BRIEF HISTORY LESSON

If you had purchased Project Gotham Racing 2 (PGR2) for the original Xbox, you probably were pleasantly surprised to find that there was another game hiding in your garage. The reason for this was that Bizarre Creations, the developers of PGR2, had built their own toolset for testing out the Xbox controller. This ‘tool’ took the form of a 2D-top-down mini-game called “Geometry Wars” (similar to arcade games like Tempest and Asteroids) which the devs wound up leaving in the game as an unlockable arcade cabinet.

This mini-game was so well received that the developers expanded upon this original concept and, 15 months later, ported a full version of the game “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved” to the Xbox Live Arcade.

At the time of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved’s release, I’d been managing a trio of website properties at a large corporate office. The executives at the top of this organization believed that adversarial relationships between departments created ‘healthy competition’ and ‘fostered team spirit’. The reality is that all it ‘fostered’ was an ongoing tempest of accusations and rampant alcoholism amongst the rank-and-file employees. While some turned to extra-marital affairs or prescription drugs, my escape was in found in an hour-long dose of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved which would always bring me back to a healthy mental equilibrium.

FINDING PEACE WITHIN THE PIXELS

So, what was the deal with that game and how did it help bring me mindfulness in a time of great torpor? Well, it turns out that the same mechanics that can calibrate and adjust controllers for an Xbox can also be used to control the bats in one’s personal belfry. The unyielding onslaught of enemies and obstacles in Geometry Wars provided a straight up metaphor for a standard day at the office. The game allowed me to break down, make sense of, and almost find comfort in all the insanity. No matter what you do, no matter how adept you are at keeping the wolves at bay, none of it will prevent you from the slow, gradual decline into disorder.

Below is a breakdown of the gameplay mechanics and their similarities to my time in corporate life along with a video that shows Geometry Wars in action.

UNDERSTANDING & EMBRACING CORPORATE ENTROPY THROUGH

MY TIME WITH GEOMETRY WARS: RETRO EVOLVED

As the game begins, you are presented with a clean rectangular slate which could be viewed as a metaphor of your mental state upon arriving at the office to begin your day. For the first few moments, you are protected by a glowing shield that quickly disappears as meet your first co-worker:

Coworkers are represented by the spinning pinwheel sprites in Geometry Wars.

If the coworker is a team member you manage, you can assign them projects, tasks, that will take them off your slate. If they are just a fellow employee, you can simply go back to work.

Both actions are represented by blowing them up in the game.

Up next are email and messaging which I’ve collected together in a group called “Communications”.

PROTIP: Did you know that you can make an email rule that moves all new and unread mail to the trash?

Communications refer to pressing emails, voicemails, and other memos/messages that need to be addressed before moving on to the tasks and projects at hand. If you spend too much time focused on communications, you’ll be doing a disservice to yourself when the real work arrives. At the start of a day, it’s best to handle the major emails and move on.

Never forget, “Inbox Zero” is just a lie meant to keep sheep occupied.

At the start of the day, everything appears to make sense and, as the coffee begins to kick in, you might even catch yourself thinking that you might be able to do something that makes a real change around here. That’s foolish talk as you forget everyone else’s coffee is also beginning to kick in including the worst folks in any (read: “every”) workplace.

This group of individuals are the absolute f-ing worst and they outnumber the good people in your office 20:1.

Do you have anyone in your office that drives a Porsche, Audi, or BMW to work? Did someone tell you about their Harvard MBA without any kind of non sequitur or previous context? Is someone staring at you right now or making a video of you reading this post with their cellphone? These are all common traits of office sycophants and they are seriously fucking everywhere in corporate offices. Make no mistake, this group of individuals is working 24/7 to bring you down so that they can move themselves up on some imaginary corporate ladder. Luckily, for normal people, these ‘bullies’ are easily dispatched by focusing all attention on them. Their entire spectrum of conversation is limited to very specific talking points (car, college degree, golf tournaments, etc.) and if you press them on anything remotely human outside of those bowling-lane-bumpers, they fold faster than Superman on laundry day.