'Daddy's job in video games was no longer a cool thing they liked to brag about'
My husband has worked in the video game industry for just about 14 years. It was always his dream to make video games, and it was a goal he's worked towards since he began learning to program at 12 years old. One day on a whim, he applied to a major console game developer, and three weeks later our family of five was moving to California.
The company my husband was working for was really great. The benefits were amazing, he was paid well, and we had a good life–but we would never be able to afford to buy a house in California. We loved it there, but owning our own home has always been a huge dream of ours, and there was no way we would be able to work out having both. We decided to keep an eye out for positions in other states and entertain the thought of moving somewhere else with a lower cost of living, hopefully enabling us to purchase our own home.
We found some possibilities and, after interviewing, he received a great offer from a wonderful and stable company, in a state where we already had friends and family. We purchased a home and relocated our (now) family of six, leaving California for good. This was a really exciting move for us. Each child had their own room (they had to share in California), and they could paint or decorate their rooms however they liked. Our in-laws were in a position to buy a second home in the area, so they could be closer to the grandchildren. It was a ranch, and the kids loved to explore it. Life was looking very good, and we were all very excited about the future.21
The following summer was when we experienced our first layoff. It was devastating and extremely scary. My income wasn't enough to cover the mortgage, even with the unemployment. We received no severance, and our health benefits would run out at the end of the month.
We tried applying for positions at numerous gaming companies (and non-gaming companies) in the area, but no one was looking for my husband's skillset at that time (in addition to there being a mass layoff and the market being flooded with great talent of all levels). In the end, we were forced to relocate. We chose a studio that had been around for many years and had survived through releases of games both good and bad. We had friends in that area, and the entire situation looked like a pretty good fit for us.
We continued paying for the house while it was on the market, and we were once again put up in temporary housing. This time, the six of us had to stay in a hotel for a month, until an apartment that would fit us all became available. Once we moved into the temporary apartment, it was time for the children to start school again. We registered them knowing they would only be in the school for a month or so, and then they would move to a more permanent school once we found our own apartment to rent.
This time, our stay in temporary housing was extended due to the amount of overtime my husband had to work, and we were not able to transfer the children to their new school until they were between semesters. As was inevitable, they had begun making friendships and establishing roots, even though they knew they wouldn't be staying. It wasn't easy for them, but we had prepared them well from the start, and they knew they could keep in contact with their friends and maintain those friendships if they wanted to. I think that made it a little bit easier on them.
After we were settled and a couple of years had passed, I received notice that my appeal for in-state tuition was being granted and that I was able to register for classes at the local college. My son had been very sick for the past few months, and our family pediatrician told us that he felt our next step was surgery. He said it was probably best to do it sooner rather than later. We got him scheduled and started preparing for it. My husband requested some time off so he could be there. It was approved and we were all set.
Two days later, my husband was laid off again. He called me and told me not to freak out, but that he would be home soon. He had been laid off, but we had a great severance package, and we would be able to figure things out. My heart broke, and after I hung up the phone, I cried. I cried until I heard him come home, and then I didn't shed another tear. We would get through this, and we would be fine. I had to be strong for the kids, my husband, and myself.
The company he had been working for was wonderful about everything, and they did give us a great severance package. I think we received paychecks for 60 days, and our insurance was covered for 60 or 90 days, I don't quite remember. At this point, I don't think we would have been able to survive if they hadn't. It took him approximately 40 days to find a position with another company—and we would have to relocate again.
This particular company would not pay for relocation or assist with temporary housing. We were not offered a trip out to find a home. All of those expenses had to come out of our own pocket. Our home still had not sold, and we started renting it out, but our tenants caught it on fire and then abandoned the home. Our property management company gave up trying to help us; we were drowning in debt and eventually headed into foreclosure. We didn't have the finances, strength, or energy to keep going after the tenants ourselves, so we completed a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure instead (apparently, this is not any better than a foreclosure itself, but we did not understand it at the time).
My husband began work at the new studio, and within months was working 100+ hour weeks, often times not coming home at all. He did not have days off. Sometimes he would manage to come home for two hours, and the most he was ever home was five hours a day. If I wanted to see him, I had to watch him sleep.
After the game came out, he was given a week of compensation time for all of the hours he had been putting in. Even though he was on a break, he wanted to keep up on how the game was doing, so he attempted to check his email and see how everything was going on. His login failed. He tried again thinking he'd typed the password wrong. It failed again.
