Week one
Working for a different company doing the same job has made for an interesting first week of comparisons. Some things are better, some will take getting used to, some are just different.
The first thing that struck me is how much brighter the place is compared to EA's Montreal studio. EA has these high ceilings with aircon ducting going everywhere, but they're painted a really depressing dark grey, most of the fluo strip lights are unplugged, and you can't see out of the windows because they're frosted, so you just feel like you're in a cave. Eidos has the aircon ducting too but it's all painted white, the lights are all on, and I have a pretty sweet view out of our 6th floor window of the back of St. James church. They also have more plants dotted around which is really nice.
Internet policy is a lot stricter, all the chat programs are blocked although we do have an internal IM program so we can commincate between each other. YouTube and other streaming video was blocked too, but I got that unblocked for me because of the amount of work-relevant stuff we get on there such as tutorials, talks from conferences, game trailers, etc. Pretty much everyone else has it unblocked too.
The environment is strongly Francophone. I know there are some English-only speakers there, our producer is one of them, but I can only imagine how isolated they must feel. Almost all of the office banter is in French.
I have to fill-out timesheets for the first time in my life, although my lead has already told me in no uncertain terms to just treat it as admin bullshit and automatically fill out 8 hours per day. For him the purpose of the time sheet is just a way to record sickness and holiday or to note if I'm splitting my time between two different projects, not as a way to bank overtime hours.
Speaking of, the lights start switching-off each hour from 7pm and you have to go outside to turn them back on. At 11pm if anyone's left in the studio an hourly pre-alarm sounds that you also have to go out and in to deactivate, otherwise after a few minutes it turns into a full alarm that will apparently bring the police out to investigate. This alarm business happens all day at weekends too. The whole thing seems to be designed to encourage us to get out and stop loitering around at work after hours.
Coming from an environment where none of these sorts of encouragements are in place, and where indeed some people will stay quite late every night, it feels a bit wierd to suddenly be compelled to clear-out after a certain time. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not yet, but it's certainly different.
Unlike EA where the door pass was simply an unlock device, the security doors at Eidos are very strict about whether you're considered to be in or out, and they don't let you pass in the same direction twice. This is so that the alarms don't sound when the system knows that nobody is left in the building. When people go through together in groups each person has to beep themselves in or out. I've already been caught-out by this once, I must have forgotten to beep in after lunch and the system wouldn't let me out in the evening on Wednesday. Luckily there were other people around to let me out. I've learned now to listen for the click of the lock when I beep through, to confirm that I did it properly.
So, what else is good? They have fruit baskets each Wednesday just like at EA, but they also do a beer keg on Fridays. The snack machines cost a fortune which is actually great, so I'm not tempted to use them. There are showers which is going to be wonderful in winter when I arrive on my bike all sweaty, however I'm not so keen on the parking facilities for bikes. Basically it's just some bike racks in the car park under the building. It is apparently monitored by cameras, it's hard to get access from the street (car drivers have a remote to open the door) and there's never been a theft, but I'm still nervous about leaving my bike locked up in what is essentially a public place all day in downtown Montreal. It's also a burden to have to haul my locks around with me all the time.
So far I'm liking it, the studio feels a lot healthier than EA was beginning to feel. I'm trying hard to make sure it's not just the novelty I'm feeling, but I really don't think it is. Eidos feels more alive, people seem to have more purpose.
The first thing that struck me is how much brighter the place is compared to EA's Montreal studio. EA has these high ceilings with aircon ducting going everywhere, but they're painted a really depressing dark grey, most of the fluo strip lights are unplugged, and you can't see out of the windows because they're frosted, so you just feel like you're in a cave. Eidos has the aircon ducting too but it's all painted white, the lights are all on, and I have a pretty sweet view out of our 6th floor window of the back of St. James church. They also have more plants dotted around which is really nice.
Internet policy is a lot stricter, all the chat programs are blocked although we do have an internal IM program so we can commincate between each other. YouTube and other streaming video was blocked too, but I got that unblocked for me because of the amount of work-relevant stuff we get on there such as tutorials, talks from conferences, game trailers, etc. Pretty much everyone else has it unblocked too.
The environment is strongly Francophone. I know there are some English-only speakers there, our producer is one of them, but I can only imagine how isolated they must feel. Almost all of the office banter is in French.
I have to fill-out timesheets for the first time in my life, although my lead has already told me in no uncertain terms to just treat it as admin bullshit and automatically fill out 8 hours per day. For him the purpose of the time sheet is just a way to record sickness and holiday or to note if I'm splitting my time between two different projects, not as a way to bank overtime hours.
Speaking of, the lights start switching-off each hour from 7pm and you have to go outside to turn them back on. At 11pm if anyone's left in the studio an hourly pre-alarm sounds that you also have to go out and in to deactivate, otherwise after a few minutes it turns into a full alarm that will apparently bring the police out to investigate. This alarm business happens all day at weekends too. The whole thing seems to be designed to encourage us to get out and stop loitering around at work after hours.
Coming from an environment where none of these sorts of encouragements are in place, and where indeed some people will stay quite late every night, it feels a bit wierd to suddenly be compelled to clear-out after a certain time. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not yet, but it's certainly different.
Unlike EA where the door pass was simply an unlock device, the security doors at Eidos are very strict about whether you're considered to be in or out, and they don't let you pass in the same direction twice. This is so that the alarms don't sound when the system knows that nobody is left in the building. When people go through together in groups each person has to beep themselves in or out. I've already been caught-out by this once, I must have forgotten to beep in after lunch and the system wouldn't let me out in the evening on Wednesday. Luckily there were other people around to let me out. I've learned now to listen for the click of the lock when I beep through, to confirm that I did it properly.
So, what else is good? They have fruit baskets each Wednesday just like at EA, but they also do a beer keg on Fridays. The snack machines cost a fortune which is actually great, so I'm not tempted to use them. There are showers which is going to be wonderful in winter when I arrive on my bike all sweaty, however I'm not so keen on the parking facilities for bikes. Basically it's just some bike racks in the car park under the building. It is apparently monitored by cameras, it's hard to get access from the street (car drivers have a remote to open the door) and there's never been a theft, but I'm still nervous about leaving my bike locked up in what is essentially a public place all day in downtown Montreal. It's also a burden to have to haul my locks around with me all the time.
So far I'm liking it, the studio feels a lot healthier than EA was beginning to feel. I'm trying hard to make sure it's not just the novelty I'm feeling, but I really don't think it is. Eidos feels more alive, people seem to have more purpose.