Good luck!

“Seize the day, for tomorrow you may die.”

Ahh, I see. I was lured away when I went to work for ESC. I was lured away from a boring job in an office. I even took a pay cut to work at the Sheep.

Was this ridiculous? Not in the least. I knew exactly what I what I was getting myself into. I knew it was a less stable job, in a less stable marketplace. It was a calculated risk. This was pre-funding, but the Sheep were still the biggest company of their kind at the time. I knew a few of the people involved, and I trusted their judgment.

But I also knew it was just a job. My current company could have laid me off an any time if they felt like it. And they are not virtual. I recognize there is no absolute security anywhere. “But wouldn’t it be a rush to do something that is new and different and break new ground and make the rules up as I go.” And that is what I chose. Risk vs. Stability. I chose risk and I’m so grateful I did. I worked at the Sheep for 4 months, starting in January of 2007. Some of the things I did:

I worked with some of the most amazing people. People like:
Cory Edo & Mak
Johnny Ming
Giff Constable (can’t remember SL name)
SnoopyBrown Zamboni
Christian Westbrook (can’t remember SL name)
Mark Barrett
Chosen Few
Torrid Midnight
Spider Mandala
Satchmo Prototype
Jane Calvert
Barnesworth Anubis
Crystal Shard
There are others that I didn’t work with much at all but learned a great deal from, and others that have been lost to my faulty memory.

I spent 2 days with the author Dean Koontz at his house where we shared food, wine, laughs, and stories.
I worked with amazing clients like Matteo from Gabetti. The team at Ogilvy when working on an IBM project. Matt from STA Travel. I began work on I Am Legend working with the film team.
Gave my input and helped shape numerous other projects.
Traveled to Washington D.C. for the first time ever.
Traveled to New York City for the first time ever.(and recognized Rockefeller Center when walking by because I had been there in SL first for the virtual tree lighting)
Attended the Virtual Worlds Conference and met amazing people.
Was ‘virtually’ on the Today Show.

I’m sure I am forgetting more. I would not have done any of these things if I stayed in my non-virtual job and hammered out PHP for a Title Company in Orange County California. If fact, I could still be there doing just that and making more money. But I took a risk. And it paid off big time. I have my experiences. I worked for the Electric Sheep Company. I rode the wave. It was worth my 14+ hour work days. It was worth getting hit up for jobs everywhere I went in SL.

I totally didn’t expect to write this much. But I just want to make the point that it is volatile, of course. Yeah it is taking a risk. But for me, even four months was worth it. You should never be scared about losing your job. If you are worthy, you will find more great work. If you are a putz, then yeah, stick with the job you hate. I’ll stop now.

Smart – and really unscrupulous – employers, maybe, but not so smart on the employee end. Has nothing to do with whether or not they work in the field of virtual world development or work via telecommuting, though.

Understood. However, I’m sure that many of these people were lured by the thought of work @ home jobs, where they didn’t have to go into an office (unless it’s a virtual one in SL) and left the stability of their day jobs for something much more volatile.

It is very much incorrect to say someone is an idiot to have quit their job to work full time for the Sheep. Just because you may go in world to play around, doesn’t mean that is how it is for everyone. When I a Sheep, it was a fantastic place to work. I think Sibley is a fantastic CEO and there are some of the smartest people I know running the company. And it seems that enough of those smart people are going in for the big payoff. And that may not be all the dumb after all. But it is disappointing.

I also still stand behind my assertion that the primary reason these people were fired was because they were coming up the their first vesting anniversary. I explain it in more detail on my blog. But the dates and the people fired all line up. It is possible the Sheep had plans to trim the fat anyway, and this was the cheapest way to do it. But it definitely played a role.

Many of these people, from what I understand, are people who “quit” their day jobs in hopes that virutal jobs would sustain them. If any of the fired, fallen sheep fit this catagory, then their pictures should define the word “Idiot” in websters’ dictionary. I only know of one person who bragged about having quit their dayjob (i think it was thediva rockin) when she got employed be sheep. But if these are the people who were cut, well, stupidty begets stupidity. I saw this coming a mile away…and said long ago that anyone who sacrifices their bread and butter day job in hopes of a big pay off within a game–well, enough said.

E-Sheep is owned and run by CBS.

The main point of this spin-damage-control isn’t just to show e-sheep didn’t totally screw their projections, but to hide the fact that this decision probably came down from on high in CBS and they have no power left. This is probably some fourth-quarter drama at CBS, panicking that AOL and Pontiac – both e-sheep projects – left virtual worlds, that their search was a flop due to public outcry of it being intrusive (not to mention that Linden Lab is implementing their own), and CSI was far less than expected. (CBS should be blamed for this one – the show made SL out to be the stupidest place! No wonder people didn’t log on in droves!)

Evidence to support that it was CBS, not e-sheep’s decision:
- They had new full-time people start as little as a month ago.
- Around the same time they had told employees that job security was good.
- Just about any investor will tell you straight out that a small company has sold control when they get $8 mil so soon.
- Sibley is a hippy and hippies don’t lay off people unless they have to.