Chapter 2.2: Next Year

Last year (for 2006), my New Year's resolution was titled "Operation Don't Givva Fuck," (yes, "givva") where I vowed to stop letting bullshit and stress affect me the way it was during that time. However, 2006 was not a great year for me and progressively got worse over time. "Operation Don't Givva Fuck" became more and more difficult to maintain, especially since I was at an all-time low, and my stress levels were through the roof.

For 2005, the year before, "Operation Back On Up" was put into effect and still remains quite successful to this day. Whenever situations got sticky and people became illogical, I would divorce myself from the stupidity and take two or more steps back from the drama and watch as shit imploded. Case in point: I sat back and watched as my previous boss self-destructed from her own stupidity.

For 2007, I hope to fully regain the confidence, wit and strength I had lost between 2004 and 2005 and with that, I propose "FUCK IT" for my next New Year's resolution.

With a flip of my hand in the air and a face of disgust, "FUCK IT" will allow me to maintain normal stress levels, not care about shit, and become more fearless. While it's title is rather explicit, guess what? FUCK IT. Does it look like Igive a damn? 'Cause I DON'T!

Ok, so you want to make 10,000 excuses instead of getting straight to the point? FUCK IT. So you want me to be the staff photographer? FUCK IT. You want this WHEN? FUCK IT.

And soon, "FUCK YOU" will spawn, which is a small sub-resolution that naturally follows suit. I don't need to explain this one, do i?

Chapter 2.1: Do I Quit?

Today, I am highly disgusted.

I’ve spend the last 3 months building a website and storefront for a client of mine and I finally completed it last week. A lot of hours—about 30 of them—were put into completing this project… and I find out just the other day that she wants about 60% of it redone.

Re-fuckin’-done.

This whole project has been HELL from day one. There is something about new business owners that know nothing, but think they do that really gets under my skin.

In a struggle to define exactly what they wanted their “brand” image to be—visual and verbal, it took hours upon hours to get these people to understand the basics of web design 101.

No, you can’t send Word documents to professional printing companies… No, fonts don’t grow on trees. And no, I am not copying someone else’s website—that’s illegal.

This time, the logic behind reconstructing the website is so idiotic, that I have completely lost my patience. The site’s shopping cart doesn’t meet their needs, which I understand, but HELLO? Did you do ANY research before you decided to purchase it?

Of course now, she wants to switch shopping cart merchants, which means I’ll have to transfer the shop over. In addition, the store “MUST” have the look and feel to match the rest of the website. Understandable, but quite frankly, I’ve done it once already and I don’t feel like doing it again!

She went off to speak this so-called search-engine specialist, who told her a bunch of things that she can do to improve her ranking in the search engines. With the changes she wants to make to the site, based on the specialist’s suggestions, I have to basically reconstruct a good portion of the site. And I don’t feel like doing that either.

This isn’t the first time she’s been easily persuaded by some new information and it’s not the first time she’s driven me up the wall. For someone who works 40 hours a week as it is, rehashing these jobs like this just doesn’t work.

It’s the end of the fucking year, this shit was supposed to be completed two months ago and I’m sick of it.

So the question now is, do I quit?

Chapter 1.7: OK, Picture This....

So last week wasn’t such a great week. Between being sick and work getting on my nerves, I was beginning to feel like I didn't like my job. My feelings today aren't 100% different, but I don’t think "dislike" is the term for how I feel about work.

On the bright side, the new digital camera we ordered last week came today and it is AWESOME. It’s reasonably better than my personal one, which is the generation before, so I really enjoy using it.

I decided that I will allow myself to "become" the staff photographer instead of fighting it. It'll at least get me out of the office and give me the chance to meet new people, but I KNOW it'll eventually interfere with my work. Just wait and mark my words.

Photography doesn't involve just taking pictures... it's also a matter of organizing photoshoots, downloading the pictures, going through them and touching them up. That kills time.

The whole "tourist map" situation kind of resolved itself. What was being asked of me was totally ridiculous--no question. My boss showed me an example of what she wanted and it was clearly designed by a professional illustrator, but I think she realized she was trippin' when she actually thought about it. While her request came from a good place, it would have taken me hours upon hours to complete what she wanted and it just didn't make any Goddamn sense!

I think the problem is people who do not fully think their requests through. They ask for something, but forget the fact that I’m new or that I only have two hands. Now that I'm being pushed into being THE photographer, that's yet another job I have to juggle in addition to web and print design... and right now, photography is taking a good 60% of my time.

Nevertheless, if that's where they want me to go, I'll go. I just fear they'll turn around and say I'm not doing my job.

Anyway, I do feel better this week and I had a couple of good days this week, which boosted my morale. I need to stop being so cynical and learn how to relax and ignore the stupidity. I should start doing things my way and not stress myself out over stuff because it’s really NOT that serious.

