Gabe truly is the greatest boss of all time.

cuddlesy · 8 months

Before we go through the same circle that we went through eight months ago and people start denouncing this as 'fake' or 'bullshit', it isn't.

So yeah.

dispatcher_83 · 8 months

man it's awesome to hear things like that.

Mr_3AM · 8 months

My boss did the same for me when i was diagnosed with cancer about a year ago when i was 19. i was crying cause i just got the job and i was going to lose it and it was so tough to find one, he said nonsense, he said you go get better and i personally guarantee your job will be here when your healthy.. that came from the president of the company. a year later im still working there.

Arktri · 8 months

I just want to hug Gabe!

The_Third_One · 8 months

I thought it was going to end with a massive blood transfusion from Gabe. This is good too.

Anticlimax1471 · 8 months

I dunno how it is for anyone else here in England, but this has been the norm for me with every boss I've ever had.

I remember being really ill one time when I worked at at Wilkinsons (a large hardware chain); I actually collapsed at work. I called my boss after I'd been to the doctor to tell him I may not be in for a few weeks. Now this guy was a real slave driver so I wasn't expecting much understanding. To my surprise, he said exactly the same thing as Gabe, that my job now was to get better, and I needn't worry about anything else.

The knowledge that my job was secure and I didn't need to worry really helped my recovery and I was well and back at work sooner than my doctor had predicted.

My boss was still a merciless slave-driver, but I didn't mind as much anymore.

vegidio · 8 months

When I was 21 I worked at a very small company making websites and I had an amazing boss too. This is how a usual work day looked like:

2 PM, it's a very hot day and we have a lot of work to do. My boss walks in the development room and says: "It's a pretty hot day today. Hey everybody, stop working and lets go the nearest pub. I'm buying ice cream and beer for everyone."
My co-workers and I were working on something when we suddenly hear our boss shouting from the other side of the office: "Guys, check your mailbox, I just sent you something very important". When we checked our mailboxes we found a lot of porn pictures that he found on some random site.
When I told my boss that I would propose to my fiancee, he said: "Go to this jewelry store. The owner is a very close friend of mine. Choose the most beautiful wedding ring there and don't worry about the price... I'm paying for it!"

He was the greatest boss ever and a very nice person too.

Edit: I left this job because, as I said, it was a very small company and even though I had a fantastic boss (he was my best man in my wedding), he couldn't pay me a decent salary. I stayed 2 years at this job then I left to work at IBM. The salary at IBM was 4 times greater.

belanda_goreng · 8 months

I don't understand. I'm not trying to troll or anything, really. I am just genuinely curious about this: do ill people get fired in the US? If you have cancer and spend Christmas in the hospital in the Netherlands, no way in hell you are going to lose your job. Your boss will send you flowers and you will be paid full salary for at least two years. Do you get fired over being sick in the US? Is this why this story is so special?

astonish · 8 months

This is from that Portal 2 making of app on the iPad. The whole thing is well worth reading.

DoctorThunder · 8 months

"Don't forget, you're here forever."

Lokarn · 8 months

Last year I got a slipped disk because of all the lifting I had to do while working, I was in the hospital for 2 weeks because of the extreme pain I had, the boss called every day asking if I could go to work again. After 4 weeks at home I went back to work and had a meeting with the boss where he told me that I had to sign a paper where it said that I couldn't get sick for 6 months, I had to sign it because they would fire me if I didn't.

After 4 months of working hard, I decided to take 1 week of vacations. On the first day of my vacation I was rushed to the hospital with an appendicitis, I had a surgery and then I called my boss telling him what happened and that I was going to stay at home for 2-3 weeks while recovering, he basically told me that I had violated the contract I had signed. I arrived at work 3 weeks later and had another meeting with the big boss, he told me that it wasn't normal for someone to be sick for so many days. He asked me what I was going to do in order not to get sick again and I had to sign another contract where it basically said the same shit, but that if it happened again I would get fired.

Edit: we even had a case of a guy dropping dead because of heart failure due to stress, and they managed to send a guy suffering with cancer to do the hard work, he died some months later.

Morve_Ivan · 8 months

"Go home and be a family man."

lagadu · 8 months

TIL prolonged sickness can get you fired in the US.

Magnon · 8 months

Gabe is a Champion of Good. Kotick is his polar opposite if there ever was one, the AntiGabe.

