The Return

Hello everybody!

It’s been quiet awhile since I last made a post. I apologize for not posting, but as you all are aware this past year has been a bit hectic. When we last spoke I was beginning a job at Bungie as a Contract Generalist Tester. My contract has now ended and I am on the hunt for the next job. During this time I also moved into my grand parents as we clean it and prep it to sell. We are now so close to selling it and I’m so very excited to see it in a great spot. I’ve also been able to help with some side projects. All in all the last year has been eventful.

Some brief insight into my time at Bungie. As stated I functioned as a Contract Generalist Tester for Destiny 2. The initial part of my contract was focused on the Beyond Light expansion. Namely, I worked on the Deep Stone Crypt raid. It was really exciting and fun to be a part of this team working on the next pinnacle activity in Destiny. I was also able to assist with other parts of the expansion. With it’s release I transitioned into working on the Vault of Glass reprise in Season of the Splicer. Now that was extremely weird for me. I remember playing a lot of Vault of Glass in Destiny when it first released and now I worked on it in Destiny 2. I really enjoyed being able to take my player experience to help remake the raid. All in all it was an amazing learning experience and I met some amazing people.

Well till next time you guys. I’ll try to return to my weekly schedule of posting, but life is still a bit hectic. I hope you all are making the best of the current situation.

New Job and the Time Between

Hello Everyone.

I hope you all had a good past few weeks. I’ve been doing well lately. Today was my first day with Bungie and I’ve begun the training process and have already been able to meet cool people. I’m very excited to see how this job progresses and who all I meet. I will say as with any major change I’m dealing with anxiety. I’m worried about messing up and not making a good impression. However, I’m trying to counter this by reminding myself that I can do it and that it will get better. Soon enough my anxiety will calm down hopefully. I’m also hoping that I’ll be able to meet them all in person safely.

The last week I took off between my two jobs. It was nice to have that break and be able to relax a bit. I was able to paint more figures and print a lot. I also got to spend time with my friends more. I never really understood mental health days as I never felt I needed one. This last week though helped show me how helpful just taking time to relax can be. I would love to say people should try to take the time during this quarantine to relax and focus on themselves. However, I know how stressful this entire situation is and how hard it can be for people to relax. I will always say do what is best for you and your family but remember take a moment to breathe and relax. Try to forget your problems for a moment so that you can heal. It is easier said than done.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have a good week and are staying safe. I hope to have more news for you in the future.

New Opportunities

Hello everybody,

I hope you all have had a good past few weeks and are making it through the quarantine safely. I apologize for my irregular posting schedule everything has been so wild. I do have some exciting news though. I’ve been hired by Bungie as a Contract Generalist Tester. I’m sad to leave Microsoft but I think Bungie will be a great place for me to grow and learn more. I’ll be on a team that directly makes content and I’ll be testing it. It should be a great way to learn and grow in my field.

While I love these new opportunities, they are good and bad. While I’ll be meeting and working with a lot of new people, I’ll also be leaving some people behind. I’ve added people on social media and will hopefully be able to keep in touch. This also comes at a relatively bad time due to the pandemic. I’ll be leaving my work in a bad time, but it has to be done. I can only hope we can end the quarantine safely soon. This will hopefully allow us to return to work safely soon and be in a better place to be in the office.

Well till next time you guys. I hope that you have a good week and that I have more to tell you.

Experimenting and Learning

Hello Everybody,

This last week has been pretty interesting. I’ve been working from home which has been very interesting. I’m having to learn better ways to make sure people are on track while also focusing on improving communication and time tracking. I’ve been lucky with working from home. I have all sorts of tools at my disposal and my work translates easily to working from home. I think it will also help me when we return to the office. Every day this quarantine persists it allows us more opportunities to grow and build our skills. Sadly, it also means more and more people will be met with consequences. I both am ready for the quarantine to end and enjoying it.

I’ve been using this quarantine to experiment with some of my hobbies. I’ve learned a lot about 3D printing namely and some of the work that goes into it. I just wish I knew more people that printed so I could ask for their help in maintaining a printer. For instance, I felt my prints were coming out with issues and was worried about the belts that drive the printer. The only problem is I don’t know how tight the belts should be. So, I’ve been experimenting and learning more about how the printers work. I’ve also been painting more of the models I’ve printed. I need to get more decorations for the landscapes, but I’m getting better and better.

