Battleship Gray

So, the interview at the new place went well (as far as I can tell).
It's a company that makes kitchen equipment (that's probably too specific, but I do it because I love you).
The company is located in an industrial park and is part office, part warehouse. They seem to be doing well, but from the looks of the building you really wouldn't know it.

I waited in the lobby for my appointment and stared at some old posters and catalog covers of years gone by. When my interviewer greets me, he takes me through the field of cubicles.
It's not an inspiring atmosphere. It's like that 1984 apple commercial (watch it here).

I don't know who first thought of this gray cubicle idea, but I'm betting it's the same bastard that thought we should work 5 days a week and have off only 2. You want an idea for a new company? Start selling cubicles that come in more colors than just the standard Battleship Gray. It doesn't need to look like a unicorn farted rainbows in the office, but a little bit of life would improve anyone's morale.

Anyway, I sat in the conference room for more than an hour and discussed the vision of the company, my potential role, and hockey. So, all-in-all, it went well.
I should know by Friday or Monday whether or not I'll have to start coming up with all new aliases for this here blog.

You Can't Bring Me Down

Today is my 80's montage of putting together a portfolio, dusting off the suit and practicing my call-out burst designs to the tune of Bob Seger.
I'm fortunate to have a large collective of friends/associates in the design industry. I'm also fortunate that many of them are extending a helping hand in finding me some work (freelance mostly, but it's all positive in my book).

Sleep was hard to come by last night. Worrying about my interview (tomorrow), trying to line up something else if that interview doesn't work out, but mostly about whether or not I'll receive my last due paycheck from Jackass Inc.

I've gone over the scenario a thousand times in my head and almost never do I just get my check and go on my merry way. Carl is notorious for not paying his bills (and being slimier than anything Andrew Zimmern has ever eaten). I'm hoping that my awareness of his crooked ways, before I even started working there, has helped me build up enough dirt on him. I should be able to get my money by merely suggesting I mention any number of this bafoon's bullshit actions to the proper authorities.
It would be nice if it didn't have to get to that, but I really think it will.
I haven't seen his awful-club-shirt-wearing-cause-that-makes-me-creative, snaggletoothed grin in 24 hours and I still hate him.

Happy Valentine's Day... Now Get Out!

Today at Jackass Inc, Stoner and Carl both came over to my desk in the morning to deliver the bad news.
There hasn't been enough design work coming in and they had to lay me off.
It's all of the emotions in a split second: Fear, Anger, Bitterness, Joy, Acceptance, Resentment, Panic, and a few others I'm sure.
In my mind I kept thinking "Why couldn't you have waited another week or two? By that time I would have gone to my interview on Wednesday and might have possibly accepted a new position".

But now I get to worry if they'll give me my last paycheck (which they owe me this Friday and I fully plan on going in to pick up... just to make sure of it).

I also get to worry if Carl will fight the unemployment (as he's been known to do).

I laughed as Carl kept saying things like he would give me a referral or that if I brought him a print job he'd give me an 8% commission on the job. Knowing that he had made similar offers to people I've worked with only to never pay them a cent, I had to smirk.

Through the painful morning Stoner seemed to actually show remorse. He told me that I was the best thing that happened to his design group, that I was the best designer he's had in there and that we worked well together. Apparently, he had been taking smaller paychecks to make sure that I was paid. Who knows how much of it was true, but he seemed genuine. I don't hate Stoner. He's just a dumb guy.

I do hate Carl & Connie though. Those two are a rare kind of retarded evil. Ones with horned safety helmets and winged-seeing-eye-monkeys. Those two are due to get their butts reamed by the hounds of Karma.

So, I guess most of this blog's entertainment will be different from here on out.
But don't worry. I have a knack for finding horrible design jobs with horrible people.

Half Day Friday

Normally, a proposed half day Friday would sound glorious to me, but now that I'm hourly it means Carl and Stoner are shorting me on my 40 hours. So, it took them exactly one month for the hourly thing to cost me money.

I hate them.

Those cheap bastards.

I don't know about you, but I need 100% of my weekly salary. It's not like they pay me so well here that I have all this room to spare with paying the bills and living a life. 

I don't have much funny to offer today...and I have to leave the office in a few minutes. Sorry about that.

Have a good weekend and be thankful you don't work here.

