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DB_Spouse?

James works a lot. Like, really. A lot. Last night, he was in at midnight, and up again at six to go back to the office. Deadlines are inflexible things. Especially when the meetings for which you're preparing are on the other side of the world, and not easily rescheduled.

I'm looking at all of this ea_spouse foo, and can obviously draw a few comparisons. Not as many as I thought, but a few. Unlike a lot of the developers at EA Games, James works toward a yearly bonus. Nor are there any illusions about the hours put in at investment banks. There is much work, and, sometimes, the bonus makes it worth it.

What does interest me is this Mercury News article about the class action lawsuit that's being filed against EA. To quote:

But Jamie Kirschenbaum, a 26-year-old lead animator at EA's Redwood City studio, is not a happy elf. In July, he filed a class-action lawsuit against the world's largest video-game company, alleging EA drives workers to exhaustion without paying overtime.

Around the same time, game programmer Neil Aitken filed a similar suit against Vivendi Universal Games in Los Angeles. Aitken claims he and his co-workers regularly worked 12-hour-plus days without being paid overtime and then were asked to falsify time sheets.

The lawsuits have opened a window into a long-smoldering controversy in the $10 billion U.S. video-game industry over the widespread practice of "crunch time," or working long hours to finish a project as its deadline nears.

Obviously, I don't expect any such litigation to crop up in the banking industry. These jobs are generally accepted with eyes wide open. Don't like it? Well, go get another job. (Actually, the fact that these guys are gullible enough to be duped over and over again by EA, be screwed royally in the process and not quit is amazing to me.) I am interested to see what will happen with this - who knows, maybe it'll change labour laws. Or perhaps other companies will take a hint so that this doesn't happen in other industries.

For now, though, the term "DB widow" is probably more apt than I'd like. There is a fun sort of challenge about it, though. How much stealth together time can we sneak in in a day? More than you'd think. :)

[Note: If we still lived in Cheshunt instead of the new flat (1 hour door-to-door on the train v. 20 min door-to-door walking), my attitude would likely be very very different!]

Edit: At the risk of saying something very controversial, this litigious attitude is something I find uniquely American. It's the "I'm not going to take care of myself, I expect you to do it. If you don't, I'll hold you responsible." (This can also be found in suing fast food companies, among other things.) Nevermind that employees leaving the company when they realise they're being mistreated would be a more proactive way of getting the same 'you work us too hard' message across. AND probably screw EA more. Whatever happened to looking out for ourselves?

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