Gunmouse · 8 months

I guess you could say

Puts on sunglasses

He Gabe him a second chance

MaximFraxis · 8 months

I know he get called fat and stuff, but I truly want to see him to live a long long healthy life. This world needs more people like him.

Zarknord · 8 months

My dad got fired... For having cancer

llothar · 8 months

In most countries in Europe it's illegal to fire someone who gets sick and is unable to work. You still get your pay (actually 80% I think) which is paid by the government.

Zer_ · 8 months

You want to know why Gabe is such a good boss, aside from being a good person at heart that is?

He's not a businessman, he never will be. His mantra was to make a great game, and it sold so well. He realized what potential the Half-Life community had, and he hired modders to work for him.

He stayed true to his mantra with the release of Steam. At that point the man focused on the customer. Steam improved over time and only got better. Make your customers happy, and they become the loyal fans they are today.

There's a damn good reason the Valve fans are amongst the most rabid fans of all. (In a good way... usually).

crazyfingers619 · 8 months

I shudder to think of a world without Valve. When everyone else is trying to fuck over gamers and monopolize the market so they can make millions off bullshit, Valve is giving thousands the chance to sell their game on a universal platform with no bias, just games for gamers and with mad class.

As an indie dev myself, thanks valve! Not sure I'd even have a shot at making a personal project if it wasn't for distribution services like steam.

andrewsmith1986 · 8 months

He's just an all around awesome guy.

I wish he was my friend.

chaching37 · 8 months

This is how we maintain jobs. Not the: Oh you're sick? Can't have that liability on our hands!

Rumpojec · 8 months

After reading this, I immediately bought every Half-Life game missing from my Steam library. Valve is a shining example of integrity in an industry gone mad.

IwillReadThings · 8 months

In civilised countires you can't fire sick person.

TheDoktorIsIn · 8 months

I know where I want to work... even though my degrees are completely unrelated.

scadler · 8 months

at 1170 comments already, this is going to get buried, but,

i went to visit valve as a kid around year 2005. got to playtest portal when the developers were only up to around level 10 or 12, and some other awesome shit.

while i heard nothing of this story, i just thought i'd say that the lasting impression of VALVe is that it is truly one of the best run companies i've ever heard of. i talked to several employees during my visit about being employed there and what it was like. if you become unhappy working for them, and want to leave, they will do almost whatever it takes to correct the situation, be it scheduling, monetary, physical, whatever the issue may be. they let their employees operate on their own schedules, just as long as the work is completed; however, they heavily monitor the time each person spends behind a desk(gamers will understand that it's easy to get lost at the desk chair) -- to the point that if someone isn't spending enough time at home with their family / kids, etc, they will literally FORCE them to go home and take an amount of time off. they let everyone operate on their own habits but will pay for most anything that the employee may need, IE gym memberships, yoga, whatever. they make sure everyone has ergonomic office-wares. there is a barber and a masseuse that come in a few times a week for scheduled appointments with employees-- and yes they have their own specific rooms to do haircuts and massage's in. the hiring process is incredibly difficult(albeit i recall that the Portal crew's story was a tad different), but once you're in, the VALVe team works to no end to get you settled into Seattle and make you feel at home.

my point in all this is that i totally believe this story at face value, this is absolutely something VALVe / Gabe would do. i learned a lot about how a company should be run and how employees should be treated.

ps - Gabe has an entire room, an ENTIRE OFFICE, dedicated to the sole purpose of housing his knife/weaponry collection. i shit you not.

vancesmi · 8 months

What if?

KingHavana · 8 months

I hear Reddit likes Gabe. (Also there's a rumor that Reddit finds Amnesia scary.)

Paulius01 · 8 months

Long live the king of PC master race.

[deleted] · 8 months

Gabe Meme. spread it like Johnny Lmaoseed.

Really_Likes_Nutella · 8 months

Gabe, the hero the gaming industry needs but not the one it deserves.

Seriously though this is a repost.

maziwanka · 8 months

i would love to see the day a law firm does this

Camerongilly · 8 months

I hope Valve never goes public. It's easier to be a good company for your customers when you think of their interests and not that of shareholders.