Well till next week you guys. I hope to have some exciting stuff to discuss for next week.

Working from Home

Hello Everybody,

I apologize for not posting the last few weeks, but everything kind of exploded. These past few weeks have been both stressful and nice. With everything that’s been going on with me health wise I was almost forced to quit my job. Luckily, they declared we would be working from home. So then that began, and my life changed again. I gained the benefits of working from home and being able to hang out with my family more. However, I also gained the stress of work at home and now it was harder to separate work and home. I feel this quarantine has been hard on a lot of us. I’m lucky where I can work from home and have different hobbies I like to do at home. I’m also perfectly fine not socializing with people in person. I know many people who are not that lucky. I have close friends and family with no jobs now or have been hit hard by pandemic. I’m hoping to find some more ways to hang out with friends and family during this pandemic.

This pandemic has also allowed me to spend more time on my favorite pass times. I’ve been working on my models and painting. I made some lovely looking wells and then also made some less lovely bandits. I also have caught up on my shows. I watched all of Star Trek the Next Generation and the Star Trek Nemesis movie. I’ve been wanting to watch Picard, so I had to get a bit of the backstory as I had never watched the entire series. I’m also going to be working on some review’s as I haven’t done one of those in so long. I’m trying to get better of putting more time into writing and creating.

Well til next time you guys. Stay safe, and I hope to have some good stories for you.

Fear of Impending Sickness

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all had a good last week. My week has been really interesting. I had started to feel better and go to work. On my first day back, I learned that Microsoft was requiring employees to get tested for tuberculosis because of an employee being diagnosed with it. So, I went to the hospital and got tested and told them I had pneumonia. I also told them what hospital I had my tests run at so they could get anything they need. I then returned to work until Wednesday when I got a call being told the doctor was worried that I had TB and I had to do further testing and I wasn’t allowed to go to work until they were done. It’s annoying, but understandable. I only hope the tests go quickly so I can return to work soon.

With all of this tuberculosis testing it’s been interesting to compare to everything happening with the corona virus. The fears have continued to spread making quite the impact. I find it fascinating to see how different companies are reacting to and dealing with it. Microsoft has begun to implement changes as well. My work will be going through different changes to help stop the spread of corona virus. Game design can be a place that leads to sickness more so than other industries. We are often sharing items or interacting closely together. We try to keep stations clean, but still we find ourselves in bouts of illness. In my office we have had waves of the flu and other illness’s. My recommendations would be to use hand sanitizer frequently and cleaning your workstation.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and that I can tell you something fun.

Sickness Versus Progress

Hello Everybody,

I’m sorry for not posting last week. These last two weeks have been a bit difficult for me as I’ve been sick and unable to do anything. It seems when I had the flu a month ago it weakened my immune system. This led to a really bad cold which then developed into pneumonia. I hate missing this much work, but sadly nothing can be done. I’m luckily almost all better I just have to finish the medicine I have. I’ll be returning to work and have to catch up on everything I’ve missed. I’m curious to see how my body will deal with being more active at work. Hopefully, I’ll be fine, but I’ll definitely be keeping it simple and using hand sanitizer more.

One of the worst parts of sickness is being unable or lacking the energy to do anything. I wish when I was sick, I was still able to work on my hobbies. I think that when sick it’s important to take care of yourself and others. As I’ve mentioned in my previous blog posts where I was sick. Taking care of yourself is very important, but it also means you can’t or shouldn’t work on anything. So, I spent most of the week watching TV and getting caught up on my shows. I’m ready to be in a better position to keep making progress on side projects and work.

Well till next time you guys. I hope to have something better to tell you next week.

A Good Work Life Balance

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all have had a good week; my week went fairly well. During the week I had to figure out more of my balance between work, hobbies, and relaxing. Work takes up so much of my time that it can be difficult to find much time for anything else. Even on the weekends my days will get filled with different things for me to work on. I’ve been printing and painting miniatures, working on stories, doing chores, etc. This makes it difficult to find time to just relax. I’ve been managing to keep to my goal so far though. The only thing I haven’t made much progress on is getting my license. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to get out and practice driving. Hopefully, I’ll get back into the swing of driving and then take the test so I can get a car. Then maybe I’ll have more time to perfect the balance.

