I never understood the point of The Sims. It’s already difficult enough to live one’s life without then coming home and living another one on a computer, really. Second Life seemed to somehow make it worse by inventing the concept of “virtual jobs”, “land” ownership and virtual corporations.
So I was rather surprised to find myself hooked on a game I’ve been playing for the past couple of months: Car Mechanic Simulator 2021. It’s on Steam, and it’s one of those games I can in fact play on Linux. Basically you start out with a small garage, you do jobs, earn money, expand, and eventually you start doing things like buying cars, fixing and tuning them and then sell those cars for big profits.
So, great. It’s a video game that’s essentially a watered-down version of… a job. It’s a game sector that’s enjoyed considerable expansion in recent years, basically simulations of common place jobs. The biggest one of these is probably Farmer Simulator, but there are lots around covering everything from driving a bus to lawnmowing and even power-washing (!). They’re usually based on the template that you’re an entrepreneur starting a new service, and you grind your way to making that business a success.
Well, I’ve found that on several occasions by the time I shut down the game I look outside and the sun is coming back up. It’s very addictive — it seems to scratch an itch I haven’t had in a long time — the love of work.
If you asked me if it’s normal to want to work, my instinct is usually to say no. There are so many other ways to occupy one’s time! and yet I find myself constantly telling myself “ok, let’s renovate one more” whenever I play the game. So clearly I can take pleasure in work, in doing repetitive things for “credits” (which in this case do not convert to actual money, sadly.
In a way I’m reminded of a previous job I had as senior technical writer at Actional. I knew my stuff. It was in 2011-2012 and I was working mostly from home. I remember putting in work sometimes until 4am near release time as we had to produce docs for last-minute additions and make sure the online help worked correctly… then the test-and-repeat cycle.
Thing is, I didn’t mind doing this. To me this was part of the job. I and our other writer were producing the documentation, and my job was now to make sure everything worked, and I just did it, even if I was tired. That was work, but it was rewarding work.
And then it was all for nothing as in 2013 the company was sold to a VC firm that stripped everything down, getting rid of me and the other writer — as well as a bunch of other employees — and then, well, that lead to a bunch of other events in my life. And then I could never quite be coaxed into the idea that work (as a concept) was a positive thing, because the moment this started happening for me, the rug was pulled from under my feet like that and I ended up with nothing. I have no idea whether Actional is even a thing anymore, it’s at that level.
So, what makes this silly little sim game seem like what was really the most satisfying work experience in my life? Well, it’s the underlying “meta-mechanics” of the game. This is my “garage”. When I grind I earn credits. And also in-game achievements (I got all 46 of them). There was a progression. More work earns more money.
This is the way work is supposed to work.
So, this is not a very realistic representation of work. I mean, this is a computer simulation of manual work so there’s an obvious limit there. I don’t have to wash the grease from under my fingernails after playing, and I did start with a non-negligible sum of money by default, which starts you out on a fairly easy path. But the point remains. Hard work can be fun as long as it keeps being rewarded. Maybe it would be more realistic if, periodically — say, every year or so — a tornado ripped the whole garage out of the ground, a bit like the tech industry’s yearly spring wave of layoffs, and landed you there with zero credits, zero achievements, and no real way forward.
Which is kind of how I feel right now as someone who’s unemployed in the tech field despite 25+ years of technical documentation experience. And certainly this little note can help explain why I’m playing a mechanic in the first place. Right now I have a lot of time and nothing to do. I want to work hard and earn. But through a mix of job eliminations due to the promise (and not current capabilities) of AI, plus the glut of tens of thousands of tech workers having been recently laid off, it’s extremely difficult to find any job right now. And even if I do find something, how long before the company just “reorganizes” and lays me off as an employee with very little seniority? When is the next rug-pull coming?
So, that’s how it is. Sadly even my enjoyment of this game can best be seen as something driven by negative events and trends. It’s possible to enjoy work, and I have in the past, but it’s not something I’m likely to experience again in my life. And that’s pretty depressing.