Preparing before the big layoff

It seems that everyone knows somebody (or IS that somebody) who has been laid off.

Rumor has it that when a company starts losing money, the first thing to get cut is advertising. Is that a scary wives tale to keep the designers in line? I dunno, but it's worth being prepared for the worst.

As a graphic designer, are you ready to simply pick up and go at the first sign of the pink slip? My guess is that most of us are not. We get comfortable in our positions and we slack when it comes to our portfolio. I know I do.

When I give semi-careful thought to my work and my personal standing as a pro designer, I realize that:

- My raw files are not only disorganized, they are scattered. Yes, I have the finished product, but what if I need to clean it up, add to, or make it better? What about the work process? I must organize my files and name my freaking Illustrator and Photoshop layers...for God's sake, name the layers!!

- My resume has not been updated in five and a half years. That sucks, especially when...

- ...my professional identity system has not even been looked at for the same amount of time. Can I still sell myself on what I slopped together a half decade ago? Eh. Probably not.

I've progressed, changed, grew, learned, and worked hard as a designer and it should show to potential employers. However, do I even have a concept for my identity piece? Do I have one of those clever "leave behinds" so the interviewer at my next sure-to-get job will put it on his desk and marvel (with a smile) at my brilliance?

Nope.

So I am behind in my responsibilities as both a pro designer and a family man. If I get tossed out on my ear tomorrow, I'll have to spend many hours of unemployed time working on my identity system, organizing files, and updating the portfolio and resume instead of looking for a job. If my portfolio is all ready to go, any extra time I have off the job hunting trail could be better spent doing freelance work or watching cartoons. With my kid, I mean.

Crap. I guess I'll get started naming my layers.

My first job: Shocked, I was.

My first real job was a marketing/graphic design intern position with a local construction company.

Like many growing companies, these guys were sick of paying the relatively high prices to outsource their design work. They would spend a pretty penny having someone else put together their project books and print ads.

So they decided to bring all their marketing and design in-house...and I was it. Design department? Marketing? Me. The intern who was still in school.

Wet behind the ears is understating the cliche. I was soaked from head to toe, but it was exciting and now as I look back, I couldn't have started my career at a better place.

You see, I came into this internship from a job where I answered phones and figuratively changed the diapers of those attempting to fill out their college financial aid forms online. Out of all the jobs I've had, the freaking phone-answering job had to be the craziest and most stressful.

If I had to go to the bathroom, I had to "punch out" of my phone so that management knew I was not available, and I had TWO (2) minutes to get to the bathroom and get back or I was in trouble. It didn't matter if I had to go number 1 or number 2, I had to push fast and sit my half-wiped ass back down to answer the phones.

I worked at this place full time to get me through design school. When the opportunity presented itself in the form of an internship doing design work for a construction company, I jumped at it. I was overjoyed that it was a paying gig and I could quit my hectic job with Big Brother.

Imagine my shock as I left a job where I didn't have time to piss to a place where they sat me at my own desk to perform a couple week's worth of...web browsing.

They wanted me to design a new web site for the company and they wanted me to take a look at other construction companies' sites to see what I thought worked.

I was shell-shocked because after the first couple of full days, I had sketches and notes up the wazoo for a new web site. The rest of the week was just cruising the net. They didn't have anything else for me to do just yet, so I was to simply sit tight.

Well, I at least wanted to get started building the site, even if they didn't have all the information I needed ready to go.

Since I knew both diddly and squat about coding, I told them I needed...haha...I told them that for me...hee hee...for me to build the web site, I would need...I would need...hahaha...Microsoft FRONTPAGE....

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....OH!....HAHAhahahaha.....*tear*

Yeah. Intern.

Anyway, after my first week there of noodling around on the internet and eating candy, I started to feel guilty about getting paid to do this "job". I mean, after almost two years of getting hammered day in and day out on the phones by people who didn't know how to clear their browser cookies, I felt like I was stealing from my new employers.

I told my brother, who works as a web programmer, about my feelings. He laughed and told me to chill and soak it up because the slow pace will come and go, and when it goes, I'll understand why the company hired me.

He was right. The slow couple of weeks came to an end and suddenly I had a ton of construction project books to design, as well as the site, print ads, newsletters, and press releases.

Then a couple more slow weeks. More internet noodling and candy.

I was sad to leave that company (although the money I was to make at my new job would cheer me up considerably) because it was a great first job that yielded much time for me to learn my craft.

One last thing. Those of you who are starting late in the design profession, or it is taking longer than usual to finally get through school, know that when I accepted my internship, I was 30 years-old.

Yep, a 30 year-old intern working in FrontPage. Don't let that image make you sad because I am now onto better things in my career. If I can do it, anyone can. Trust me.

