All I want to write about is my PMS symptoms (processing)
But that's so boring, right? For some reason I seem to be unable to just snap out of it this time – maybe I'm becoming perimenopausal!
This morning I had another run-in with a certain person I work with, who apparently believes that their job involves not only doing their own work, but also telling me how to do my work as well. Obviously I can't go into details, but I am taking note of how it makes me feel about my work. Not good, mostly.
A few months ago I was invited to submit designs for a new product that was supposed to be the nicest, slickest, most high-end, beautiful amazing thing this company has ever produced. I put together three comps, then delivered two or three rounds of refinements on the one they liked best. Production was then outsourced to some friend of the editor's, who is now getting all the credit for creating this gorgeous thing, even though (I just saw the preview copy) the entire design, right down to the page layouts and color palettes, is all mine. The only credit I received was as a "contributing artist," same as everyone else in my department. That does not make me feel good about working here.
So that's one end of it - the end on which I contribute my best work and receive zero credit.
The other end is the one where I put together what I consider a really nice feature spread, only to be told by someone who is NOT in charge (who is nevertheless for whatever reasons still allowed to push everyone around) that I must not do this or that, must change this other thing, and by the way – blah blah blah, the point being, that this is in a way the opposite of the former situation, in that here, I am doing my best work and receiving only criticism and blame.
It's funny though – it just occurred to me that the way I feel when this person comes along and ruins my work may be about the same way that person feels when they think I haven't done justice to the stuff they've contributed to the piece. Well, I don't care. The work we do here is not about kissing the ass of one person's enormous ego – it's collaborative by nature, and it makes me mad that everybody bows down and allows this person to bully me, just so they won't have to deal with the person's temper tantrums if some infinitesimal detail is not to their liking.
The way I see it, if you want to be a capital-A "Artiste," you can do that on your own time. This is why I didn't make a big fuss about the "contributing artist" credit, even though it bothers me a lot to see that putz getting patted on the back for my design – because I know this work does not belong to me. It's a product that I get paid to create for someone else.
So yeah – I guess what's really bothering me is that this whole episode is making me feel like this one person is being allowed to retain creative control of their work AND receive public credit for it, while I am not being allowed to do either of those things. They're being treated like an Artiste, and I'm being treated like a mindless drone. I don't like that.
Well! Good to get clear about that. I still don't feel any less hostile and aggressive toward this person right now, though.
I will also say: Now this is more like it! When I first started this online journal lo these many years ago, I spent a lot of time processing through annoyances large and small to get to the bottom of what was really bothering me (my old tag line used to be, "tinarama: it's cheaper than therapy!"). This all of a sudden started to feel like that again, and I liked it. Now that I know what the real problem is, I can solve it.
The solution being, that I can now re-enter my working day with a clear understanding that what I'm getting paid for here is to create work that satisfies the people I am selling it to. For now at least, my ability to do that is what enables me to do my own work, which exists solely to satisfy ME.
Also, if I'm taking my day job this personally, it's probably a sign that I need to be spending more time enjoying doing my own work. So I'm going to get right on that now.
This morning I had another run-in with a certain person I work with, who apparently believes that their job involves not only doing their own work, but also telling me how to do my work as well. Obviously I can't go into details, but I am taking note of how it makes me feel about my work. Not good, mostly.
A few months ago I was invited to submit designs for a new product that was supposed to be the nicest, slickest, most high-end, beautiful amazing thing this company has ever produced. I put together three comps, then delivered two or three rounds of refinements on the one they liked best. Production was then outsourced to some friend of the editor's, who is now getting all the credit for creating this gorgeous thing, even though (I just saw the preview copy) the entire design, right down to the page layouts and color palettes, is all mine. The only credit I received was as a "contributing artist," same as everyone else in my department. That does not make me feel good about working here.
So that's one end of it - the end on which I contribute my best work and receive zero credit.
The other end is the one where I put together what I consider a really nice feature spread, only to be told by someone who is NOT in charge (who is nevertheless for whatever reasons still allowed to push everyone around) that I must not do this or that, must change this other thing, and by the way – blah blah blah, the point being, that this is in a way the opposite of the former situation, in that here, I am doing my best work and receiving only criticism and blame.
It's funny though – it just occurred to me that the way I feel when this person comes along and ruins my work may be about the same way that person feels when they think I haven't done justice to the stuff they've contributed to the piece. Well, I don't care. The work we do here is not about kissing the ass of one person's enormous ego – it's collaborative by nature, and it makes me mad that everybody bows down and allows this person to bully me, just so they won't have to deal with the person's temper tantrums if some infinitesimal detail is not to their liking.
The way I see it, if you want to be a capital-A "Artiste," you can do that on your own time. This is why I didn't make a big fuss about the "contributing artist" credit, even though it bothers me a lot to see that putz getting patted on the back for my design – because I know this work does not belong to me. It's a product that I get paid to create for someone else.
So yeah – I guess what's really bothering me is that this whole episode is making me feel like this one person is being allowed to retain creative control of their work AND receive public credit for it, while I am not being allowed to do either of those things. They're being treated like an Artiste, and I'm being treated like a mindless drone. I don't like that.
Well! Good to get clear about that. I still don't feel any less hostile and aggressive toward this person right now, though.
I will also say: Now this is more like it! When I first started this online journal lo these many years ago, I spent a lot of time processing through annoyances large and small to get to the bottom of what was really bothering me (my old tag line used to be, "tinarama: it's cheaper than therapy!"). This all of a sudden started to feel like that again, and I liked it. Now that I know what the real problem is, I can solve it.
The solution being, that I can now re-enter my working day with a clear understanding that what I'm getting paid for here is to create work that satisfies the people I am selling it to. For now at least, my ability to do that is what enables me to do my own work, which exists solely to satisfy ME.
Also, if I'm taking my day job this personally, it's probably a sign that I need to be spending more time enjoying doing my own work. So I'm going to get right on that now.
2 Comments:
Gosh, that sucks! Has that happened before? I think your work epiphany is right on! It's nice to have a work epiphany.
"Also, if I'm taking my day job this personally, it's probably a sign that I need to be spending more time enjoying doing my own work. So I'm going to get right on that now."
Good! But it still isn't right that this guy is taking full credit for work you created. At least is seems wrong to me. What kind of person is he? If it were me you had done the work for, I would insist that you get fully credited, even if it was work made for hire.
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