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I don't believe in my heart of hearts that anyone is going to read this post, and that is okay. It took me time to even have the courage to write it.
I like to keep myself anonymous slightly, but I'm going to open up a bit because there is a movement going on, and it's going on around things I lived through personally.
I worked for Blizzard Vivendi, later Activision Blizzard, for a little over ten years. I'm a woman, I am white, and I have children and a husband. I worked in a support department, and during that time, it was the first ten or so years of my marriage to my wonderful and supportive husband.
Earlier as of writing this, there were walkouts going on at Blizzard in Irvine. I want to walk with them but I can't. I'm almost paralyzed with fear of even writing this, but if they could be strong, well, I can be too. But I can do this in my own way, and I want to air this out, but also do so at my speed where I'm comfortable. Not everyone can just jump up and say #MeToo or someone hurt me. I'm not one of those people. For a long time, I thought it was just me, and to find out all this stuff going on is not just me, well, it's taking me time to wrap my head around it.
I want to be crystal clear about something in the offset. I loved my job. I loved every person I worked side by side with. I have fond feelings for people, from those who were on teams with me to those I worked with in cross-team events. There are lifelong, loving things I remember tenderly about my time there. But, that said, I like I think every other woman who worked there at the time I did, have things that happened to us.
In that time, there were a lot of little and big things I had to survive. You do not survive in the gaming industry as a woman without them. Some things were slightly bad; others were pretty terrible.
The thing that I feel was a life achievement was I survived a toxic direct supervisor, and that toxic direct supervisor wasn't male. That person is not going to be named, they are not going to take any more power from me, and I am not going to immortalize them with even a drop of infamy.
I could sit here and spit out chapter and verse of the terrible things that this person subjected me to, but I'm going to narrow it down to some general issues. For a non-male to be a leader of any sort in that kind of masculine chauvinistic environment, they have to be ten times more cruel and vile than their male counterparts. It's a disgusting fact I've come to realize and one that had me step back and reconsider my carrier goals entirely.
I don't ever want to become this kind of person, so I stopped the path I was taking in gaming when the time came after careful introspection.
This person did not treat me as a human. This person would call me for a meeting, berate me and, wouldn't leave me alone unless I left this person's office crying. They wouldn't leave me alone if I wore makeup or things in my hair so that I could feel good as a person. I was belittled and humiliated daily, sometimes many times a day. I could not celebrate anything in front of this person as it would be used as leverage against me.
For this portion of this discussion, I am leaving it at that. I learned from this person that people could be horrible to one another behind closed doors and in front of their faces, and again, it's been traumatic to even consider it.
My main trauma, however, came not from specific people, as it did company policies and their enforcement. This is probably the most painful thing I had endured. Whenever I was pregnant, it was a scary situation at work for me and the baby I carried.
As employees, we were only allowed to get up to use the bathroom so many times a day. I always was very nauseated during pregnancy. So to make sure I didn't get fired for too many breaks to vomit (because pregnancy does that), I asked my doctor for medication that was safe for the baby and also allowed me to work. The medication would often dehydrate me.
As a result of the medication, I know I lost at least one child to the side effects of whatever I had to do to get rehydrated or have proper functions in my system.
I lost two other pregnancies during my period of time working there, and the doctors never could figure out why. I've been told many times that sometimes you just lose kids. And maybe that's so, but I'm pretty sure there was something involved with the breaks, lack of having them, and the inability to really take proper leave when you have a history of scary pregnancies and are in need of help.
Having a miscarriage in a work environment of men is a thing they never will understand and some of them are incapable of even an inkling of understanding. Some of my coworkers, male and female alike were more considerate to me than others. Some of my coworkers just didn't even have a comprehension of the issue.
That said, I do want to emphasize there were good things among the bad and this mostly was policy, not specific people. After one miscarriage, and when I got back to work after burying my child, several of my coworkers did a kind thing for me, and it's gotten me through this entire situation to let my heart heal after losing my wanted and perfect child. This gesture, was so endearing and kind, that it will be my most beloved memory of all, even though it came at the back of pain and severe tragedy. Some of my coworkers went out of their way to help me heal my heart.
I do not want in any way or fashion, to take away from the memory of my kids. I loved all three, just as I do the ones who made it. No, they aren't in my arms right now, but they are loved still. This pain I endure, might not have been so bad, if policies at Blizzard and the treatment of pregnancy, or pregnant women in general, had been better at Blizzard for those who do not have corner offices or clear doors to their own desks.
There were other women pregnant too, but often those were executives or higher managers or in HR. They were often baffled at my troubles, I could see it. But I wasn't one of them, I had to take breaks I had to keep working more closely with my department. I couldn't just take a week off or a day off with nausea without either losing time or being in some kind of violation. You see, if I took the time off for being pregnant, it would take away from the 6 weeks postpartum time I had total to give birth and bond with the baby and get my hormones adjusted to where I could function at work and be what they considered 'normal'. I needed every minute of that time, so I never took even a day off if I could before giving birth.
I've heard this policy adjusted to the postpartum time, but it was after I lost my children. It doesn't make up for what happened before the change.
My last topic. Yes, the rumor that everyone talked about, that there was a mandate that we get on a Period App, is true. It was called Ovia, and it was on the Jiff Rewards App that they were using to see how much we walked around or how much exercise we did. It was sold as a tracker to see if we could all get healthy, but I have a feeling it was used so they could see if we were staying at our desks to work or not.
I, however, did not use the period app. I had my own app I used. I'm very glad I did not download and use that thing, I feel like my data would have been used against me, and it could have been worse.
Several months after I lost my child, I developed a condition that severely affected my memory and what I've retained. Thankfully, a good opportunity came, and I was able to leave with my dignity and graciously. Since that time, I've been just working on healing myself and finding activities and things I can do to help me out and help the world in my own way.
I do not play Blizzard games, I have nothing to do with anything there, and I haven't kept in touch with very many people at all because I just want to be me. I'm not a company; I am a person who was trying to piece out their life when things happened that I had no control over.
Okay, this is the very last of my statements. It's painful to relive all of this trauma, I've been reliving this since the lawsuit came out.
There were some things that were beautiful about that place I worked, but there were some bad things too.
Please remember, this is my truth, and my statement and this is all I'm going to say on it ever.
Thank you for respecting my privacy, and thank you for reading this if you got this far. And no, I'm not going to talk to anyone about this. If you are a reporter or something, I'm not talking to you; please don't ask. I just want to get past this pain and move on, do book reviews, and live my happy life with my family.
Thank you.
