Kristina Ness  ✨

Some thoughts after my first Valve week: At first I thought this would be a slow week. I figured after I setup my workstation, sign some papers, say hello to some folks, I'd just go home early each day to unpack bc it's not wise to expect much when one is so new

But in reality this week just flew by, and every day I was astonished when 5pm came along. I spent maybe half a day setting up, and by pm of day 1 I was already providing game feedback, bc someone from that project came to say hello and I mentioned I'd love to play test sometime

Day 2 onwards I was gorging on all the new knowledge that was freely accessible to me, that ranges from other games, to Steam, to biz dev stuff, and beyond. I randomly joined a Localization chat channel bc I was curious about it and folks were so nice to let met lurk and learn

When I'm not doing ITVOG work (currently I'm documenting our env art process) I've been involved in discussions and conversations that at any other company I'd broadly categorized as "way the fuck above my pay grade" but I felt sincerely encouraged to stay involved

This is not what I expected for any first week. Obv this is my own experience and I don't mean to portray it as typical, as Valve seems almost like a "buffet" and what one chooses to do and who you end up doing it with will vastly change how one feels about the place