He called in to find out what was going on and after only having worked there for 10 months, he was told he had been laid off, yet again. There had been no phone call, no e-mail to his work or personal account. There was no notification. There would be no severance, and he would not be paid for his compensation time. Our insurance ended at midnight that evening–not the end of the month like most places.22
When my husband was laid off, our oldest daughter was in ninth grade attending her ninth school, my fourth grader was attending her fourth school, and my second grader was attending his second. All of the children had just really begun making close friends and getting settled in. It seemed like with each move, it was taking long and longer for them to get settled. It was really sad to watch, but at the same time completely understandable. This time, they really loved their schools, the neighborhood, and the city we lived in. With each move, you hope it'll be the last—that your luck will finally change, but that just never happens.
When we had to tell the children the news about the layoff, they were in tears before we finished. They asked us if we'd have to move and begged us to find a way to stay. It was at this point that Daddy's job in video games was no longer a cool thing they liked to brag about, but instead a source of heartache and pain they didn't like to mention or talk about.
We tried our best to find a job in the local area, even outside of the video game industry, but yet again, it didn't work out for a variety of reasons. This go round, we had a lot of offers from all over the nation (we have always felt incredibly blessed about this—a lot of people have trouble getting any offers, much less multiple ones).
I had several company owners and directors ask to speak to me directly to assure me of their stability and address any of my fears and concerns over their job offers. Out of character for me, I actually did speak to most of them and voiced my fears about layoffs, and accepting offers only to be laid off when the project was complete. I explained how my ex was threatening to file for custody of my daughter because we weren't stable, and my children weren't as young as they used to be. We needed to find them a home, not another temporary place to stay.
We really took our time making our decision and picked the most stable company we could. It was another company he had worked with in the past, who had been around for many years, and the entire team was really down to earth. We promised our oldest that with this next move, once we found a home to rent and were settled, we would do everything we could to make sure she could finish out High School wherever we landed.
With this next relocation, we had to live in a hotel for 45 days. It was the middle of the school year, and because we lived in a hotel, my children were classified as homeless. Their bus stop was located outside of the homeless shelter. This new school didn't offer the same foreign language my daughter had been taking, so she had to switch to a different one. Most of the classes she had been taking weren't offered, so she had to pick new classes and was very behind in most of them. She spent most of winter break catching up, and we spent that Christmas in a strange city, in a hotel.
A year and a half later, we were told he would be laid off in two months. I was seven months pregnant. Our insurance would end two weeks before the baby was due.2324
This was the first time we'd ever had notice, and that was extremely helpful. They even tried to get him interviews at other local studios, find contractor work, and finagle ways to extend our insurance so that the birth would be covered. They tried everything they could in order to help us in any way possible. It's weird to say, but it was the best layoff situation we'd ever gone through. I will never forget everything they did for us.
In the end, we were able to negotiate a deal with a company in California that would allow him to work from home where we were living at the time. My children would not have to change schools, and my daughter could finish her last two years of high school with her friends. They knew about the baby, and due to circumstance, we had a scheduled caesarean section so we worked out a bit of paternity leave into the deal, and everything was all set. We couldn't believe it! Our daughter was so happy that we'd been able to keep our promise, she really would graduate from the same high school after all. I felt like I could breathe again, and that our luck had finally changed.
I really can't put into words how excited and relieved we were. He was finally working for a truly stable company who had been around since the beginning. They were amazing to us, and they made sure we were all taken care of and covered by insurance in time for the baby to be born, and tried to make sure we didn't worry about a thing.
It was at this point we really felt like life was solid. We decided to actually unpack everything and make a home out of the house we were staying in. This was something we hadn't done since we left the house we had purchased. We hung pictures on the walls. We invested money in decorating the kids' rooms, as best we could in a rental. We took the time to really settle in, and even talked to the owners about purchasing the home in the next few years, if they'd consider selling it.
That company was LucasArts.
He started working in the spring of 2012, and Disney shut down the studio in April of 2013.
That year, my husband couldn't fly out and attend my stepson's graduation, because we had to move instead. We couldn't afford for him to go, or to send him any decent graduation gift.25
My oldest daughter just graduated from her 14th school, where when we registered her for classes, the school forced her to take almost all freshman classes because she didn't meet this state graduation requirements. It didn't matter that she took equivalent or more difficult classes, or that she'd taken some of the requirements in middle school, and it didn't matter that they were preventing her from taking AP classes. In the state we left, she only needed two credits to graduate. I had to appeal all the way up to the Board of Education and threaten to go to the state level, so that the school here could allow her to take more difficult classes than they were trying to make her take. They conceded on three of her eight classes and allowed her to take AP Government as an independent study course for the fourth. My daughter did not bother to make any friends or walk at graduation, because, "what's the point". She had no ties to this school, and her senior year was a disaster.