It's a fun job, but it's still a job

I don't work in a design firm. My job resides within a small department of a financial institution - the creative department, a suburb of marketing.

I don't have the leisure of a jeans and a t-shirt atmosphere. One Friday evening I relived my 20s and shaved my hair into a mohawk, went to a party on Saturday, woke up late on Sunday, shaved the rest of my head that evening for my required clean-cut appearance on Monday.

My co-workers and I within the design department look like the rest of the company's employees with our business-as-usual attire, but those on the outside of our workspace know there is something different about us. No, we're not better or smarter or prettier...we simply enjoy coming to work.*

When you work in a nice, yet sanitized and stuffy workplace, you can literally smell it when someone in the building is having fun at his or her job. And there is the problem: in the eyes of many, if you're having fun at your job, then you don't really have a JOB job. If you're having fun at your job, then you are basically "goofing off".

We are in the department that gets to play with crayons, and crayons are for kids. Doing our little art projects for the company. Having fun. Goofing off.

I can't say I entirely blame others within the company for feeling that way. Every other department has sterile, clean walls and ours are covered with design trends, comic art, and posters. Every other department deals with customers in well lit offices. We work under dimmed lights and only deal with each other. Every other department has an iron clamp on their internet usage while we have unlimited access for research, tutorials, and, of course, stock photography.

I believe the perception of graphic designers as kids in the playroom is universal dogma to those not in the profession.

Once, after a particular stressful day, I mentioned to a friend that I had a tough day at work. He snorted out a scoffing laugh and condescendingly murmured, "Work." He went on to give me details about his labor-intensive job and told me that once I do something similar to what he does, then I can claim to actually work.

Ouch.

I can't apologize for loving what I do. I've worked many, many crappy jobs in the past before I became a graphic designer. In fact, it was working all those terrible jobs that made me want to go back to college and pursue something I genuinely enjoy doing.

Also, the fact that I am having a blast at work doesn't mean I don't take it seriously. I have handled million dollar campaigns, and there's not much "goofing off" when the company is fronting that kind of dough. If I'm NOT serious about my job, the campaign could flop, rendering me an unemployed designer.

I'm not about to convince anyone otherwise who believes my job is equivalent to playing on a playground. Heck, sometimes it is. I just thank God that within the marketplace there is a need for what I love to do.

*We are lucky enough to not work under levels of micro managing middle managers, angry co-workers looking to throw anyone under the bus, or power-tripping suits who see themselves as stand-in art directors. This is a rare thing within corporate institutions and we are fortunate and ecstatic to be where we are.

I know many designers who work in a worse environment than I, but even with all the corporate b.s., they are still happy with their chosen profession. It beats working as a roofer or a king's food taster.

Training the employees and pissing them away

There are many confusing aspects to working in a design/marketing department.

Let's start here.

First we have Company A looking to hire an art director who has extensive design skills as well as knowledge on web code. Company A is reluctantly willing to train those weak in coding skills, but only because they are NOT willing to pay even the minimum salary rate of an experienced art director.

Now, since Company A is having a hard time hiring art directors and designers because of their low pay wage, those working for the Company are getting extremely backed up with jobs, mainly due to the account managers not being able to set boundaries with the clients, but also because the Company is understaffed for the quantity promised.

The underpaid art directors are now burdened with a pile of impossible deadlines and Company A will not approve even an hour of overtime to handle the expected work load.

How in the world does Company A expect to keep quality art directors and designers? You have a group of frustrated employees who have sharpened their skills to a fine edge due to unreasonable demands from the ignorant suits who not only deal with the clients ineptly, but also fancy themselves junior art directors.

"Change this or I will not send it out the client."

So now that Company A has trained their employees through trial by fire, one would think they would do right by the those who busted ass to get everything out on time. A raise maybe? Haha, forget it.

Why?

Well, now you have office managers overseeing the design department who have bonus incentives for keeping costs low. Handing raises out like candy doesn't very well cut the costs, does it? So bend over the hard workers within the department with empty promises that the big bosses are "considering" the raise/promotion, and "we'll get back to you".

Weird. One would think that with all the time and money spent training the newbies on all the necessary skills for the job, they would want to freaking keep them.

But now the employees have their sharpened skills, and with what they are experiencing with the Company, there's only so much they can take before beginning to hate the workplace. So they end up taking their sharpened skills elsewhere. Most likely Company B may very well have its own set of faults, but they will respect the people involved in making the company a success. Company A trains them and then Company B benefits on Company A's time and dime.

Company A's loss. Now the Company is stuck with a high turnover rate with the self-imposed curse of hiring only inexperienced newbies who they will have to train...and then inevitably loose to another company.

A rotted business practice to be sure, but one that is easily avoidable. However, Company B will not be complaining any time soon.