19 posts tagged “dayjob”
Also, I know I talk about work sometimes, but never show anything I do. The reasons for that are pretty simple. I work on 3D visualizations for stores that won't be built for probably another year. The designs are not only unfinished for the most part, but they're strictly confidential.
So, I gave up. I had planned to do NaBloPoMo, and then I didn't. Best-laid plans, et cetera.
The reasons are many, notably that my mom came to visit me and I decided to go on a week-long computer hiatus. Mom came in Wednesday night and we proceeded to spend four days away from a computer. With the exception of the things I have to do to keep my job, I've managed to stay relatively computer-free.
It's hard to adjust back to a constantly connected life, though. My phone has been on the charger for three days, unanswered. (I'm really sorry to all of you that I haven't called back. I literally have not touched it.) I have unreturned emails for the first time in my life. When I get home, I just want to hang out with my husband or play with the cat or go shopping. I don't want to instantly jump on the computer. The computer is work to me right now - I need to detach from it.
I've been rekindling my romance with paper, though, which is nice. I've been subtly dropping hints to my husband that I want a super cool planner for 2008. Something I can write all over and be creative with. I've been sketching more at work.
My professional life is going well, though it's a little bit complicated. Last week I started to go through all of the projects from my undergraduate career and figure out what might be good portfolio pieces down the line. I'm sure everyone goes through this at one time or another in their educational career, but man - I wish I could take all those classes over again, knowing what I know now. I'd be awesome.
Sorry, guys. Life took over. I'll get back in the swing of things eventually. Good luck to the rest of you bloggers out there that are still giving it your best shots!
Today was not an easy day at work, for reasons that are simply unimportant (and confidential, of course). The one high point of my day was a "town hall" meeting in our lobby. This is a somewhat rare event where everyone in the company is invited to come up for an hour or so while the heads of the various studios give presentations and discuss the business they've been doing lately.
The head of my studio was the one that really hit the spot for me. He talked about the new American Girl store we opened, and how little girls were camped out to be the first ones inside. How happy they were when they saw all the toys. This is what we all got into this for, he remarked. And he's right. Sometimes I feel like the job I'm doing right now isn't quite why I got into design. I wanted to help people. I wanted to make changes in people's lives. I worry from time to time that all I'm doing is figuring out how to make people spend more money so the companies are happy.
It's hard in our world today to find something that's purely good, something that's only about helping people with no negative aspects. Steve's right - this is what we got into it for. We're making money for American Girl, sure. We're getting parents to spend more money. But ultimately, we're making little girls happy. That's how we get to win, even if there's an additional cost or two.
My mom's going to be here in two days. I'm sure I'll talk about the other kind of retail therapy then.
As I'm sure almost all of you know, Hollywood is currently turned on its head thanks to a writers' strike. For anyone who hasn't been keeping up on their local news lately (and there are no late-night writers, so The Daily Show can't help you here), here's the basic idea. Hollywood writers have gone on strike in response to not being paid for their material that's being used online. Networks like NBC and ABC are selling ads that run on their shows offered online for free, and the writers aren't seeing any of those profits. The issue is, of course, more complex than that, but you can read more in your favorite newspaper if you'd like more information.
The writers strike affects all American television watchers because television shows are quickly going to stop showing new episodes. Take The Office, one of my favorite television shows. The actors are supporting the writers' strike (and many of the actors on this particular show are also writers), so no new episodes can be filmed. The last new episode will be playing this Thursday, and then we're done.
One of my co-workers said yesterday that they'd be back, that we don't have to worry about anything, that everyone just wants to get paid. While that last part is true, it's a major principle that everyone's fighting about here. It's the sort of thing that people like me who work in the design industry spend a lot of time thinking about. How do we adapt to the constant demands of new media?
It's not just affecting the writers, you see. They have - and are using - the power to completely stop a major industry in our country. Without new scripts and without being able to film, thousands of crew members are off work as well. Everyone seems to be on the side of the writers - except the people who are capable of making decisions that could end the strike.
I suppose it hits close to home because it's going to start putting people like me out of work. Animators across the country could start losing their jobs. We work on things so far ahead of time that it'll take awhile to really affect us, but if we face another 22 week strike like the last one in 1988, it could happen. (I say "us", but I work in architectural animation. Unless there's an architect's strike, I'm okay. The animation community as a whole is who I'm referring to here.)
I support the writers, wholeheartedly. Sure, I really hate that I'm not going to get new episodes of my shows - that the season could actually be over - but I'll get over it. It's entertainment for me, but it's defending their work for other people. Good for them, I say. I only hope that a compromise that benefits everyone is reached quickly so that everyone comes out on top.
Note: the post below was written yesterday, but apparently never submitted. I got to my office this morning to notice that I had left the vox window open and never actually posted. So maybe this means I fail as far as NaBloPoMo goes, but I'll just post twice today. I promise.
