Highgate

Saturday

Saturday AM, laying in bed surfin the web.



I haven't mentioned much about my job - mainly because it's a tech job w/ people who have computers and Internet connections and could potentially be reading Highgate, and in that case i don't need to complicate my work environment anymore than it is. But i can safely say right now that I've really been enjoying web design; while I've always been a tech geek, spending countless hours indoors, fiddling with PCs, gaming, surfing, etc, I've never quite felt i knew enough about one area of them to make into a career; and it was by a stroke of good fortune that my old place of (not so gainful) employment, Pure Pop was in need of a website. While I've always known, like most nerds, a pocketful of HTML, i was also aware that now adays, there was more to the game than some various element tags, so with some encouragement i grabbed some books, and jumped headfirst into CSS, DHTML, and Javascript. While so far, Pure Pop's website has yet to see the light day, i was finished, and not very long after i was recruited to do design work for my friend Luke's blooming tech company. I was shocked really - i didn't want to mention that i had about 3 months experience with any of these languages, and I've absolutely no experience with illustrator. Photoshop, I'd used to do things like paste my friends faces onto a baboons ass, things like that.
When i was asked at my interview for a portfolio, i almost choked on my own spit... Luke covered for me, i mentioned i could get something together at a later time; luckily they forgot, that or they just didn't care... its a pretty relaxed environment where i work. No one seems to mind my giant Britany spears is the devil poster...
Anyway - i was a nervous wreck when i first started, i thought for certain i would be found out as a phony, kicked to the curb after a month and forced to go groveling to Michael for my old job back... i mean, who gets hired at salary w/ full benefits for having 2 months experience? Isn't this what people go to college to get degrees in? (though i do plan on going back in a year or two to finish that degree.)
So it all came as a shock when after 2 months, i was offered a raise and a contract for permanent employment - 6 or so months later now, they're consulting me on design decisions, bringing me in on conference calls w/ big name design agencies, buying me a new dual monitor G5 workstation, and flying me down to NYC for consultations. Its in my nature to wonder when the other shoe will fall so to speak - but maybe this will work out, i have been working awfully hard and i have to agree that i seem to have an eye for all this, though it does need to be refined and i have alot to learn. Luckily i rather enjoy all of it. Except fixing IE bugs; that sucks.

2 comments:

jay said...

Having a job that you enjoy & that pays the bills is a wonderful and rare thing--enjoy it!

Anonymous said...

It's perfectly amazing to realize that you're actually good at your job and you don't hate it.

That's about when you should quit.