@zeekthegeek said:

Canadian taxpayer here. This government continues to be the worst in our history. Any criticism is seen as treason.

Other Canadian taxpayer here. This government is no worse than any other one we've had in the past - people just bitch about it too much.

@Laivasse: It's not as if the game is supposed to imply that every single call a person gets in that sort of job is awful, it's one call and outlines one kind of customer you will run into as a call center employee eventually. He's not trying to make villains of anyone who calls a call center or anything just not everybody on the planet is a reasonable person. If you think there needs to be a game about telemarketers being intimidating pricks or whatever make that game yourself so other people can empathize with the experience the same way. You seem personally offended on a level that I actually can't fathom.

I currently work at a call center myself, tech support for smart phones, and it's gotten to the point where every day I drive to work I'm tempted to drive off the road just so I don't have to put up with another day of the job. There are some good ones, but for the most part they are truly soul crushing. Ignoring all the bad parts of dealing with stupid people on the phone for 8 hours a day, I do tech support for phones I'm not here to teach you how to use your computer or how your fucking mouse and keyboard works, a lot of the worst parts of the job are the stuff that the company does off the calls. When the companies business model is based around getting people in, burning them out for every thing they are worth, then letting them go so they can hire new people to do the same you knows it's a bad place to be. A lot of these places even have supervisors that are told to ride the agents that have been there longer the hardest and to never give them an inch to try and make the job as bad as they can in hopes of making people more likely to quit.

I find that getting fired from a shitty job is pretty liberating, but Gallant got huge amounts of support and a bit of money too. That must be an incredible and rare feeling to experience.

@Laivasse: I'm glad you brought up your aunt. I used to get a lot of calls from elderly people, disabled people, desperate people. Sometimes there would be devastating situations for which I could offer no help - what do you say to the senior citizen who has a tax bill larger than what she received in a year from her pension? What do you say to the mother who is about to be evicted, who won't be getting her child benefits because of an address error?

I am a helpful person by nature. I want to help people. When I got these calls, I did the best that I could. Oftentimes, the laws surrounding confidentiality, or the ways in which internal processes worked, prevented me from being able to help:

"I'm afraid I can't help you fix your brother's tax credit issue (even though I know it is simple) because we have nothing on file to show you, his sister, is his legal representative - and I understand that your brother is vegetative, and he cannot grant you power of attorney, but we don't have any process to handle that kind of situation."

That's an example of a call I received last week. They didn't always happen often, but they did happen. I would explore every available option, consult with my manager and resource officers, do anything I could to find solutions. Sometimes, I could help. Many times, I could not, and every time that happened, I felt like the biggest pile of shit. When you see me referring to my job in interviews as "making me less human", these calls are what I am talking about. These calls are not represented in I Get This Call Every Day. I don't think I could make a game about them without being very specific, without retelling some of the very true stories I have encountered.

I'm sorry that I Get This Call Every Day doesn't reflect what your aunt had to go through. I never meant for it to demean or belittle the callers. I do think your aunt's situation is significant, and I urge you to make a game about it. For me, her experience isn't personal - but for you it is, which makes you perfectly equipped to tell it. I don't care if you've never made a game before; there are tools like Construct 2, Twine, Gamemaker, etc that are easy to use for your first time. Make something personal, whether it is about your aunt, yourself, your job, anything. Express it with a game. Please.

@crusader8463: I worked in a call center for 7 years. Worked for many accounts, Dell, Charter Cable, Mediacomm cable, and others. The tech support side was bad, but the cable tv support side was the worst. It was a traumatic experience. I know what you mean about wanting to drive off the road. The customers are horrible and the management are like slave drivers. We weren't even allowed 10 seconds in between calls to sip some water. And sometimes my wife will suggest I get a job at another cable company call center and I tell her she's out of her fucking mind. She seems to think she could handle the endless circular arguments, belittling, and threats call after call. I told her she should take the job then. Fuck call centers.

I think it's total bullshit that this news reporter basically helped get the guy fired. Just doing her job, yeah, but still.