Perhaps all offices are like this and I just don't know it, but the politics and the hierarchy of power in design offices are a very touchy thing. We work in environments that have to breed creativity at every turn, so everyone does everything they can to stay light-hearted and have fun. I have a blast working at my office. Even though I'm just a lowly intern, I get to go out to bars and have fun and participate in all the great activities that life has to offer. There's a certain level of socializing that has to happen, and it results in a lot of meetings seeming like you're hanging out with your friends chatting about what you could do rather than really going through a formal process. Formal processes are intimidating and scary to a lot of people, and that doesn't encourage creativity.
This environment is why it becomes so strange when you have to talk about things that are incredibly serious and formal. All of a sudden the person you were hanging out with at the bar last night is your boss, a person who can control the future of your career. There are times when you will be jarred out of your fantastic "hey, we're all drinking buddies and good friends" world and brought back to a world where you don't get to make all the decisions.
I always used to admire people who stayed at the same company for years. John's father has worked at the same job for decades. My dad worked for the fire department for over twenty years. Both of them have done well for themselves by staying at those jobs and working their way up the ladder.
Design jobs don't really work like that. It doesn't seem to pay off to stay at the same job for more than a few years at a time. There's a huge turnover at design offices. It's the money, the title, and the clients you're working with. Good firms end up losing good people because of all of the politics at work in the background. You can only get a raise of 3-5% per year, your title can only change so often... These are things that every designer has to face. It's one of those things that no one really talks about, because it's such a sensitive subject.
Switching jobs is the way to get title changes. Our friend Cathy - who is unbelievably talented and most definitely deserves every single promotion she can get her hands on - just became an art director at the age of 26. It's not unheard of, but it's pretty unbelievably special. If she had stayed at her firm, she would have probably been a senior designer for years to come. She switched to a different firm and was instantly promoted. Now, she absolutely deserves it, but it's still strange to think that she's an art director. Most of the people her age are just starting to approach senior designer.
John's boss is celebrating his last day at work today, and I can't help but think it's mostly about title. If they had offered him the associate creative director title that he (and many others) felt he deserved, they might have been able to keep him. As it is now, he's going to a new firm, where he'll be a creative director.
Maybe titles shouldn't be so important, but they definitely are. The differences between designer, senior designer, art director and creative director are huge. I'd love to be at a director position by the time I'm 30. Fingers crossed.
Tonight, we will celebrate with Pat. We'll clink glasses - probably a little more than we should - and we'll celebrate moving on and moving up. It's a sad day for John, but hopefully we'll all have so much fun that no one takes the time to really think about how sad the moment is.
In 22-year-old news, I really can't figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with my life in a few months. It's November now, which means I am seven months away from graduating from college. My trip back to Kansas City this weekend opened my eyes a little. We're all getting older, but what's really important is that we're all working toward doing what we want to do. I know we're all concerned with it - Lars knows this isn't exactly what he wants to do and is thinking about moving back to the city sometime in the near future, Sean really wants to go back to school, Nathan wishes he could get enough consistent work so that he didn't have to keep defaulting to his restaurant job.
Me? I just wish I knew what life was going to hold for me. A part of me really hopes my current job will want to take me on full-time after school. Another part of me just wants to freelance and see if I can make it. But there's a comfort in having a salary, and that's something I think I might need right after school. I go back and forth every single day about it. I'd love to take the summer off next year. Not "off", per se, but I don't think I'm going to look for a job. I can freelance. I can make some phone calls and try to start things up for myself. More importantly, I can do it from anywhere, and what I really want to do is travel. I want to go back to Kansas City for more than two days in a row. I want to go back to New York for a little while and visit everyone I've been missing so horribly while I build up some contacts. I want to go to Dallas and spend some time with Lars. It would be nice to actually take that honeymoon we've been putting off for a year and a half. And, if everyone remembers correctly, I have demanded we go to Maine. The lobster I had last weekend at the Waterfront reinforced that idea.
Who knows if any of these things will happen, but I really hope I can at least do some of it.
My need to travel was definitely influenced by the weekend with some of my closest friends. We might all go to Dallas for Lars' birthday in February. Nathan wants me to come see his show in KC at the end of April. I have to go to Tampa in June for Matt's wedding and the next weekend I'll be in KC for a graduation party. (Oh, God, my graduation party.) Travel, travel, travel.
People like me can make enough money that they can afford to travel all the time, right? I could get consistent freelance jobs and not have to be chained to a desk with a week of vacation every year?
