Editing Gregory Fulton/Diaries (section)

== 12/17/98 ==
Welcome to the end of another working day at [[NWC]]. There is still no sign of [[David Richey]]. Another one of our programmers, [[John Krause]], called in sick today. [[David Mullich]] (the Heroes III director) was ready to take bets on who would call in sick next. Of course, everyone blames me for getting them ill.

As far as your average [[NWC]] workday goes, this one was hectic and full of revelation.

Revelation?

Yes. Revelation. Only today did I look at my calendar and realize Christmas was next Friday.

Hectic?

Yes. Hectic. Every now and then I need to wipe my desk clean. This means catching up on all the hand-scrolled notes and stray post-its littered about my desk. When my desk is clean, I'm caught up.

This very act of cleaning makes for a semi-chaotic day. There is much gear shifting and subject changing to close dangling issues.

Add to this my usual parade of visitors, and my first chance to test multiplayer, and it takes great effort to avoid turning into a screaming monkey. Yes, I said screaming monkey.

Frequently, I find myself held hostage in my own office as a line of visitors (testers, programmers, artists, producers, etc.) quickly assemble outside my office in a short period of time, all wanting a piece of my brain.

Today it happened to occur while I was in the middle of a multiplayer game with [[Jeff Leggett]] (H3 multiplayer programmer). Simultaneously, I had three people show up and cram themselves into my small office. Each began jockeying for position to ask a question. Meanwhile, Jeff waited on the phone intercom, with Heroes III continually chiming in the background, letting me know it was my turn to play.

At this point you may apply the screaming monkey metaphor.

Despite the great potential for chaos, I asked Jeff to wait, gave my three suitors a number, told them to wait in line, then answered each of their questions.

On the surface, everything looked under control. Little did these poor souls know there was a screaming monkey, trapped in my mind's steel cage, wildly thrashing about in a desperate attempt to escape and turn me into a volcano of anger and lunacy.

When it was over, I took a deep breath, noted the walls weren't sprayed with the blood of innocent coworkers, and returned to my multiplayer game with Jeff.

Heroes II multiplayer wasn't friendly in the least. When it wasn't your turn, all you could do was sit at the computer and stare at the screen like a moron.

Well, thanks to our wonderful network programmer, Jeff Leggett, a moron you will no longer be.

Jeff has finished implementing multiplayer support. Now we're on a bug hunt. So, today, Jeff and I played a multiplayer game in the background while we went about our work.

I must admit, I had a blast. Moments like this make me forget my job is serious work.