I don't know what I've gotten into, but I like it

Friends have been asking me how I'm doing and how my job's going. I tell them it's great and then try to explain why. The problem is, there are so many reasons and it's so complicated. Let's see if I can boil it down to the most important things.

Creativity:
I can do just about anything I want to make the company better. It's taken me until the last few weeks to really get the hang of the fact that I don't have to ask someone if I can do something, I can just do it. I'm not a 9-5er, mainly because creativity doesn't run on your personal clock, but at GarageGames I can wake up at 4am with an idea and get at it. Which leads me to the next important point...

Hours:
When I wake up at 3am and work for a couple hours, I don't have to get up and be at work by 8. I can go in at noon if I want, I just need to get stuff done (and I initiated most of that stuff in the first place). I love that I can take two weeks off around Christmas, or take a Friday off for a long weekend trip up to Seattle. I don't feel tied down, which is an extremely important factor for me still feeling close to friends in Seattle. To an extent, I can see them whenever I want, therefore I don't feel like they're out of reach.

Leadership:
It's not hard to get excited about work when you sit right next to the Founder of the company, who's not only a highly respected industry vet that's made games I've actually heard of, but goes on profanity-laced tirades about what's awesome and what sucks about the videogame industry. He really wants to help indie developers, and I don't think I'd be about to work in such a seemingly non-humanitarian industry for long if it wasn't for him being so passionate about games and helping people.

Responsibility/project leading = Not having to do stuff I suck at:
I suck at a lot of things. Of the 40 employees currently at the company, I'm about the 48th best regarding computer know-how, barely edging out my coffee mug. But I am good at a few things. Like coming up with ideas and bossing people around. GarageGames has allowed me to combine these powers, turning me into a juggernaut of task-shifting. I'm currently "directing" about three projects. I came up with an idea, and then I gave people tasks that would take me another four year degree to complete. Awesomeness.

The biggest thing I'm working on is the GreatGamesExperiment.com. Think youtube, myspace, IMDB for games, but with that helping people twist that I love so much. A twelve year old kid can make a game, post it on gge.com, and get recognition solely based on how cool the game is. If it's cool enough, us or someone else will publish it. Nintendo, MS, Sony -- you have no chance of getting those guys to look at your game. And a twelve-year-old kid has no chance of getting enough traffic on a personal site to have his game blow up. Happy Medium to the rescue!

This is getting way to long. Here's a Gamer Badge from the Great Games Experiment that links to the site. Let me know if you want a beta invite. We're going public in March. Crap. I'm totally being all markety. But if you like games, this is a seriously cool site.