The truth is that things are going pretty well, job-wise. I'm doing a little bit of writing, I'm getting a few freelance jobs, my full-time job is frustrating but I'm doing work that I'm really proud of. I'm coming in super early all the time, but hey - I'm hourly. Hourly employees don't get to gripe about working too many hours, because overtime is the best thing ever. All in all, things are okay. I just need to remember that when I'm at my desk at five a.m. tomorrow.
Things I probably shouldn't have done today but did anyway:
- Giggled at illustration on well-known Cincinnati restaurant's door handle because it greatly resembles genitalia rather than what it's actually supposed to resemble.
- When asked by co-worker what I was laughing at, gave real answer instead of making something up.
- Accidentally pressed buttons for basement and first floor on elevator when getting on at sixth floor. When complete stranger got on the elevator at fifth floor and did the "oh, wait, my floor's already pressed" motion at the elevator buttons, I related the entire story. Unable to shut my mouth, I managed to stretch the story for all five remaining floors. (This is not the first time this has happened.)
- In response to being asked to model a parabolic light fixture, quickly replied "I don't know what that is", rather than waiting for them to leave the room and google it so I would look like I actually know what I'm talking about. (This is also not the first time this has happened. See: March 2006, SOM, impressive architecture job where I should have known what a mullion was.)
- Showed visible emotion at the fact that I have to change desks (AGAIN) on Monday and move away from favorite co-worker. Announced that I would not be moving because he was one of the few redeeming qualities to my job this week. Looked sixteen years old and pathetic.
- Insisted on paying for magazines at Fountain Square News because I am an independent, money-earning woman when my husband just wanted to do something nice for me. Took block of silence on the way back to the office as penance.
I did, however, upload a picture of my favorite desk, which looks really pathetic and insignificant in the picture. I added notes, all of which are visible on my flickr page. It'll give you a little insight into my work day.
It's been awhile, dear readers, and I apologize for that. I have no less than ten half-written posts sitting in my inbox, waiting to be finished, but I can't seem to get a coherent thought together lately. You can blame that on a number of things, but the truth is that I'm just a little busy and scattered. My maid of honor, Kathleen, is giving her senior recital at Juilliard in two weeks, and while I should be spending all of my time being happy and supportive to her, I'm really just having a panic attack about the fact that she's graduating college, which means I'm graduating college. She feels similarly. We are not a good support system for one another right now.
I have started back to my job, which was voted one of the top fifteen places to work in the country by the Wall Street Journal. It was a fun honor. I got a bagel out of it. The bagel was tasty. There is no small irony in the fact that on the day that the award was announced, I spent thirteen hours in the office silently (okay, not so silently) cursing the project I was working on.
In the next month, I will be taking trips to New York, Dallas and Kansas City, in that order. I will be a busy girl. That probably means I'm not going to feel like I've got my life together until sometime in December. The NYC trip is for Kat, the Dallas trip is for Lars, the Kansas City trip (which is really a sub-trip to Dallas) is for Nathan. My mother is coming here for Thanksgiving, and don't you worry, I've already started planning the menu.
The posts you will see shortly will seem like a hodge-podge, and perhaps they are. They're all across the board. At least I'll be posting again, right? Hope all is well with each and every one of you.
And I … I got my inspiration back. On my way into the subway this morning, I passed a guy on his cell phone saying, “Good morning honey. I just wanted to hear your voice,” and I finally remembered that work is just a thing that you do when you’re not doing the things or people that you love most. It's what I do when I’m not trying to convince my mom that we are actually going to need to split a bottle, not a glass, of wine; when I'm not making silly birthday cards with construction paper and Elmer’s glue; when I'm not trying to bite my boyfriend’s chin, tease him about his lack of Scrabble skills, or invent absurd stories we can tell people about the way we met. It’s not your life; it’s just how you fund it. - Deb
There are parts of me that really want to be like this. But let's be honest here - I'm not. There are people out there, smart, strong people, who live that way. Those people devote their time to their familes, their lives, anything that doesn't involve work. They become different people when their feet hit the pavement at the end of the day and they walk to the train or their cars or whatever takes them to their homes. Me? I can't turn it off.
I won't make any statements that pretend to assume anything about the other people in this world; the people who are not like me. I hate it when people make assumptions about me based on what I do, so to make a sweeping judgment about certain professions that get to just snap out of it at the end of the day would be inappropriate. But stereotypes aside, you know and I know that there are jobs out there that people do just to make the money to get them through the lives they really want to be living. I think it's a newer concept that people my age are really trying to do what they love. Was the world like this forty years ago? Were people doing what they loved instead of doing what would make them the most money? I am a smart girl, and I could have chosen a lot of professions that would make me much more money than I do and will make. That's not to say that being a designer doesn't pay well - it does the trick. I will be comfortable and happy, but nowhere near wealthy. And that's okay - I don't think I'd know what to do with all that money anyway.