Onslow_Skils · 8 months

I read the first underlined bit and thought it said "unrelentive coitus"

pluribus · 8 months

I spent almost 2 weeks in the hospital due to my Ulcerative Colitis last October. This story is really encouraging to hear.

lordmalifico · 8 months

Ten years from now, when we're looking at gaming in retrospective, I still don't think we'll fully be able to grasp the amount of progress Valve Software and Gabe Newell has done for our hobby.

The man's shown himself to be an altruist, cares about his fans (HE READS /ALL/ OF HIS EMAILS, and visited 'Occupy Valve' personally!) and tolerates all the fat jokes. This, and what he did for his employee, just cemented the fact that this man will be regarded as a legend as time goes on.

I know I can't be the only one that thinks this.

terror406 · 8 months

This is why the US is the worst place to be an employee.

In most civilized countries this would perfectly normal.

Azof · 8 months

Good guy Gabe.

Ca1amity · 8 months

I have severe ulcerative colitis. It's very hard to describe just how much it can screw up your life and not just because some of the symptoms can be very embarrassing.

Seeing an employer showing this much understanding is so heartening to me and it's an area in which Valve is an international corporate leader, without question.

p8ssword · 8 months

He's a great boss and a great business leader. Sometimes being a decent human being is actually good for business. In this case, Gabe held onto one of his star performers.

Any boss who thinks they're "supposed" to be a dick should know this story.

never_phear_for_phoe · 8 months

Same thing happens at most good companies. For example, Microsoft [at least in several divisions].

alchemist23 · 8 months

Yeah, but how many Dundies has he won?

[deleted] · 8 months

Not to be a dick or burst anyone's bubble here -- I'm sure Gabe is a good guy (or at least a forward thinker), but everyone has to see that Gabe is also a very intelligent business man. One of the most important things you can find in the software/video game industry is talent. It's obvious Erik Wolpaw has it and was recognized early on by Gabe.

The opportunity cost for letting Erik go was obviously much higher than whatever pay he received while sick. He's made that up hundreds of times over, particularly since he's been involved with Portal, Portal 2, TF2, and Half-Life. What you should be asking is, would Gabe have kept Erik on the payroll if he were a low level customer service rep or accountant?

Metexie · 8 months

I may not like all their games, but truly great people work at valve.

shoegazer666 · 8 months

Who the hell is Chet?

MegaManSE · 8 months

I can't upvote this enough!

Weird story: I went to college at DigiPen and while there got severe ulcerative colitis which required many hospitalizations, blood transfusions and eventually extensive surgery to remove my colon and create a jpouch. One of the teams in the year behind me (I was class of 04) made Narbacular Drop which became Portal. Me and my programmer friends from DigiPen all joke now about that I have a 'semicolon'. I also work in the game industry for Kixeye which may be familiar to many of you...

aboycandream · 8 months

As someone with very similar stomach problems who was just laid off before my health insurance kicked in, this brings a tear to my eye.

Mindpha5er · 8 months

this should be normal practice in any company... sad that it makes someone awesome when they have common decency and empathy.

peterlada · 8 months

How many CEOs would do this in the US?

Dat_Karmavore · 8 months

I spent the day at Valve six months or so back, It was for my birthday. All I can say is, Valve treats their employees with amazing respect and care. They offer a week-long vacation to hawaii for all their employees, have TONS of free food, bi-weekly masseuse schedules (How I got in, my good friend's mom Is their masseuse, Contracted, not directly employed) I got to meet the man who worked on Jake and Neytiri's skin animation in Avatar, as well as the lead animator for TransFormers II. wound up seeing, but not meeting the lead animator for all of Avatar, as well as seeing (coming within feet of) Gabe, as well as several other board directors of Valve.

Best. Birthday. EVER.

DavesStillNotHere · 8 months

I have no clue why, but I first read this as "Gabe teuly is the greatest crime boss of all time" ... It led to a great deal of confusion.

i_got_the_colitis · 8 months

I was diagnosed with Colitis Ulcerosa this summer. Seriously sucked. When I was hospitalised I was dropping 500 grams of weight a day and basically just switched between sleeping and shitting. Got a blood transfusion as well.

Anyway, I was supposed to start in a new job, but then I was hospitalised before I managed to sign anything. My new boss told me to just sign the contract and mail it in. He then went on to fill out hours for me for the full month I was sick, including the time I was hospitalised, with the note that "I would easily catch up for it later". No questions asked, and before I had done any work at all.

All he knew is what he had gotten from the interviews and from a reference.

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