@Thompson820: It's not exactly clear why he lost his job. He made it very clear that he didn't want to be doing it. Is it wrongful dismissal to fire someone who gets an article in a major national newspaper about how much they hate their job? Perhaps a better question: is it right for an organization to hold onto an employee they are fully aware despises what they do?

Trust me: in the current dump that is the Canadian economic climate and our over-educated populace bloated by student loans handed out like candy, it's not exactly hard to find someone as qualified as he who'll appreciate the job more than he did, soul-crushing non-fulfillment or no. Perhaps he should have considered how he was going to feed his family more before he very publicly mocked his employers: who in essence are the Canadian taxpayers whose hard work at jobs - some much better, and mostly much crappier than his - that supported his livelihood.

In all honesty, they did him a favor. He's got more motivation to succeed at what he really wants to do now than he ever did before. I wish nothing but the best for him and his family.

"He knew the risk, and the reporter was just doing their job."

Loaded headlines designed to illicit reactionary outrage are just part of a reporter's job? My, how standards have changed.

@Hikaratu: If I was personally offended by the idea of IGTCED existing as a game I would probably have raised a stink when I saw it covered in Worth Reading or wherever it first cropped up. I'm not. But I'm certainly not offended by the idea that a man has had difficulty reconciling the reality of his job, as a CS rep, with a game he authored about CS being a lose-lose scenario. The anecdotes I recounted weren't made in response to the article. They were in response to being told by someone that I didn't know what I was talking about and that call centre work was, quote, "the absolute worst thing ever", as if being on the other end of the line to a call centre could never approach being as bad.

@Zvarri: Hello, David, thanks for taking the time to make that sensitive response. I'm sorry you lost your job and I hope your situation resolves for the better soon. I'm not seeking to publicise my past experiences with call centres. I have no creative knack, but furthermore they're not unique. I think it really just goes without saying that dealing with customer service/call centres as a caller can be thoroughly dehumanising. Situations of dealing with faceless bureaucracy have been lampooned to hell and back in mainstream comedy, not least of all, so it doesn't really require a complete novice like me to get involved in order to illustrate further.

In cases of poor treatment, I suspect the cause is usually that the rep hates their job, resents being there and is just better off pursuing something else. From the sounds of it you were diligent and didn't fall into this category, which would make you a big loss to the CRA. Still, by all accounts IGTCED ran contrary to what your employers must have seen to be the spirit of your job. I'm sure you've rehashed everything countless times in your head, so you don't need people suggesting what you might have done differently... Good luck in future, anyhow.

Dys4ia is really, really good. Anna Anthropy's work is really hit or miss for me, but that was just an amazing little piece of insight into who she is, as well as a great example of using game mechanics to tell a story.

@jtrink said:

Freedom of speech. Fuck that company!

Feels like I've written this a hundred times.

Freedom of speech doesn't protect you from companies, it's about the government.

I don't think the reporter was "just doing his job" when he made that headline. He clearly wanted to stir shit up by creating controversy where there wasn't one. If I didn't know better, I'd think Patrick made a mistake and confused the Toronto Star with the Toronto Sun, because that's exactly the kind of sensationalist bullshit I expect from The Sun.

@thabigred said:

@MildMolasses said:

@thabigred said:

@MildMolasses said:

@thabigred said:

I've always had nothing about respect for our northern neighbors. I can't respect this.

Except for the part where he is an employee of the federal government and he's bitching about his decent paying, tax-funded job with great benefits which involves interacting with tax-payers concerning taxation. He was "club-fed" employee. It takes remarkable skill to get fired from government agencies. Maybe if his frustrations could take a more artful turn into metaphor and allegory he wouldn't lose his job, but they didn't.

You assume too many things in your posta. Like how artful allegory or metaphor could have saved his job, or like in another post where you said that "No one outside of Toronto reads to Toronto Star".

Actually I read the Toronto Star and I'm from Florida, about as far South in the US as you can get. I also don't think you understand how game development works if your response was he should be more metaphoric.