I didn't get into design to make money. To be honest, I didn't have a clue until about two years into my major how much money I might potentially be making. I got into design because I thought it was interesting, I knew I wouldn't be naturally good at it and I knew it would challenge me. I stayed in design because I no longer know how I would do anything else.
It isn't that my husband and I are workaholics, it's that design is so much a part of us that it is always in our minds, no matter what we're doing. We carry cameras around with us in case we see something inspirational. We can't walk through the grocery store without noticing that the type on our favorite crackers has changed, and we can't walk past them without critiquing them. We have been known to grab napkins and sketch out an idea while we're sitting at a bar with friends because we are smart enough to know that ideas don't come to you just between 8 and 5 and if we wait too long, we might forget it.
I have been known to wake up in the middle of the night and get up to write down an idea. I sit around and talk about typography with my friends. I once thought that we were boring and ridiculous for it, but the older I get, the more I realize that's just how our lives are going to be. We get inspiration from everywhere, including each other. Who cares if I learn something in the classroom or over my third beer, as long as I'm learning it?
I could have been done with class at 10:30 this morning, but instead I attended a lecture on interface design and then went to see a critique for the senior industrial design projects. I got home two and a half hours later than intended. This is just how we are. It's why we work late, it's why we sometimes go home early.
It doesn't mean we aren't living our lives, it just means that we do multiple things all at the same time. Just because I'm staring at the way a glass is designed doesn't mean I'm not out having fun with my friends - it just means that I don't know how to step out of what I do. I'm okay with it. I interviewed a professor a few weeks ago who clearly was who I will be in about thirty years. He said that we're just different, and that's to be expected. We don't see anything wrong with staying up all night if it gets the idea done. He remembered seeing a sign in a studio that said "Sleep, friends or work - pick any two." I think it's hard for the people who do know how to walk away at 5:00 to understand the mentality. That's not to say that those people aren't good at what they do or that they don't really care about what they do for a living, it's just to say that it's a little different for everyone.
I have the next three weeks off, and I'm probably going to spend them reading, writing, and getting some illustrations done for friends. I'll be sleeping in every day, thank you, and I'll finally have time to go to the gym again. I couldn't be more pleased.
There have been lots of developments in my life since I last wrote here, and it's not that I've been trying to ignore writing about them - it's just that I have barely done anything other than sitting in bed for a week. You see, I have caught the mother of all sinus infections, and it is ruining my life. I started feeling sick on Sunday, didn't feel up to going to class on Monday, went to the doctor on Tuesday. Tuesday night I was absolutely sicker than a dog, so Wednesday was yet another sick day. Thursday, I actually made it in to school, but I was coughing constantly and could barely speak, and today, I went back to the doctor because the coughing just. won't. stop.
Now, the doctor experience has been ridiculously terrible, and reminded me why I hate going to the doctor so much. I think between Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy, I've set up an incredibly high standard for how I'd like to be treated. It would help me if my doctors were super hot, too. I'm just saying.
So, developments. On Monday, I bought a brand new car. And by "bought", I mean "signed away all my credit on a three year lease". It's a 2007 Honda Accord, it is silver, and it is my baby. I'm a completely different driver now, unfortunately. I have never been more paranoid in my life. My first car was a 1990 Mercury Sable. Her name was Mable and we traveled the country together. She had over 100,000 miles when I got her, and quite a few beauty scratches under her belt. My last car was a 1995 Ford Taurus. It rolled over 104,000 miles last Thursday. Unfortunately, it couldn't make it much further, due to transmission problems that would have cost me in the neighborhood of $1700. His name was Boris. Boris was weathered - he came to me with a little rust on the hood, some strange burn marks in the ceiling, and a dent in the trunk. Boris didn't scare me.
This car? Well, this car is perfect. I got it with SIX miles on it. Six. There is not a scratch to be found on it. It is in absolutely perfect condition and is brand new. It freaks me out. But lord, it is so nice. I've never driven a car this nice. I'm working on a name for it - I'm trying a couple on for size as I drive it around. Unfortunately I've been sick all week, so I haven't really bee driving so much.
In perhaps more important news, I have a co-op job. I'll be working at FRCH, an architecture and interior design firm that specializes in retail environments. I'll be doing lots of interior 3D for them, working with some really amazing people - including someone who used to do 3D for feature films and a former professor of mine. I couldn't be any more excited. If I had my way, the quarter would be over and I could start this job tomorrow. Unfortunately, I don't get my way all that often in this world, so I start on the 27th.
I've got one week left of school, and I'm terribly behind on my projects. Really, really behind. I've got a lot of work to do this weekend and could use an all-nighter or two, but I just can't function like that right now with being so sick. Hopefully I'll be over this in the next couple of days and I can accomplish something again. One way or another - the end of quarter show is on the 13th, and all my projects are due by then. 11 days and we're done.
