[acdcguy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShiShiLeo

As a fellow designer, I can totally relate. Designers are really not meant to be managed in the traditional sense. We use years of experience to create things in 1 or 2 hours and then expect to only be paid for those few hours.

Our idea often clash with the "business" side of company.

My worst nightmare job experience was working with a long distance manager who started our first meeting with, "I'm not a micro manager or anything, but I need you to keep a log of everything you're doing on a time table."

Some context, I had been working at this place for about a year, my first boss and the one who hired me was great but she left for a much better offer. For 2 months they couldn't find a replacement so they eventually gave the position to one of the upper management's son, who lived a few states away! The situation deteriorated quick and I think I left within the month. Imagine writing in a time table that you spent 2-3 hours just researching and thinking about a design. He could not understand that.

A thing to keep in mind is that managers often have no formal managing experience or training. They are just workers who got promoted up for sometimes arbitrary or nepotism reasons. Managing is a very specific skillset and one that is not valued enough for being done well.

I wish you the best of luck. I commiserate.

Oh man that sounds frustrating.

Yeah my new job expects me to design T-shirts in less that 30 minutes and wants me to advertise and manage marketing when I know nothing about marketing. A single design takes at least an hour depending on the complexity of the design. And I’m the only designer on staff besides the owner. And he keeps taking me away from my projects to work on other projects and then wonders why the initial projects didn’t get done. And then he has the nerve to tell me I don’t know photoshop because I’m not reliant on the keyboard shortcuts like he is. Despite the fact that he didn’t know how to do something himself when I asked for help on one single thing! I’ve done everything else on my own! And he expects me to do everything the way he wants me to do it but doesn’t want to take the time to train me to do it his way. Plus the guy is horrible at time management. He is always late with his meetings and leaves me alone for hours on end so when I’m stumped I’m stuck alone not knowing what the fuck to do.

I should have known better than to take a job there. The guy once took me and a former classmate of mine on as interns. Never showed up to teach us anything. Paid us for two weeks and then canceled the internship program! Which left me getting a job at a place that primarily uses CorelDraw. Yet has the nerve blast me about my level of photoshop skill.

Thanks. I plan to revise my website and get help from my old college to find a new job. I might look into working for the school district. Might work my way into becoming an art teacher. I’ve already got my one boss to agree to writing a letter of recommendation to use when applying for jobs. I’ll ask my former instructors to write some as well. I hope you found something better after that experience.