Everyone Is Deadline Driven, That’s Why We’re Here
I’m looking for a job. Most people know that, but 1 of might not, and since there’s a readership of about 9 people on this blog, that’s 10% of my readership that was uninformed. I just couldn’t have that, now could I?
In my job search, I’ve been applying to anything and everything I can think of as a possible career option. I’m good with computers, so I even applied to be a gopher for a tech support company. I have no doubt that 70+ percent of their A+ certified tech would freak right out if a system didn’t turn on, and their treatment would consist of switching out the motherboard and formatting the hard drive (loosing all of your data in a way Windows only dreams about). They wouldn’t even think to check the ribbon cable (one of the most simple and inexpensive fixes for a non-POSTing comp)
But my real goal here in the ATL is to be a designer. What pisses me off, though, is the number of employer that think they have the ONLY shop in the world that deals with tight deadlines and budget concerns. Every designer lives under threat of deadline. It’s the nature of the beast in almost any service industry postition.
It is my contention that some hiring managers and job posters think that by putting requirements like ‘must be willing to work in a deadline driven environment within budget constraints’ is some how weeding out people who don’t belong. If there weren’t deadlines, most designers I know would never get things done.
Designers love deadlines. Or, rather, we love the pressure that deadlines bring. We like the zone it puts us in. That place where, all of a sudden, the world drops away and we’re focused on the project at hand. Totally and completely given over our talents and our minds to produce something new. We get into the flow.
I bring all of this up because of because of bar-be-que.
I was talking with Josh yesterday, and I was recounting my interview at ConTech Design Group, and, more specifically my answer to one of the interview questions. I was asked to name one of my flaws.
Now, to work in any creative endeavor as a profession, most people who are honest will admit 1 thing: The all, at some point, don’t think that they’re that good at what they do. We look around and see others doing great work, and we wish we could do cool things like them. We wish we were as good as them. And so, to counter this feeling, we have to tell ourselves, to varying degrees, that we’re great. I usually tell my self I’m amazing. Because I am.
So imagine my shock when I was asked about a flaw. My first response was to say i don’t have any. I knew that was a lie (partly because everybody has flaws, but mostly because I was going to say it), so I went something more true. I said that I had a tendency to procrastinate.
I’ll give you all a moment to recover.
I told how I, in college liked to wait until the last minute to do things, and how that had caused me trouble. It was all true. I have gotten into trouble from my last minute dashes of start to finish work. And I do like to push up my deadlines in my mind in order to keep my self ahead of the game. I was honest with the interviewer. And in many ways, I see that procrastination is a bad thing.
But as Josh and I were talking, we began to explore our own moments of waiting until the last minute. I realized that it was these times of focus that helped us each produce some of our greatest work. I wrote all of my college research papers the night before. Every single one of them. I and got really good grades on them too. I would read some basic information on the topic before hand, and let it sit in the back of my mind for a day or ten, and when it was time to write the paper, I would sit down, do the research to find what I needed, and then write the paper. All in one night. I was good at it.
Josh tells of similar events. He did a lot of work last minute. We both got diplomas. We graduated, and we carried our procrastination into the real world.
Did that hurt us?
I don’t think so. Because now, when were are faced with a last minute assignment, it feels like just another thing we put off until the last minute. Now the feeling of pressure is generated from a deadline driven environment, and not born of our own procrastinatory nature. I could argue, pretty well I might add, that by putting things off in college, and by putting ourselves into stressful, last minute situations in school, we were training ourselves to deal with the real world. I’ve been in the situation where the day looks done, and, at the last hour, the phone rings. Now, all of a sudden, instead of the day ending, I’m heading back to my computer to put together an ad or a graphic, or an animation. All because somebody else didn’t plan ahead.
Because of my in-school training on how to deal with last minute work, I am now able to easily finish this new assignment with little trouble. By not listening to my mother and my teachers, I have learned to deal with the stresses of a creative service career. Even love them. Because I do love the stress and the fear and the anxiety that goes along with being given an assignment that looks way to big. I enjoy being given the choice of curling up in the corner to sob myself into a fitful sleep, or taking a deep breath, clearing my mind and going to work.
Everyone who works in a creative service job works in a deadline driven world. That’s part of the reason we got into it. Whether we know it or now, we love the stress. It feeds us. And it’s the things we make under these extraordinary conditions that we are usually the most proud of. And it’s really fun.