One of the most important things that anyone can do is have a good work life balance, at least in my opinion. You should never let work become your life as I think it can cause resentment and unhappiness. If you do let work become your life, I think it will also cause your productivity and effectiveness to drop at work. That’s why the balance is important. You need that time to relax and step away from work. You need a hobby or two outside of work. To be your best self you need to be able to spend time with friends and family. These better your life and work so much. On different projects I’ve struggled with the balance and found if I focused too much on one the other aspects of my life suffered. There are days where your motivation for a project spikes and that’s good. Those are the days where you can make the most progress on that project and I think that when your work life balance is good you have more moments like that.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and that I have something fun to talk about.

Returning to Work and the Importance of Soft Skills

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all had a good week, mine was pretty good. It was nice to be back at work and get caught up on what I missed. It was interesting as well to hear how many people had also missed work. My supervisor was out sick for the week as well. Then it seems a lot of my other coworkers were out too. Work has been interesting and it’s fun to see the different impacts people have on the environment they are in. I have coworkers that when they are gone it can cause other people to ask less questions. I have coworkers that are good at keeping moral up. I have become someone that is a go to for certain tasks and making jokes. Several coworkers were debating on who’s better with meme’s myself or the shift lead. It was pretty funny to hear how they were discussing it and the points that they were bringing up, sadly, I left before I heard their decision.

That is why soft skills are so important. In school I learned how important it was to make yourself integral to the team you are on. I also spent time working in public facing jobs where I got to build my soft skills. Those skills are so important in every way. They’ve helped me greatly on every project I’ve worked on. The soft skills have helped in management, working with the public, and making mistakes. Hard skills are easy to learn, but soft skills have to be built in time. All of the soft skills I have learned came from working and learning. In school I learned the importance of critique, feedback, changing, listening, and how to enjoy the process. With work as tour guide and intern to now I’ve learned how important it is to ask questions, communicate, help others even if it’s not your specific job, how to teach, and how to follow directions. If you struggle with soft skills a good place to start is to learn how to listen and take feedback, then learn how to communicate and ask questions. These are key factors to the success of any creator and any job.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and I hope to have something fun to tell you next week.

Dealing with Sickness

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week was not great. I was super sick for the entire week, but luckily, I’m nearly better now. In recent years I’ve hated being sick and unable to attend work or school. If I felt I could go to work or school despite being sick I would try, I still do for the most part. However, I’ve also grown more cognizant of when I should and should not do that. It may show dedication to try and go to work while feeling horrible, however, it also shows dedication to realizing that you shouldn’t be working and getting other people sick. That being said I still hate missing work, it just doesn’t feel right.

I’m not one to get really sick very frequently. With previous projects I very rarely had to take time off. I always would try and strategize around sickness and figure out how I could handle it with work. With previous projects I would work from home if I felt well enough. I would lay out the work I needed to get done then be in communication with my coworkers. When I worked as a tour guide, I would avoid work or get a desk job where I didn’t interact with people, but that only happened once. With my current work I’m planning how I’m going to return and figure out what I’ve missed. I’ll have a lot of stuff to catch up on and a lot of process changes to familiarize myself with. I’m ready to be back at work.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and I hope to have an update for you next week.

Exciting Week of Progress

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys had a good week. My week was really exciting. It started off a bit slow, but towards the end of the week it became a whole lot more exciting. I’ve been enjoying my role as a manager so far and I’ve enjoyed the chaos that I deal with on a day-to-day. It brings an extra challenge almost like a puzzle which is pretty fun. The only time it’s annoying is when it makes it difficult to do some of the other work I have to do as a manager. However, it makes my days go by so much faster. I’m excited to see how my work develops and what the rest of it entails.

The rest of my week has been pretty fun, working on side projects and getting back into the flow of trying to improve myself. The side project I’m working on currently is pretty exciting. I want to spend more time on these projects and I’m trying to be better about working on them when I’m home. One of my other goals is to get my license so that I can get a car. If I get a car it will make my life a lot easier and will allow me to spend more time on things other than work and sleep. It should be pretty nice to have my own transportation.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and I have some good stories next week.

Growing in my Industry

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week went pretty well. I was able to get work done on D&D stuff. It’s nice because at my work there are a lot of people that play as well. We’ll often bounce ideas off each other and discuss the game. I’m hoping to eventually have more time and maybe be able to host a work D&D group. I also have been looking at 3D printers to eventually start printing my own mini’s or landscapes. It would save a lot of money and I may have more control over things. So, I’ve been researching that more and planning more D&D creations.

