Hello everyone, unfortunately things have been a bit crazy lately and because of this I’ve been lax in updating the website here. I hope you’ll understand after you’ve read about my adventures these last few months.

As many of you know the entire Studio Web Team was let go from Games Workshop at the end of April, 2008. Not because we did anything bad. But because GW decided that with the release of the new “improved” website,(that we had nothing to do with) that they would rather move the entire operation to the UK instead of keeping it in Maryland. We were offered to keep our positions and move to the UK but the pay was laughable for the cost of living there. So in the end we all went our separate ways and the GW website is what it is now.

In the meantime, I’ve been on the job hunt, and to make a long story as short as possible, I was offered a position as a Game Designer at EA/Mythic working on Warhammer Online. However at the same time I was also offered a position teaching web design at a school in Minneapolis Minnesota that would pay quite a bit more then EA/Mythic was offering. Being that I was looking for a job that would finally allow me the chance to live in a house rather then an apartment, and that wouldn’t be too stressful and give me a bit more stability, I turned down EA/Mythic and waited for an official offer from the school in Minneapolis. This was a foolish thing to do. I had been promised by my contact at Brown College that everything was fine and that things were just going a bit slowly. But after about a month and half of waiting and not hearing anything I started to get nervous. This was at the end of May and I had to be out of my apartment by the end of June. The job itself was supposed to start on July 7th. Finally about two weeks before I had to be out of my Apartment I talked with the person would would be my boss, and had several interviews, but still wasn’t given anything official. I was told the HR department at Brown College was very slow and the paperwork would come through soon. I had not even been to MInneapolis to find a house or anything yet, but I was assured that everything was going to work out, it was just taking some time and things would happen soon. I guess the lure of a job somewhere in the $50k to $60k a year range, had clouded my judgement (that was the amount my first contact at Brown told me I would be making). Or perhaps it was that since I had turned down the position at EA/Mythic I didn’t feel I had much choice but to persevere through the slow process, but I did, and finally two days before I had to move out of my apartment I got a call from my would be boss, Justin, telling me that the job was mine but they still didn’t have an official offer letter yet and I would get it at the beginning of the next week (around July 1st). I replied that I would be on the road either moving to Texas where my parents lived or Minneapolis for the job and that I didn’t even know what the “official” pay was yet. He said that he had submitted between $50k and $55k and that it would be in that range. Which was less then what my first contact had told me but still in the range that I was willing to accept so I believed him. He said that the offer would be in my e-mail at the beginning of the week and then gave me the number of the schools Dean, since Justin would be on vacation until July 7th (the day I was supposed to start). So having everything packed and with the encouragement of my parents, I made the leap (stupidly) to drive to Minneapolis with the assurance of the voice on the phone that I had a job and that I’d be paid what they said.

Come the next week still no offer letter. I called and finally a few days later (the day we arrived in Minneapolis) I got an e-mail from the Dean saying that I would have the letter the NEXT week. Which was the week I should be starting. My family and I decided to stay at an extended stay hotel until I could find a place to live. We spent the 4th of July weekend looking for a house to rent and getting the lay of the land. I actually found a really nice house fairly quickly, but I also had to make sure the landlords knew that we were waiting for an official offer from the school. The Landlords liked me enough that they were willing to wait (very nice people). And I really fell in love with Minneapolis. Its a beautiful city.

Finally on July 7th the day I should have been starting work, I get a frantic call from Justin. He gave me the excuse that he had told the people under him to send in the paper work for my offer to the company that runs the school and they hadn’t. So he was working really hard to get things going so that they could send me an offer (although not official yet) that day. A few hours later I got the offer in my e-mail. The offer was for $46k a year. Not the $50k-$55k I was told on the phone by Justin before I left Maryland for Minnesota. So I called up Justin and said there must be a mistake, the offer you sent is far below what you told me on the phone. He said he would check into it and find out why this was. A little while later I got a call from him saying that it wasn’t wrong and that he had misread what the company had approved and so the $46k a year was correct, but he would fight to get me a raise next March at review time. I told him I’d have to discuss it with my family and I’d get back to him.

I wrote a lengthy e-mail to everyone involved at Brown College letting them know exactly what they could do with their offer (to which I didn’t receive any sort of reply or apology), and packed up and left the next day for Dallas. which is where I am now.

So as you can imagine, it’s been a very trying time from about April through July. Right now I’m actually enjoying being unemployed, working on selling some things on ebay and just taking a well earned break. Unless another job offer comes along before hand I’ll be moving out to Irvine California which is where my parents are going to be moving in September. Out there I should have some better job opportunities then I will here in Dallas.

So the moral of this story is: Whatever you do, don’t ever trust anyone that works at Brown College in Minneapolis Minnesota.

And secondly: Make sure you thank your parents if they take you in and help you out when things don’t go very well.

Take care everyone,

-bish

I just wanted to let all the Dark Angels players out there know that I put up on ebay one of the Limited Edition Dark Angels Company Masters that were only available in the Dark Angels Army Box and are no longer being made.

This particular miniature is even more special because it was a pre-production miniature and the way the pieces were held together was changed for the final production model. You can read more about that on the auction.

If you are interested in this miniature you can check it out here. It’s also auction number 300224161655. If by chance you are outside of the US I usually do not ship to other countries but if you are a member of my website I will make and exception you will just need to contact me through ebay and we will work something out.

-bish

For those of you that might be interested I am selling off some of the things I’ve collected over my time at GW. I’ll be posting items as I have the time. You can view all my auctions here.

Help me pay off some bills hehe

-bish

Well, Friday May 2nd was my last day as a Games Workshop employee, and I just wanted to post here and let everyone know how much I’m going to miss being around all the great people that I’ve been working with for the last four and half years, both in retail at the Grapevine Mills GW Store and at the Glen Burnie HQ as a part of the Studio Web Team. Thats also not to mention everyone in the UK and abroad who worked with us on all the articles we created for the website.

I really enjoyed my time at Games Workshop and even though things didn’t always go the way I would have liked them to, it was a great job and one I will never regret doing. I never once found myself not wanting to go into work even on a bad day because I knew that someone there was going to make me laugh. And although we worked hard, most of the time it didn’t feel like work.

I don’t want to say anything specific yet but I have some opportunities coming up that should be very exciting and I’m ready for that next part of my working life to begin.

Take care,

-bish