Chapter 1.6: Conclusion

I have come to the conclusion today that I don’t really like my new job. This could be due to the horrible week I had, being sick, or maybe I had higher expectations than what is being met. I might even be a little over-critical... I don’t even know. My concerns and arguments may not even be valid.

First of all, most of my days are spent staring at the screen with nothing to do. They rushed me in here, but there isn’t that much work… or at least no one is managing/distributing the workflow effectively. Whatever though, if they want to pay me thousands of dollars just to sit there, I will. However, I’d rather have something to do than sit there like a sack of a shit.

People keep piling on the photography requests and I can barely stay on top of them. I almost packed my shit up and went home when the flash on the [shitty] office camera stopped working. What pissed me off is how I am expected to be this “staff photographer,” but I don’t have professional equipment to use… I should get over it, because they DID allow me to order a new camera yesterday…

But, I just really hate how people assume I am the “staff photographer.” Someone had the fucking NERVE to request I come back to work at 8pm and shoot a music ensemble. I’m going to tell you this right now; I’m not going to be working no 9, 10, 11 hour days every fucking day. Been there, done that and I’m just not going to do it.

I made it clear in my interview that I am not a professional photographer nor should I be seen as one. Somehow, through the lines of communication, it was determined that I am a professional photographer, who can and will shoot anything and everything. I feel like I made it clear what my capabilities, passions and skills are, but they were ignored.

85% of the requests are frivolous and do not need to be professionally taken, but people sure make it known how relieved they are that “someone else in the department can take photos…” That statement to me, is a sign of laziness.

Aside from this photography debacle, I feel like I am being asked to do things beyond what I interviewed for. I was put under the impression that our projects would be team-driven, but what actually happens in reality is that I’m stuck handling a majority of the pictorial and visual components—start to finish.

For example, I will be designing a 28 page publication over the next few weeks, which I was very excited about. However, I was stuck organizing, handling and managing the photography for it.

I’ve never organized an elaborate photo shoot or escorted a photographer before and I didn’t know what to do. I liked the fact that it was a new experience to have, but I didn’t like the abandonment. Since I am new to the college, I don’t know any students or faculty yet. I don’t know the buildings and where everything is yet. I don’t know what best sells the college. Yet, I was left to figure all that out on my own; struggling to find students and faculty to photograph during the two shittiest days of the year, and I don’t think that was fair one bit.

Today, I was asked to start thinking about including a visual to describe the area downtown for this same publication… something like a “whimsical tourist map” perhaps in a “cartoon format.” Ok, since when do I design maps? How do I design a map? Do I have TIME to design a map? What locations do I put in? What kind of a fucking map are you TALKING about?? These are things I don’t know, people. I haven’t lived here for 20 years and I don’t know everywhere the students go! How am I supposed to create something when I don’t know?

That is the shit that pisses me off. If you don’t tell me, then I don’t know!

I don't know what my problem is. I feel like I'm more of a designer's assistant that a mid-level manager right now. I think that's what it is...

Maybe I'm just complaining too much...

Chapter 1.5: Infection

Of course, the second 5 o’clock hit on Wednesday of last week, my weekend was doomed. It started out as a scratchy throat when I got home, and then it turned into a pretty bad sore throat and a cold into Thursday morning. I couldn’t get out of bed, so I said “fuuuuck this” and called in sick from work.

It got a little worse throughout the day, but I felt well enough Thursday night to go to work on Friday even though I probably shouldn’t have. I went to a coworker’s gig that night and felt okay, but by Saturday I had gone down hill a bit. My right ear felt like it was clogged and I lost about 70% of my hearing in a span of 10 minutes. I thought it was due to congestion, but it didn’t get better.

On Sunday morning, my right ear had cleared up a little bit, but then my left ear went deaf and really began to hurt around mid morning and worsened by lunchtime. I knew it wasn’t congestion at that point and decided to go to a medical clinic to get it looked at.

I had to sit for 2 hours before a doctor was available. The pain in my left ear grew so bad that I began to tremble from the discomfort. It sucks having something hurt when there is nothing you can do about it!

So, when I went into see the doctor, he took one look into my ear and kind of gasped at the sight of my “fire-engine red” ear canals. Then he diagnosed me with an ear infection due to upper respiratory infection. GREAT!

Right now, I have a tickling cough that’s developed over the past couple of days that seems to get worse when I speak or right before I go to bed. I can’t sleep because it keeps me up for hours and I can’t really communicate with people for too long because I cough and cough, but can’t stop. This blows goats.

My voice sounds horrible, when it works properly and I’m fall in and out of fatigue. God knows, if I take more days off from work, nobody will be taking care of stuff. It’s bad enough I have to be the staff photographer for the week!

All I know is, I better be well by this weekend because I’m going to shake my ass up in the club!