I also have some exciting news. I am being promoted into a manager’s position. My manager is leaving sadly, and I was interviewed to replace her. I found out on Thursday that I’ll be taking her position and be the manager for a team of 6-7 people. I’m both excited and a bit intimidated as it will be a lot more responsibility. I’ll also have to be the source for answers that other areas can’t answer. So, this means it’ll be like my first few weeks again where I’ll be relearning things and asking a lot of questions myself. It will be fun though. I enjoy managing for the most part and helping people learn more about the industry. I’m ready to get more into this role.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a great week and I have some fun stories for you.

The Week before Thanksgiving

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week was pretty normal and nothing super exciting happened. Work went well and I got jump around a bit more. I’ve also been helping out my manager more with various tasks and planning. It’s been nice to get back into a bit more of that role. I always loved doing that in BTS and Daily tours. Hopefully, I can help out more and learn more about that role. It’ll be interesting to see how the job changes as we get into winter. The snow will make it hard for me to get to work and I’ll probably be forced to miss work. I like to see how work is changing and progressing.

I’m also excited as I should be able to start working on personal projects more next week. This upcoming week is going to be a lot more fun. I have concepts I want to start working on and Thanksgiving celebrations. For one of my family Thanksgiving events I’ll be making a pseudo-ice cream cake. It’s a creamsicle cake that I found the recipe on Facebook. It should be a lot of fun to try and make this cake. I think it’ll be really good, but I’m a little worried it’ll be like a cheesecake. It calls for cream cheese which might make it more like a cheesecake and I’m not a fan of cheesecake. I’m still excited to make it and try it though.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week, and I look forward to letting you know about how the cake goes.

Busy Halloween Week

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good two weeks. I apologize for not posting last week but I was very busy. I got to spend a lot of time with my Aunt as she wrapped up her time up here in Seattle. Last Saturday we had a get together with a bunch of our family friends. It was a lot of fun to hang out and eat good food. We had all sorts of snacks. It was a lot of fun to hang out and chat with them. Then on Sunday we spent time getting prepped for her to leave. It was nice having her in town. I look forward to seeing her next time and hopefully, spend more time with the rest of her family.

The rest of this week was strange. It went both fast and slow. Every day at work it was slow and while at the end of each day I’d look back and it was surprising what day it was. It was also fun because we were preparing for Halloween at work. We had a costume contest at work which was also a lot of fun. There were some amazing costumes we had someone dressed as Carmen SanDiego, a female Pennywise, an Officer Jenny, and more! I look forward to more events like this and hopefully we’ll get around to doing more office events. Maybe have an ugly sweater party or something. I love trying office events and things to improve office morale.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have an amazing week and I hope to have good stories for you next week.

Slow week at work

Hello Everybody!

I hope you guys had a good week. My week was very slow. On Monday I had the day off which was nice. It was a good day to get caught up on shows and personal projects. I’ve missed working on my own stuff so I’m excited about that. Hopefully, I’ll be able to work more on my side projects soon. All I need is to get a good laptop for working on projects while on the bus. I’m saving up to get something around Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Once I have that I’ll be able to make progress and start working on my side projects. I also put together a tutorial D&D game to help teach some new players. It has to be polished, but I think it will help teach the new players. Hopefully, I can compound this with my knowledge and teach them well.

My work week was really slow and was interesting. It was interesting, as my work is constantly growing and changing. I’m hoping to continue to see how the work will change and grow. This week may have been slow, but it was still a good way to learn workflow in the office. I also got to help train a new employee on our process and how we actually test. It was fun to train this new employee and show him how it all works. I also got to work on some of our documentation aspects and flex my writing background. Which was nice especially because I’m dumb and new to testing, so I made it simple and hopefully easy to follow. I’m looking forward to the upcoming week.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you guys have a good week and I hope to give you guys a good update next time.

Back to D&D

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys are having a good week. My week has been very interesting. I’ve gotten back to work and was able to work on different things. What was a lot of fun for me was being bounced around between tasks and work. I enjoy going between projects and doing different things so long as I’m able to finish the task I’m assigned on each project. So, it was fun to experience these different tasks and work with new people. Slowly I’ve been meeting new people and spending time with them. I’ve also been getting used to the commute during the week. I don’t think I’ll ever be fully acclimated to it, but who knows.

