If it's KnowBe4, their 'current events' templates for phishing tests are completely randomized, but include things from the news, politics, world events. We had some come through that included a spoofed 'HR Term' notice, bonuses, and even some COVID ones at the beginning of the pandemic. Our HR was furious and asked to turn it off until we explained that we don't design these phishing tests. Fact of the matter is, this is EXACTLY how phishing campaigns get in, so it's invaluable to catch someone with these templates ; these particular ones are usually the most successful. As the IT director, I have to constantly reassure and notify executives and staff that these are not custom created by some sadist, but a procedural template designed to get you to pass along info. I actually had to suspend the campaign for a month or so as layoffs occurred, but the key here is to let employees know that scammers are completely ruthless and heartless and will play on every tendency they can to get you to click. The company had an employee fall for one of these scams and cost them $150,000, so it didn't take too much argument to let these stand. I'm sure there's plenty not to like with GoDaddy, however ; I moved all our domains out of their as their site design is atrocious and ad/pop-up heavy.

I worked at a smaller studio for years in IT, and while it was absolutely grueling work, it was a crucible for pushing you to think creatively and pull together to make awesome things. The programmers are typically pulled fresh out of college for low salaries, but after a few years nearly all of them 'graduated' and moved on to jaw-dropping raises and positions at tech companies. The ones that didn't stayed for love of the community and culture, but over time the high performers got wise and learned their skills were highly sought after (i.e. creating account authentication systems from scratch, an in-house DB schema, system management tools,etc.). The freedom in that environment let all of us work on things that most companies would be terrified to tackle ; I learned as an IT person that programmers were either our greatest asset or our greatest liability

However, after getting sucked up by a large publisher, that spirit certainly began to dwindle a bit. Shortly after I got caught in a large layoff, however I too found that other companies outside of the gaming industry could benefit from my experience, and ironically it was a lot more money for a lot less work.

What I think can be missed is taking for granted the gaming culture in the workplace; when WoW had an expansion (or when Skyrim released), work 'STOPPED', and the whole company was talking about it. Watercooler talk about class specs or planning raids is something I really miss, as outside of the industry I'm typically one of maybe two people in a company that can talk about new game releases or announcements.