Who remembers Psychonauts? It was a brilliant little game from DoubleFine games, whose lead, Tim Schafer, is famous for writing great games. The comedy and drama balance well, and the game really needs more love. I put it up there with anything Three Rings, Valve, or People Can Fly can come up with. But I digress.
     The hero has many problems, but the most constant is an inability to swim. Every time the water gets too deep, a creepy hand (that only he can see) lunges out to grab him, and if he doesn't jump to safety in time, he's dragged under. This comes to a head in one nightmarish scenario where the hero is surrounded by water, and the hands appear in the wall around him, ready to drag him to his doom if he gets too close. There's a rising-floor-of-doom level later, but it doesn't have the same feel--I digress.
     I feel those hands closing in now. I may have shared some degree of elation when I got my current job, but my progress has been sidetracked in numerous ways. On the first of the month, I was taken for a sit-down and told in no uncertain terms what the bosses thought of my apparent lack of progress, and that I had better improve, and fast. I set on my current project with a will, and forced myself to stay and finish things long into the night, many times. Friday, in particular, was swallowed whole as the one person whose help I needed was diverted, again and again, so that my last efforts zipped up at 24:30 that night.
     I spent the weekend, and today, in a funk; I was worried that nothing would get done this November, and my terrible numbers would send me back to the job hunt. But it's been dormant for a months, and I don't really want to go back to it. Besides the obvious inconvenience, being unemployed is a huge damper on hiring manager enthusiasm. And to mention that I was dismissed? Forget it. I have to keep this job, or consign myself to months more work finding something new.
     John Locke positied, among other things, that a man's ability to earn his living is as essential to his life as a beating heart; to take a man's money without his consent is an injury, and to take his job, tantamount to murder.
     It weighs on me now. This fortnight, it's do--or die.