After that, I just said the hell with it. Gaming is a huge part of my life and hiding it seems dishonest. People at work know I play "wargames" or "DnD" (even though I don't) but no one really asks me about it (small office, no one cares). But I've always been upfront with girls about it. Actually, I've managed to parlay it into a good thing.
I wish I could say that. My first job out of college, I was in medical sales. It was a small office, like a lot of jobs in that field. There were just three of us to cover Houston and the surrounding area, with Houston having the largest medical center in the world.
Well, the guy that was training me got to know each other fairly well. I was his replacement, but he stayed for three months to show me the ropes (I knew nothing, coming out of school with a Marketing degree, about the medical field) and get me introduced to the right people. We focussed on hospitals and home health rather than pharmaceutical reps who typically wait in Dr.'s offices their whole lives.
My mentor/trainer, who was just a couple of years older than me, had played D&D back in college. He played those old SSI computer games (remember those?) when he got the itch. I told him that I had a game going (at that time, I was in the last year of a five year D&D campaign with my normal crew), and it became the topic of some fun discussions while we drove around that first few months learning the job.
Well, the guy came and went. I guess he had told my boss at the office (there was the boss, us three sales reps, and about six service people), because he brought it up to me one time, in a friendly, joking fashion.
It was comfortable.
Then, one day, I made the mistake of telling him that my Saturday night game was so good that we all decided to play again on Sunday, and that lasted until 5:00 am, when I shushed everybody out so that I could get a shower and come to work.
Shouldn't have said that.
Everything was cool right then. My boss thought it was funny (he wasn't that much older than me, either, maybe five years).
But, the next time I was late...
"I guess he was out playing that 'D&D' game, or whatever it is, again, all night."
Yeah...that stigma never went away. And, there was always something between us because of it. He wouldn't get rid of me because I was the, typically, the top salesman for the month (not bragging, I really was). I opened up nine hospitals during my time there (which is a bitch--typically takes about six months to get a hospital to speak with you and evalutate your product), which was a company record.
And, we're talking about a sales job here. Most other people in the same position just worked from home, as is typical in that industry. Houston, being the large medical market that it is, required an office. We served as a hub for the surrounding people in other Texas cities. So, because we had that office, we all had to be in at a certain time.
I wasn't always that prompt. :smirk:
But, it dang sure wasn't because of late night D&D games (not all the time, anyway
).
That "D&D" stigma stuck, though.
And, I learned a lesson.
Never let your coworkers, especially your boss, know that you enjoy something that they probably don't understand.