Toy Fair Crunch

Every February the Toy Fair is held in New York City. It's usually held at the Javits Center (a really big friggin convention center). The event is for toy makers off all sizes, to present their new toys for the upcoming season. Mattel, Hasbro, Lego, and just about every toy company you can think of has a booth there. Be on the lookout early next week for all of the reports from the convention featuring hot new items that reporters like (and rarely predict which ones will be successful). David Lettermen usually has someone on to showcase a bunch of items, that Dave does his best to damage in many colorful ways.

Every year the week before Toy Fair is busy for those of us in the package design business. It's usually a good thing for the cash flow and a bad thing for those of us who enjoy sleep. It never fails that companies have last minute changes to packages and they must be made only days before the show. C'mon, they only had a year to get this stuff figured out!

So, last night after I left work, I get a call from Stoner saying we have an emergency for the morning... a package redesign. No problem. I'm used to it. I come in early to tackle it.

The part that sucks is that I have a couple of hours to redo this package, that the client apparently had their color-blind cat create, and then I get Connie and Carl coming in every 30 minutes to check on my progress.

Quick Tip: If you'd like to anger me in the quickest way possible, watch over my shoulder as I work and ask me what I'm doing and when it'll be done.

I spent the morning making a presentable version of this package. The original had rainbow type, white type with a white glow, random branding shapes, and lots of misspellings.

Mini Lesson: Rainbows are bad! Rainbow type is really bad! Let me explain why. The designer's job is to control the eye so that the consumer can easily understand what the product is and who it's for. Any text should be easy to read and should follow a hierarchy of most important message to secondary and tertiary messages.

A rainbow contains all of the colors, therefore making it nigh impossible to control the consumer's eye... and it's gay.

So, after I finished with the redesign, submitted it and took 5 seconds to breathe we heard back from the client. They said they liked what we did and would have their designer incorporate elements of our design into theirs.

I hope that before they continue the client at least keeps their designer away from the catnip. That stuff is powerful.

Time Check

Since our recent conversion from a salary based pay system to the hourly based pay, Stoner has had me either clock him in or out almost everyday. That's because I'm always here before him and usually here later than him... and he'd still like to get his full paycheck every week.

I'm ok with it. I figure sometime in the future, if I need him to return the favor he'd have to agree to it. Although I admit it's wrong and I feel a little dirty for doing it. It's kinda like siding with Boba Fett and the other bounty hunters to squeeze a little more cash out of the Emperor. The lesser of two evils.

Not sure if I've ever explained the convoluted hierarchy here, but I'll try.

Stoner used to be a designer for Carl here years ago. Then Carl decided that he wanted to sell the design as separate service. He also didn't want to have a conflict of interest with some clients (design agencies) so, Carl created the design part as a separate entity...but not really.

The design part does have a different logo & letterhead, with Stoner in place as the "owner", but Carl's company does all of the paperwork (aside from a few invoices/proposals that Stoner usually has me do). Stoner gets his paychecks from Carl. There is no way Stoner would have his own company if it completely depended on him doing all of that work.

And so, with the new hourly system in place Stoner now bills Carl for the hours he's not here by having me clock him in and out.

It's a greasy game of naked Twister with your cousins here. It's all kinds of wrong and someone's always getting screwed.

More Daily Chores

When I come into work here, I have a swipe card to get into the door. I have to swipe to leave also or else the security system won't let me back in. My theory is that the system has two purposes. One, to keep people who don't work here out and two, to track the time of the people that do work here.

I then have to clock into a timesheet program with an ID number. In that program I must log into a job or else I'm not really at work (according to payroll). I also have to fill-out my name (even though everyone has their own ID number that they must use to log in to begin with) and the kind of work I am doing ie: Polishing 10lbs of shite and then stuffing it into a 5lb rainbow adorned box.

Next I do the design work and print it out for review by Stoner, Connie or Carl...or if I'm lucky all three! Once revisions are made, I send them JPEGs of the work to pass along to the client (because I can't be trusted with client contacts. Part of Carl's paranoia).  I have had my own clients at other jobs. Clients bigger than any of the ones they deal with here. And maybe to Carl's point, I do some freelance on my own for some of my previous clients.

After the many rounds of revisions, I am to print out copies of the work I've done. These are suppose to go into a job folder and then used for billing. I usually end up printing out the same things again, because someone misplaced the first print outs or the entire job folder.

Now, I understand that to make money you must track your work and for design you should track every round of revisions, but doesn't there seem to be more than one redundancy in this process? I've never had to do so much to justify the work I've done. The closest I've come to it was when I worked for one of the two big toy companies. But that was due to me being an independent contractor more than anything else.

Please share your time tracking duties. Be they small or be they mighty? Let me know if I'm just whining.