If you know a millenial who has social media, you may have heard about The Bear. Hell, I'm sure many of you have watched it. The harrowing story of Carmen Berzatto's attempt to save his deceased brother's restaurant has met with astoundingly positive critical response.
Season Two focuses on Carmy and Sydney's attempt to turn The Original Beef sandwhich shop into a Michelin star worthy restaurant. In working towards that goal, many characters find joy in honing their craft while others unhealthily lose themselves in the work.
There's plenty of stories to tell but I wanna focus on the personal journey of resident asshole "cousin" Ritchie. I wanna talk about forks, bleeding for your work, and the ways we sometimes close ourselves off from others.
This resonates deeply with 14+ years of experience in professional game development that has almost bled me dry.
I'd just like to add this:
The most important skill for a manager in the game industry to have--not the most productive, not the most useful day-to-day, but the most important--is to be able to tell when one of your direct reports is bleeding for the work.
Why is it important? Because it keeps people out of the hospital, and lets you slam the brakes on someone about to ruin their life for the company.
If you're a manager of managers, and one of your direct reports says about someone they're managing, well, they were falling behind but they're rallying now, their behavior is erratic but they're enjoying every minute, pounding Red Bulls and screaming about crushing code, replace that manager with someone more experienced ASAP. Then give that worker some paid vacation days and strike that month from their performance review.
The manic phase just before the brick wall is the most dangerous part of burnout, because it's the point when you trick yourself into thinking you can push yourself forever and never stop, and that's how you end up in the emergency room.
