I have to talk about bosses. I know many people have had bosses from hell. Nick is different, he’s a terrific guy to work for. He gave me a chance when no one else would hire me. I jumped very quickly from coding to designing the actual games. I think he’s pretty pleased that the first three I designed for him have sold so well. It took a lot of persuasion for him to let me create games for women to play. Let’s face it, men don’t understand that women like games as well, but the ones that have been the top sellers are so full of violence (particularly toward women) that the female audience avoided them. Plus the language sucked. 

Women love seeing great men’s bodies in the games. We can window shop like crazy, but we don’t always have to buy. 

We are not averse to fighting, but we like subtlety and sneaky moves to allow us to win

Once Nick understood this, I think Karen, his wife, finally persuaded him about my ideas, and he gave me cart blanche. There were only a few others working for him, and Carlo, his chief coder, was the best I had ever seen. The other three guys were all weird, but incredibly talented. I don’t think they noticed I was female. I told you they were weird.

We were the company who others thought were losers, until we began winning awards. I only went to the first convention near us. It was horrible and quite frankly scared me, and not much normally scares me. The other gaming groups were filled with guys who thought that only men could design games. They went out of their way to make sure they insulted me and the sexual harassment was so bad, I left after two days and never went back to another convention.

I loved the company though, and Nick, Karen, and their two boys sort of became my family. I’m not big into kids, but those two were a riot. They could be incredibly naughty, but always managed to rope me into their mischievousness. We often pranked Nick. Karen was too important to mess with.  She made the cookies, and packed great lunches. However, she used their full names when she caught them in a prank. Let me tell you, any kid who hears his mom use his full name, instantly knows he’s in trouble.

What began my challenges with Nick was when he sold the company to a huge Japanese gaming concern. The Japanese have a concept within their companies of being similar to a tight-knit family. They hired more men and expected us to adhere to their team concepts. They insisted Nick stay on for two more years to keep the company running smoothly. If they had not kept him on, I would have left long ago. The challenge with the new hires was that they hated me as a female working in a man’s world, and did their best to mess with my designs.

I loathed this new team thing and avoided it like a plague.  Unfortunately, the new owners jumped all over Nick for my disobedience. He had no option but to give me a choice of working within the  current system, or finding a new job. 

When he sent me off on a vacation to the BVIs, I was bloody mad, but also I didn’t want to lose my job. I loved working with Nick as my boss.

I was not expecting what happened there.