Best Job for a Portable Gamer

The Night Auditor.
Any respectable hotel has an attendant at the desk 24 hours a day, every day of the year. People come from all around the world and you'll see meet some cool people. I personally enjoyed talking about my drinking experiences in town, sending bros to gay bars, assholes to McCoy's (a place where weekly stabbings seem to occur). The real perk of being the Night Auditor position is that it's between 11pm-7am, where a third of a day will go by with maybe a handful of guests in the lobby, if any. So in order to combat boredom and make the hands of the clock accelerate I brought my Dell XPS M1530 gaming laptop to work. I first filled the time up with my novel, The November Plague. Then I got a little tired of writing and took a break to something much more fun.

As the night auditor for the Clarion, I did most of my gaming at work. In the past three months I've finished Dead Space, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Far Cry 2, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, and put over 30 hours each into TF2, L4D, Demigod, Civilization Revolution, and Desktop Tower Defense 1.5.

Job Summary:
Pros
Easy-peasy: As Luke from the best DS game of 2008 would say. Yes I do mean Professor Layton and the Curious Village. The job requires little to no effort. This job was almost intended for high schoolers, were it not for the late night hours.

Free time: I particularly enjoyed this part of the job and often gloated about it. In the morning, I ride the bus home to look at miserable faces, people who are going to be trapped in an office or store for the next 8 hours. I on the other hand, am free to do as I please. I can actually make a run to the Post Office, pick up a few groceries, head to circuit city to pick up some clearance titles... all without waiting in a single line. That's something I cherish and will miss dearly.

Cons
the pay: $9/hr isn't exactly going to be chipping into my retirement fund, but for an employee that's gaming at least 4 hours a night, I don't expect much.

the hours: graveyard shifts will make you lose your goddamned mind. night becomes day, and day becomes night and unless you're exhausted from rocket-jumping all night long, you're not going to be tired at sunrise. This is one of the main reasons I decided to move on to a real job.


Like any job, this one has its ups and downs. The hours are great and suck at the same time. However, I know alot of people are hurting for work right now and as one gamer to another, I strongly encourage you to at least try this graveyard job that seemingly no one wants.