She was accepted into the state university here but assigned out of state tuition because we hadn't been here for a year when she applied. We're working on getting that fixed and so far, it looks like it will be–but if it isn't, her tuition will be $20,000 more than it would be if she were a resident.
Our current state won't accept her out of state driving permit, so she has to get a new one and hold it for a year before she can get her license. We didn't realize this until a few months ago. Her college is an hour and a half to two hours away depending on traffic, and I don't have four to six hours a day to drive her back and forth. It takes three hours one way via public transportation. Instead, she'll have to live in the dorms, so that's another $10,000 for college we weren't expecting.
My middle daughter has recently been diagnosed with extreme depression and anxiety. She has started hurting herself. She has a few close friends but absolutely hates her new school. She had her first therapy appointment recently, but I'm almost afraid to take her because I know it will take a lot of time for her to get comfortable before she opens up and then she may get too attached to that particular therapist.
I'd like to repeat that–I need to get my daughter therapy to help with the trauma and stress from all of these moves, but I'm afraid to because I'm terrified she'll become attached to her therapist, and we'll have to move again.
My son was recently diagnosed with Autism, is severely ADHD, and has a heart condition. He's been put on a six month cardiologist schedule so he can be watched for surgery, because his heart defect is deteriorating faster than it should be. We always knew he would need this surgery, but he wasn't supposed to need it until he was around 50-60 years old. I'm terrified we'll lose our insurance and he won't be covered when he needs it.
He has no friends at school and is picked on, not only by the students, but the teachers as well. To get them into better schools, we'd have to move again, and I don't have the heart to do that to them.26
We just hit the one-year mark in our new state, and I am terrified every time my husband calls during the work day, or that he'll walk in the door one day while he's supposed to be at work, to tell me we have to move again. I don't know how long it would take for that feeling to go away, or if it ever will. I literally think about it every single day, and base most of my decisions on the fact that we are only here temporarily.
I paid off all of our debt from all of the moves just last month. We have no savings, and no retirement. We would love nothing more than to buy a home, but even if we were in the financial position to do so, I'd be too afraid to actually do it.
I don't bother making friends, trying to go back to school anymore, or starting a career–with as much as we move, it would only bring more heartache and stress the next time we have to leave.
Everyone asks us why we move so much, but no one outside of the industry understands or can make any sense of it. Everyone thinks or assumes we're military, but we've been told we move more than they do.
After the first couple of layoffs, companies would ask about the one to twoyear stints at different companies on my husband's resume. Now, it's become so common, they don't even bother to bring it up.
By now, I have a routine when he's laid off. We immediately file for unemployment and get the children free lunches at school. We fill out the paperwork for food stamps and state health insurance, luckily we have never needed TANF, but we fill out that paperwork too just in case. If we get a severance, I don't submit any of it, but if we don't, I submit it immediately. Next, I cancel Netflix, cable, and downgrade to the cheapest internet connection we can get. I cancel any other optional services and bills we have, like pest control, etc. We no longer throw away our moving boxes, instead we put them in a safe dry place for the next move.
With our last move we decided that when we arrive in a new home, we'll give ourselves one month to unpack everything that isn't seasonal or isn't going to stay in a storage area. We're tired of living in homes with empty walls, so we make sure to hang things up on them, because, when we don't, everyday life is much more depressing. Right now instead of waiting until we're in between jobs and have to pack in a rush, we're trying to weed down our belongings as much as possible. That's our project over the summer.
That protection that insurance dealerships try to sell you when you buy a car, and no one ever buys? The kind where if your car is totaled and you're upside on the loan, it covers it–but it also covers payments when you lose your job? We buy that. It may be stupid or not worth it in the long run, but it makes me feel a little more secure and stable. It's worth it to me to know that in the worst case, I at least won't lose my car.
Private mortgage insurance when you buy a house? The insurance everyone says to avoid getting if you can? Anything that protects us when he loses his job, or takes care of bills when he's out of work, I welcome with open arms at this point.
Every time we accepted a job offer, we were offered promises of stability and plenty of funding. We were told about the "project after this one," and no offer was given as temporary, or "for this project only." Instead of companies asking us if we'd stay for the long haul, we began asking them instead