Some of you are blessed to work full-time in the game industry, which is wonderful. You get to focus entirely on your gaming work, developing those skills and talents daily. As for me, I am a freelancer and have a day job. Thus, I have to split my time working and training between two different professional pursuits. That said, I love both my day job working in Information Technology at Taylor University and my freelance work in the game industry.
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
– Confucius
Recently, I have been talking with freelancer friends who also balance day jobs as I do. Each of the group has different day jobs with different requirements and opportunities. Some view their freelancing as a hobby that pays, some as a second career, and a few hope for it to someday replace their current day job. A commonality in our discussion was balancing the day job and our freelancing. We each have goals and aspirations for both pursuits that have to find a balance. Can that balance actually become a symbiotic relationship between the two pursuits?
symbiotic relationship
A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.
(Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Symbiotic+relationship)
The longer I freelance, the more I have found my day job and freelancing complementing each other. As I become a better editor and proofreader of games, I find my emails, policy writing, and technical documentation more accurate and professional. At the university, I review and approve contracts, which has been helping me understand NDAs and contracts with game publishers. In both jobs, I have to manage projects and budget time wisely. I am to a point where I actually seek out opportunities now that complement each other because then I am working both pursuits. An example of this is the Game Studies course I will be teaching. I get to do it as part of my professional training at my day job, and it increases my understanding of games which grows my freelance knowledge.
For those of you who are freelancers and have day jobs, how do you see the two pursuits in your life? Do you view your day job and freelance work as completely separate professions or do you view them as a symbiotic relationship? Have your jobs complemented each other?