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Some places to work for have good comunication and respect between the ranks with co-workers who are nice/friendly...
Others work enviorments breed animosity, contempt.
Having a boss which you like and communicate well with or one you hate and avoid.
IS the enviorment plesent to look at--colorfull, nice lighting etc.? or a grey/beige cluttered mess?
if you had a great work enviorment but poor pay would you switch for a bad work enviorment and good pay?
I read an artical not long ago aboult Pixar Studios and I think I turnd green with envy just looking at the pictures. And it just makes me sad when I go to our lightless(and lifeless) cantina with its grey cinderblockwalls(they might just be a dirty beige..not real sure) and lighting ambiance provided by a flickering bulb in the vending machine.
I have a strong work ethic. I LOVE what I do - the work that is. At first I worked 12-14 hrs daily (salaried of course, would any employer allow that otherwise?) simply because of my passion for the work.
What I do - which I'm not at liberty to discuss explicitly - is considered "value add." You know the cheese you get with your pizza? The coupons they print on your grocery receipts? That's "value add."
Basically this is not where our money is made, so we're not going to help you make money for us. We have total control, and that is our right, so we're not going to empower you to improve your position or what it does for this company. Just don't make any noise, be there every day, and deal with it.
As the years rolled by and the condition worsened, so did everything else. My attitude, my work ethic, all of it. I leave daily totally drained, giving up the best part of my creative energy to something that just doesn't care, is not interested, and to which my efforts mean nothing. NOTHING! Then try to spend an evening doing something on my own . . . the well is dry. Catch-22.
Although the customers involved have no clue, they think I'm some sort of genius (now there's a laugh!) the frustration and negativity began to spill over into my home life and general health, in spite of all defenses against it. This is where my wife forced me to draw the line: enough is enough.
I've been a good little soldier, kept everyone happy, but I'm finally giving up. Next month, I start a new life.
WOOT! :-)
Environment, more social and spiritual than physical, is not the biggest thing, it's the ONLY thing. I would work in a closet, for pennies if I feel like it's part of something meaningful, like I'm doing some good. But I just can't make this work for them. They simply won't allow it. Hopefully my absence will change that for them.
Sorry for the rant but you got me goin' . . .
I got a fundraising idea one day and they let me take it and run basicly(this isn't my area). we endedup raising almost $300 to buy meals for elderly and the disabled.
There is always something new and different just around the corner...
The down side of the job--
--PAy is horrible around 1/2 the going rate.. more like bottom 25%(I make less the <20k a year not saying exsactly how much less)(22k/year is what the job i'm interviewing for today pays)
--No health benifits
--sub-standerd software.. pretty much if I can't beg a company or indivedual to give it to us the I don't get it. The photoshop I use is 6.0 and my own personal educational copy from college. (although I do have a nice hand-me-down laptop in addition to my desktop. And One of the other desktops with the same motherbord as mine CPU went bad so it was scraped and I got to canabalize to get more ram and an extra monitor.)
I stongly doubt I will be leaving anytime soon.
Again apologies to Sarah (and everone) for my whiney post, hopefully you're allowed one a year. Caught me at a moment. :-)
Sarah if your relationship with your employers is good - this is a diamond in the rough, though it may be hard to pay the bills on what they pay you, you're going to live longer. I am learning that often people **think** it's all about the Benjamin's but there is a large part of loving what you do and doing what you love that money just doesn't make up for.
Consider side-projects that will take up the deficit in your income. Nothing big, nothing outside your knowledge, something you'll enjoy and can work in without working all night.
Management is reflective. If the top partner is afraid and angry, then that attitude will reside in many others, especially the department heads or the chief technology people.
Going to work with a bunch of jumpy and pissed of people every day is not a much fun as you would think.
Now I'm at a place that calm, focused and boring. Boring is under rated as a creative force.
btw I determined that the job was not good enough for me... funny usualy at interview's I'm trying to prove that I can do a job/am right for this job. basicly I'm selling myself to them... this time it was more like he was trying to sell me the job.
it felt weird leaving. At that time it was sinking in just how much over qualified I was and just how much experience I had. In the interview I counted up how long I have been working with photoshop and realised it's been nearly 8 years and that I have been playing with computers for around 2 decades.
I've just been feeling so old this whole evning. Up until a couple of months ago I was still under the comporting delusion I was a young (thin) fresh college graduate with the world still out there just beginging. Now I'm looking in the mirror wandering where and when did that person go away.
Oh and rehashing my resume has been almost as bad as taking down my son's crib and changing table.
After the interview I went and got some cumfort food.... unfortunatly they were all out of kings' choice haravotii cheese so I had to setle for chocolate.
Sarah