I also got to play D&D this week with my Dad and brother. It was nice to be back as the Dungeon Master guiding them through the adventure. It was interesting though because they progressed faster than I was expecting and were ignoring all of the side quests I was setting up. Which is fine I just hadn’t prepared for it but next time I’ll be ready and have the different paths planned out. I need to figure out how I’m going to be allocating my time to plan out their future endeavors on their long trek to their next destination. I’ve missed D&D and I’m excited to get back into it. I’m also hoping to get my larger group going eventually as well.

Well I hope you guys have a good week. I’m looking forward to having more stories to tell you all.

On-boarding for a New Job

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week went really well. I spent my time working on my usual side projects. I’ve also been creating more D&D concepts on DnD Beyond. It’s been a lot of fun exploring these new concepts and flexing my design muscles. I’ve enjoyed the research and planning for each of the new things I’ve been making. I’ve made several monsters, items, and spells now. I’m hoping to be confident enough in my abilities to make some of the more elaborate things such as races and classes. I’ll have to do a bit more research in order to make those. I’ve liked all of my creations so far and I’m always looking for feedback.

The most exciting aspect of my week was being offered a job. I’ve been filling out the different documentation now. One of the recruiters I’m working with had set me up with this opportunity has been helping me along the way. I’m very excited for this and I am looking forward to starting this. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t stressing me out. I always strive to make a good impression and work as hard as I can. This has been making me more anxious than normal. I’m confident in my abilities, but I won’t be taking any chances.
Well till next week you guys. I hope your week goes well and you have an amazing time.

Waiting and Writing

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys have had a great week. This last week for me was very relaxed. I spent the majority of it working my Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I’ve also started to make stuff using DnDBeyond in order to create homebrew stuff that anyone can see and use. I’ve also been trying to adapt it based on the feedback I’ve received. The rest of my week I spent mainly testing one of the games I’m working on and researching Lua for a potential job. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but I really want to learn more about coding.

The rest of this week I spent waiting to hear more about the jobs I interviewed for. So far I’ve heard from one of the recruiters I’m working with and sadly that job turned me down, but I have another opportunity coming up soon. I’m still waiting on one of the other opportunities and should hear back soon. I’m really excited by all of this I’m also very hopeful, but I’m being realistic. Some of these jobs are a bit outside of my experience, but I’m more than confident in my ability to grow and learn. Hopefully, I was able to convey that in my interviews.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you guys have a great week and I hope to have good news next week.

Getting into Shape

Hello my friends,

I hope you guys are having an awesome week. My last week was very busy and I was running all over the place. I spent a lot of the week running around and helping my family with different things. I helped my dad with his work and moving around different things. I helped my step mom move stuff for a house she’s selling. I then also help with a slight family emergency. Everyone is okay for the most part but it was still scary. The rest of the week was spent working on some of my different side projects. It was nice, I like being busy and working on different things. It makes me miss working at school and working in general. I’m continuing the hunt and moving towards getting a job.

The other portion of this week my family added me to a gym membership at a local gym. I’m trying to get in better shape so this is perfect. The gym also offers a free appointment with a personal trainer once a month. That’s what was really important for me. I didn’t want to start working out without speaking with a personal trainer. It’s so easy to hurt yourself working out and I had no idea how to actually plan a workout routine. I’m excited to actually start working out and get into better shape. It also gives me another goal to strive for.

Well I hope you guys have a great week. I look forward to having good news for you all and I’ll talk to you next week.

Memorial Day

Hello my compatriots!

            This past week has been pretty boring. I haven't done much that's too exciting. Over this past week I've really only had class and work. It's been a lot of working and hanging out. I will say I did something that was fun this week. Five of my friends and coworkers, along with myself, started a game of Civilization VI. That was really the most exciting part.

            With today being Memorial Day it's nice having a day off. It's rare for me to have day to relax and just sit around. It allows me to make different changes to my schedule and work on things I haven't been able to. I'm still moving forward with job applications, but it's a little difficult. I'm having a hard time with figuring out what to do. I'm also having a hard time finding the motivation to fully go forward with the job search. I'm hoping to continue and find a way to show my skills.

            Well wish me luck! I hope you guys have a good week and can continue to be awesome.