If you're going to continue being an insipid asshole to a guy who clearly put a lot of hard work and dedication into something, I have no business with you. Don't bother responding if you're going to continue being rude about this, and stop assuming things that you don't know.

I appreciate being called an insipid asshole and then told that I'm the one being rude.

BTW, I already corrected and admitted my mistake regarding the Star earlier.

When you make a game then I won't call you an insipid asshole for being an insipid asshole to someone who put the enough heart and dedication into something to actually ship a finished game.

Oh, he "shipped" a game? Really now?

@joetom said:

I don't think the reporter was "just doing his job" when he made that headline. He clearly wanted to stir shit up by creating controversy where there wasn't one. If I didn't know better, I'd think Patrick made a mistake and confused the Toronto Star with the Toronto Sun, because that's exactly the kind of sensationalist bullshit I expect from The Sun.

Indeed. That headline set the tone for how he'd ultimately be judged. I hope the reporter feels some guilt over how this played out... but she probably doesn't.

@bwmcmaste said:

@zeekthegeek said:

Canadian taxpayer here. This government continues to be the worst in our history. Any criticism is seen as treason.

Other Canadian taxpayer here. This government is no worse than any other one we've had in the past - people just bitch about it too much.

Yup.

@Christoffer said:

@jtrink said:

Freedom of speech. Fuck that company!

Feels like I've written this a hundred times.

Freedom of speech doesn't protect you from companies, it's about the government.

Amazes me how many people don't understand this. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from any consequences for your words - it means the government can't prosecute you for your words.

And even then, Canada's recognition of free speech is narrower than the United States - we have controversial laws that treat things like "hate speech" differently, for example.

@Zvarri: I know it wasn't and I read as much. Losing your job definitely isn't a pleasant experience, trust me I know, I was under HR investigation for 3 months before I was finally given an unacceptable option or termination after being 5 years with the company - and I didn't even do anything wrong which is the funny thing. I don't want to sound like a total asshole saying "oh you didn't deserve all this support!" I just mean it's kinda surprising how people are so shocked at your employer for taking, what I consider, quite standard action in this sort of situation.

Hope you find a new job soon, hopefully a better one.

What kind of society do we live in where a reporter thinks it is better to ruin one mans livelihood for a few web-clicks or paper-sales.

Hey, it's capitalism... whatever brings in the money right?

Sick...

I think people lose focus on what's important in life.

I worked at one call center for 5 years before getting fired. I was hired at another call center and stayed there for 6 months before quitting.

I consider those years of my life a complete waste.

Call centers breed shit. Nobody wants to work at a call center and nobody wants to call a call center. It's this godawful nexus where irritated people converge and explode.

The problems come from so many angles. Angry people is an obvious issue. Stupid people can be just as bad and often turn into angry people. People with problems you can't fix or can't fix well. Supervisors that push too hard. Supervisors that let too much go. Agents who don't do their job.

Even if you are incredibly good at call center work you'll still get stupid angry people who won't listen to reason. With the way the queue works in a call center it's possible for you to get nothing but angry stupid people the entire day. 8 hours or for some people 10 hours of talking to people who actively hate you and blame you for problems you didn't create.

"We had a lightning storm and now my internet doesn't work you piece of shit!"

"I'm sorry to hear that sir but I am not Thor so I have no control over the elements"

I had one customer tell me the company I worked for encouraged "niggerly" behavior because we cut off his internet until he paid his bill.

I had an old lady ask me to schedule a technician to come out and adjust the volume on her computer.

One old man wanted me to call him a taxi so he could go down the street to get some soup.

The worst part was people who had legitimate reasons to be very upset. There were people calling in who already had 10 different technicians come out to try and fix their problem. The only solution I had was to send another one. How do you sell that? How do you get out of that situation without a torrent of profanity? Some people I talked to had been hung up on 5 or 6 times. Some people received bills that were fully 10 times what it should have been. I didn't create any of these problem but I had to answer for them. You can be great at your job and do everything right and you'll still get shit on.

