Anti-gamifying the job search process

[elfs]

I like to play games, but there seems to be a pattern to when I play them. Aside from the obvious, that I play triple-A titles in my preferred genres (SF/FPS) when they come out, much as some people see every movie in their favorite genre, I don't play games often.

Jane McGonical's Reality is Broken is one of those books in which she tries to explain how video gaming points to a better world, one in which people don't suffer for making mistakes, but still have an opportunity to master a skill. She asks, "Who are gamers" and gives us this pithy answer:

They are nine-to-fivers who come home and apply all the smarts and talents that are underutilized at work to plan and coordinate complex raids and quests...

That explains much of the conflicted feelings I have about my current job search, and the scope of the position I'm looking for: I don't ever want to work someplace where, at the end of the day, I feel a need to do something else to fully engage my talents. If I do, I'm working at the wrong place.

Comments

[marketeer]

I don't ever want to work someplace where, at the end of the day, I feel a need to do something else to fully engage my talents. If I do, I'm working at the wrong place.

Thank you for giving me words to describe how I feel about my current job.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I don't ever want to work someplace where, at the end of the day, I feel a need to do something else to fully engage my talents.

Well sure, but I don't think they'll let me have sex at work.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The Venn Diagram of talents and hobbies can get fairly n-dimensional, ne?

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

I have an addition to her answer: plan, coordinate, and complete complex raids and quests...
A lot of jobs just go on the same day after day. It makes it hard to have much of a feeling of achievement or closure. With those games, they plan, attempt, and succeed. Or fail, attempt again, repeat until success or acceptance of defeat. Win or lose, it's a finite arc rather than a line stretching out endlessly into the distance.