This winter is terribly cold. Max says we don’t deserve better. If elections were held for the weather, each winter would probably be like this.
Yesterday, I was at the team meeting. The topic was supposed to be speeding up the work and better organization. However, at the very beginning, Max steered the conversation away from the actual work and into possibilities for profit. He says we should focus on creating a brand, and then money will come from multiple sources, like cascading allergic reactions—it’s no longer clear where all the money is coming from: selling rights, direct payments, advertisements, selling branded items, selling user data… everything leads to the goal Max has been talking about from the start—towards the million.
Elena didn’t want to listen to this anymore. – We don’t need to earn a million. We can be successful without it. Have you ever thought about how nice it would be to earn three thousand euros a month from one game?
“Elena, three thousand euros a month is a bare survival.”
At some point, after hearing about that million, I zoned out, and Boyana Dosen appeared in my mind. When I came back to the conversation, I noticed how Elena was looking at us disappointedly. Max was talking about money, Ian was supporting distractions and delays, and I was absent. Every time Elena tried to set a deadline for completing the project and create a list of things that should be done by then, he’d mention some new functionality that should be added. Always something new, something that had never been mentioned before, or he’d talk about changing something already done. This approach allows work to go on endlessly without ever finishing. It seems that Ian is also a little scared of releasing the game to the public. He’s afraid it’s not good enough and always wants to improve or add something to make it better.
Elena finally navigated the conversation back to the task at hand. She started making a list of what needs to be done and asked everyone to add anything they thought of. Ian had a series of suggestions. Max proposed adding a glow effect behind each button in the main menu:
“We should put a glow behind every button in the main menu. When a button is clicked, it should start glowing so we can know which option is currently active. Right now, you can’t tell which one is open.”
He used the word “zaglowa,” a mix of English and Serbian meaning “start glowing.” I wondered if anyone had ever used the word “zaglowa” before. Was this the first time it was said?
In the end, we finished with a somewhat decent list of things to do this week. The meeting was partially successful. However, it seems like we’re all tired of work with no end in sight.
Before leaving, Elena asked Max why he was so disheveled. He said he couldn’t stand sitting for twenty minutes at the hairdresser’s because he knew he wouldn’t be doing anything interesting during that time. It made him anxious.
Max and I stayed for a drink after the meeting. His earlier talk about millions reminded me of a wall I saw during the summer of 2003 in Herceg Novi. On that wall, the exchange rate of the dinar from 1993 was written. Numbers and dates were written one below the other, with each number showing how many dinars it took to buy one mark on that date. The numbers increased towards millions, and then billions. There was similar inflation in Banja Luka, too; you could write on the wall two or three times a day. The wall hadn’t been painted for ten years, which was untidy. What would Elena think of that? She’s such a neat person. Her apartment is always tidy.
“Max, what do you think Elena would say about that wall in Herceg Novi with the exchange rate of the German mark? Not just her, but many people. What do you think when you walk into a tightly organized apartment, where everything is in place?”
“I think someone unemployed or retired lives in that apartment. People probably look for some way to feel useful.”
“Ian told me what happened with him. The only issue in their relationship was organizing clothes, linens, ironing… Then he found a solution. He made a list of things he needed to do during the week. Then, he set alarms on his phone to remind him when to do things on the list because he would never remember on his own. He says he started working by the hour at first. After some time, he got used to the schedule, and he needed the alarms less and less. He would remember on his own when to do everything on the list. Then, he memorized the list and eventually did everything without alarms or papers. It’s like ticks, obsessive-compulsive disorder—it develops slowly, and in the end, it becomes a real problem.”
“My friend Veljko’s grandfather took a watch, a Wecker, during World War II from a house they passed by that day. He put it in his backpack. During the night, they were near German bunkers, and the watch rang, giving away his position. He barely made it out alive. Maybe some Ian from that time set an alarm for something like that—to fold clothes. I think that excessive tidiness can come back to bite you.”
When I got home, I typed the word “Zaglowa” into the search engine. I was curious if there would be any results. It seems that Zaglowa is a town in Poland. So, it wasn’t the first time the word was spoken today.
I sent the search result to Max since we had talked about the word after the meeting. He responded with an attachment titled “new interface.” All the buttons were in new positions, as well as the menus that open. This means we’ve wasted time adjusting the old interface.
David: Where did the new interface come from?
Max: We said we’d change it. This one’s not great.
David: Yeah, the skin, but not the interface.
Max: Whatever, we’re changing it anyway. This one is much better.
David: Everything’s been moved, it’ll take time.
Max: We already agreed on this.
David: Elena is going to love this.
The first interface was like a placeholder; everything was black, white, and gray. We expected a new skin, with colors, but we got a completely new layout. This is going to slow us down. The new layout looks much better, but I don’t think anyone will be delighted with this change.