I was never great at that job. I got pretty good at talking to customers and I have a social anxiety disorder so that's significant. I never did get good at the rushing without rushing part. You had to keep your call time as low as possible without hurrying people off the phone. You also needed to document each call in 3 different systems in under a minute. It was the documentation that got me fired. I frequently forgot to or didn't bother documenting calls. Eventually they got tired of telling me to improve. I know that not long after I was fired they instituted a new system for documentation that was a lot faster. I know there were people working there that deserved to be fired a lot more than I did but it doesn't matter. I wish they had fired me sooner so I didn't waste so much of my life doing something I hated.

I'm back in college now and doing classes on web development. I will never work at a call center again.

As much as I don't like it, I'm pretty sure the tax department was well in their right to fire him, so I doubt there will be legal action. Besides, I doubt he's all that broken up about it.

I had one customer tell me the company I worked for encouraged "niggerly" behavior because we cut off his internet until he paid his bill.

@SpaceInsomniac: whoops, accidently put this as a private message. He did not sound intelligent enough to know of the word niggardly. The thick southern accent didn't help.

I work in the technical support of an power company where I try to help out people over the phone if they have to electricity to see if they need our help or the help of an electrician.

It's not so bad where I'm at, but I do get the feeling that frontline, who takes cares of bills, has it worse, since they often have to uphold the rules until a customer complains high enough in the system and gets their way.

I hate it when people who complain enough get their way... It's not fair that people get special treatment for being jerks.

If someone got hysterical in the supermarket over there was just one register open, would you let them cut in line? Would it be fair to you?

It'd be a pretty obvious choice to be honest. Would you keep someone who's essentially saying your customers are shit? I mean, sure, that's not the exact wording used here, but still. I don't think that's good marketing. So I understand why he was let go. If you work as a kindergarten caretaker you don't make a game about decapitating small children. Maybe that's exaggerated as hell on my part, but whatevz, but I've got $2 to spare and it sounds like an interesting experience. No need for pity purchase.

I get those calls everyday I work in a technical support company for over 60 schools, so I deal with a range from Student's to Faculty/staff, presidents, dean, and etc. Their are alot of dumb people out there. And he's right "I get this call everyday" some things we just have no information on, or we literally are flying blind because the school decided to not give us access to log in as them, or their systems, so I can understand the frustration. However it was in terrible taste that the guy got fired because of it. The company knows it's customer basis, and it only found out, not by research but most likely the press release. While their are dumb people, at the end of the day, you take off your head set and go home, some people just can't do that.

David S Gallant Keep your chin up dude. Think of it this way: Now that you do not work there any more, you can really make a game about the job. No need to hold back any more.

Typo: "what she must have been gowing through"

@HellknightLeon: yeah I couldn't believe that either. The journalist outed them in a very public article and essentially ratted him out to his employers. Cannot believe Klepek gave her a pass.

Everyone should make games about their jobs, and especially by those that are tired of their jobs :)

With the unemployment rate going on in the western world it could be the start of someting beautiful hehe.

I just bought the game for $10.

Thank you Patrick for the article, I´d have missed the opportunity to give a little help to this guy otherwise.

I bought and played the game.  It was interestesting for sure.  If nothing else, it feels good supporting the guy, if buying that game helps him I'm all for it.    Hope hope enough people buy his game (maybe toss in a few extra bucks) so that he can get enough money to make it another step up the ladder of game development.  What he may lack in technical knowledge he makes up for in creativity and heart.   
 
I do not work in a call center, but I get calls like that every day too.

I don't think the reporter was "just doing his job" when he made that headline. He clearly wanted to stir shit up by creating controversy where there wasn't one. If I didn't know better, I'd think Patrick made a mistake and confused the Toronto Star with the Toronto Sun, because that's exactly the kind of sensationalist bullshit I expect from The Sun.

They still have newspapers in Canada?

