Interviews with Talented Game Players #3: Tamas, from Game Player to Super-chef, via World of Warcraft
Tamas G., a chef in a traditional Norwegian seafood restaurant in Bodø, Norway, spoke with Game Academy about gaming, skills, food and everything in between.
He let us in on some of his secrets and the key to his professional success!
Turns out, in a restaurant kitchen, as in World of Warcraft raiding, negotiation and leadership are King. What’s more, soft skills and talent developed in game are useful to people in non-tech professions.
Game Academy: Hi, Tamas, when did you start playing games and what are your favourite games?
Tamas: I’ve played since childhood. My mother got me a Nintendo 64 clone when I was six years old. I still like the titles I was attached to back then — Warcraft III, Mount & Blade, WoW. I’ve also played LoL and all the latest RPG titles. Now I prefer single player games because I work in the evening, when my friends play.
GA: What do you do for work?
Tamas: I am a chef. I currently work in a traditional Norwegian seafood restaurant in Bodø, very close to the Arctic Circle.
GA: Wow! You must be smashing it in cooking sim games like Overcooked.
Tamas: I actually am! I felt guilty when I invited my friends to play with me and then just won every game. I knew exactly what to do to win, because of the similarities with my work.
GA: Are there any other gaming skills that you use at work?
Tamas: Quite a few actually. Games have taught me how to be patient with people and not get angry. Mistakes happen, even people you trust make mistakes. You need to adapt, talk politely, motivate people in the right way, be patient, otherwise you’ll never have a successful raid in WoW or project in life, for that matter.
With patience comes resilience — you fail, you start again. Negotiation skills are next. Often in games, people just shout about the mistakes of others. Instead, I try to diffuse the situation. If they behave inappropriately on purpose, then I just breathe in and drink some tea… Some people just don’t like what they do or don’t like you. And that’s okay.
GA: Many players who join Game Academy are thinking about what to do in life. How did you manage to figure out your own course?
Tamas: When I was at school in Romania, I wanted to be a veterinarian but I broke my arm in a really bad way and couldn’t work with animals. I discovered a passion for cooking from my grandmother. I applied for an opportunity to study abroad with a culinary school in London and got a place. So I packed my bags and moved to London, where after my studies, I worked as an apprentice in a five-star hotel with one hundred and forty chefs.
I’ve cooked for banquet events in teams of twenty people and my WoW teamwork experience has been really helpful!
Planning, multi-tasking — these are skills that I learned from games. It’s not a problem to keep an eye on the steaks so they won’t burn, cook mashed potatoes, fry veggies and do it all in parallel.
GA: What would you say to game players who know that their passion is games, but aren’t sure how to translate it into something valuable in real life?
Tamas: I’d say keep doing what you love. That’s so important in life. If it’s gaming, play games. But you can’t really neglect your career path either. You need a source of income. If there are not that many jobs, where you can directly go from gaming, you need to expand your options — use your gaming skills and apply them to all areas of life. Find something you can do while gaming but do put the work in, identify the soft skills that you have and use them to start to build a career.
Tamas was interviewed by Simona Simonyan of Game Academy.
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