Yes, she gave me a test on grammar and spelling and sentance structure at my interview. I hadn’t seen one of those since Freshman English at Penn State in 1996.

I came there from a broadcasting background, with some print experience. I was a sports producer/broadcaster in State College for 3 years, so I was insulted at the fact I had to take a test in the first place.

I was the outsider at the office. I was rarely invited to office functions and was forced to sit next to a hypocritical bitch named Becky. She would complain when I told even a slightly off joke, but I’d see her snuggling up to another coworker in the parking lot. Figure that one out, if you can. I can’t.

I hated my editor. She used our paper as a society page, and I had to fight to get any hard news in.

I’m lucky I got fired when I did, next month I’d have had to go to the papers annual “Ass Kisser Dinner.” The paper (well my editor, I had no say in it, nor did I want any to begin with) names people “citizens of the year” and then the paper throws them a party.

I’d rather drink hydrocloric acid than socialize with anyone in Sewickley, PA. It’s an upper class snot town that I didn’t fit into, even when I was covering news.

Ugh, you made me relive that. :-D As punishment…oh hell never mind, I’m just going to go flop over into bed now.

and why were you deemed a “charity case”? in what sense, and how did it manifest itself in how you were treated and how you interacted with colleagues?

You touch upon a lot of things I myself question about being in design. I totally agree with you that DTP has been a big boon in making design available to more people but also to blame in lessening the overall quality of most design. I saw signs of this when I was in art school, listening to other students list using Photoshop as part of their design rationale. Umm, Hello? The computer is a tool for design, not a generator thereof.

Look at a lot of the commercials out there nowadays. How many of them can you peg as being obviously Photoshopped or digitally altered in some way? There are so many of them that I tend to tune a lot of them out. They say nothing to me of basic human emotion or communication. There is no semblance of humanity in the perfect airbrushed models that could never possibly be real. Pre-computer design still bears the hand and individual quirk of the creator, that one quirk and quality that makes it innately that of its creator.

I really don’t blame you for questioning wanting to continue in design. It really isn’t the same as it was in the era that inspires you (or even the earlier eras that inspire me) and just seems so devoid of substance nowadays. A lot of my co-workers don’t even have any sense of design history and think I am a freak for not mindlessly copying the designs out of the CA annual like they do. Most of our clients don’t have a clue.

I often think about packing it in myself, even though I’ve stuck with it for at least 12-13 years now. I know that I do competent professional work, perhaps even “good” work, but I don’t feel as passionate about it as when I was in school, and I know that “fire in the belly” passion is what keeps one going in life and doing what they love. I don’t think I’m in love with design anymore, but I honestly don’t know what I would do instead. I remind myself there are much more unrewarding ways to make a living out there.

Basically, the system we live in where we become slaves to capitalism simply sucks. My only advice is to find your joy and follow your bliss outside the confines of work. I’ve seldom found creative satisfaction myself through working design jobs and have always felt I was missing something when work was my sole outlet for creativity. But these are my experiences and you may find that your differ.

I don’t have any answers for you, but hang in there. Don’t convince yourself that you’re a hack because from what I’ve seen, I honestly don’t think that you are. Putting yourself down continually can create a self-fulfilling prophecy where you believe that you the manifestation of your own fears. I honestly don’t think it’s you, it’s the state of this nation that’s the problem. There are too many others competing for the few jobs that are out there.

Find yourself an outlet, like writing or just anything that you find pleasure in and nurture yourself in the pursuit of it. Don’t worry about what any one else thinks–just do it for your own satisfaction. It will help you rebuild your confidence in your abilities and regain your sense of self. You will find your way, just be patient and confident that it will happen. :)

I think we just need to hold on, our time is coming. Meanwhile, I just thought I’d share with you that I too was called “trite” as well as “obvious” by an art professor in my undergrad art career. ;) My realization about it? All seventeen year olds are trite and subject to obvious imagery. That’s the nature of being very -young- but I’m NOT that anymore. In my assessment anyway, it’s no longer something you have to worry about.

so something in all this is sposed to be encouraging.. just think, you could be stuck with this writing style (eeee!)

at the moment, that lack of full time job means there’s either more time for the job hunt, or, if 10 hours/day of job hunting would be freakout-in-a-can if the activity could even be sustained, some number of hours/day for something else.

i spent nearly a year descending down a slope of for the first time in my life, not knowing the answer to what the fuck now? before picking something out of the air that was the sort of thing that seemed like it would be so totally awesome that it repeatedly tripped the perimeter warning whatever center-of-field blind spot. after several months of on and offedly bedridden listing in the doldrums after my first visit to end of inertia, and findig myself also in the fortunate but emotionally messy position of having no where to which to run, no apart to which to fall (psychologically/allegorically), there was no where else i wanted to be, i just wanted “my life” back, which veered dangerously toward regret — an outlaw perspective in the empire run from my stubborn little aesthetic box.

that one remains unanswered and in my face, but it could have everything to do with having been able to make the decision to go to school, the success of which is still very uncertain. the slack with which to do this is something i actually had, despite totally not believing i had it. it was a move though, after way too long not liking where i’d landed nor having the faintest idea of an idea how to make a move. my having established firmly that i despised college and would never ever go back, ever, did help rule out one bullshit reason for doing the school trip, two hours bussing each way reeeeeeeally forced this thang to either be what i want or fuckit.

right there that actually sounds like resolve and umph, things i didn’t actually have but here i am two quarters later with this thing having moved well beyond simply a gambit of investment to force me into whatever it took to not fail, or at least fail fully knowing i hadn’t just fucked it off and therefore not having an excuse to give myself shit over it. not handing oneself excuses (or at least not buying into them) to give oneself shit is critical critical strategy.

so, me, not being prone to finishing a thought much less a sentence, kinna is just saying, what you described there as possibly something to which you don’t have cosmic permission (aka reasonable, moral, logical..) to apply limited resources is the thing itself to hike out of nil. this sort of thing is the thing the human tendancy toward dualism spooks people into setting up this/lose that decisions for themselves, which they then have to make, so you win some/lose some with fabricated sums, but more importantly, a decision was made.

*that* there is what you don’t need to blow slack on. don’t make a decision to entertain the idea or not entertain the idea, just go with it. you’re not doing it in *lieu* of other things, nor does contemplating a possibility cost anything. you don’t know for sure it’s escapist ideation, so make it *not* escapist ideation by actually thinking about it. that would involve checking out the pragmatic and logistic aspects involved; that extra contextual angle into the pragmatic and logistic puzzles already in play could score you the *ding* and get you on your way again. if it hadn’t worked for me in the most unworkable stretch ever, i wouldn’t believe any of this. [con't]