, if they haven't been effective (as obviously if the problems are still around, they haven't) what that says about their basic capability, if they still insist they are sincere.

Anyway, end stomp. LDD, keep on enjoying your job and by all means suck all the experience out of them you can, and try to get out unscathed.