Hmm seems like he could have a serious case for Wrongful Dismissal against the CRA.

I must remember to buy this game this weekend! The insane overreaction by the government is sad, but unfortunately expected.

Thanks for this Patrick!

I don't really enjoy Gallant's games much but the premise of I Get This Call Every Day is very interesting. It's a shame it caused him to lose his job, it seems pretty harmless to me.

Also, I hate to be "that guy" but "what she must have been gowing through" in the last paragraph.

@graf1k said:

I'm kind of surprised at the dude who made the game as well as Patrick's reaction to the reporter calling the article “Tax department employee creates online game to vent his frustration with taxpayers.”

At best it's a leading title for an article. That said, I can't really believe the government would let someone go over something so small and insignificant especially when the game itself doesn't mention where he works or is unfairly critical of his employer of the people who call in. That's pretty much bullshit. I expect better from Canada.

Remember who runs the federal government right now...this type of reaction doesnt surprise me.

I'm still not sure why he got fired. Were his employers working under the assumption that call centres don't suck? Making an artistic statement about how terrible it is to work in a call centre isn't exactly pushing the envelope when it comes to the message. There are plenty of jobs that just suck, there's no need to pretend that every company has happy employees.

@Triumvir said:

Man, I hate my government sometimes.

EDIT: Oh, I finally got the quest. Cool. Anyway, I hope Minister of National Revenue likes lawsuits.

Yeah that was the first thing that occurred to me reading this, if he didn't actually disclose any confidential information, or breach his contract, how the frak can they justify firing him?

Also maybe it's just me, but I really dislike that reporter from the toronto star, go and find a real story you jerk. They got this guy fired for something that isn't even real news.

@FierceDeity: Yup.

Consider that the term "shipped", which originates from the retail sense of releasing a game by shipping physical copies out to retailers, continues to be used for digital-only games with no physical presence.

Therefore, I shipped I Get This Call Every Day on December 21st, 2012.

@JesterPC238 said:

Thanks for this Patrick!

I don't really enjoy Gallant's games much but the premise of I Get This Call Every Day is very interesting. It's a shame it caused him to lose his job, it seems pretty harmless to me.

Also, I hate to be "that guy" but "what she must have been gowing through" in the last paragraph.

Note the quotation marks to indicate that this is something quoted from gallant about his friend who had a sex change.

It's the rules, if a canadian guy says gowing, you have to quote it as such.

Great story, Scoops!

A tough situation, but it sounds like this is the start of something better for him anyway. Good luck!

Well at least he doesn't have to work in a call center for the time being.

@Rowr: THEN I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE!

I was mostly commenting because I know Patrick now has a service for editing and such so that he can push out articles more frequently. Figured it would be a good thing to know.

I'm just not getting why this is such a big deal. He knowingly took a risk. Risk backfired. He doesn't have a job. There wasn't any sort of injustice.

Great article Patrick. Keep up the good work.

@feargalr said:

@Triumvir said:

Man, I hate my government sometimes.

EDIT: Oh, I finally got the quest. Cool. Anyway, I hope Minister of National Revenue likes lawsuits.

Yeah that was the first thing that occurred to me reading this, if he didn't actually disclose any confidential information, or breach his contract, how the frak can they justify firing him?

Also maybe it's just me, but I really dislike that reporter from the toronto star, go and find a real story you jerk. They got this guy fired for something that isn't even real news.

Most businesses have in their policies that you are not allowed to be a representative of said business unless approved by the company to be such. This game is a representation of his work experience, and it was public where he worked. It was only a matter of time before he would be fired.

This stuff is so exciting to me. I think this is the future of gaming, where games aren't just simulations created for fun, but actual emotional experiences that reflect deep aspects of the real world. This guy deserves all the support he can get.

probably a good thing - if he's got other talents its time to get out of the unintelligent cretin zone that is every call centre that I've had the misfortune to phone.

that said a call centre worker might have been the pinnacle of his career path seeing as he was openly stupid enough to jeopardize his employment