This is a true story. Descriptions of companies, clients, schools, projects, and designers may be altered and anonymized to protect the innocent.
Editor: The conclusion of "Family Man's" cross-country tale! After he confronts his boss about shorting him on his salary, said boss suddenly drags him into another ID firm that shares the same building. How is this going to be a solution?
"[Jimmy the Bear], this is [Family Man]," Batcopter Boss said, introducing me. "He's a talented designer. And right now he needs some extra work."
I didn't need extra work, as far as I was concerned; I needed to be paid the correct amount for the work I was already doing. But I kept my mouth shut for a second, to see just what the hell was going on here.
Jimmy the Bear got up and came around from behind the desk to shake my hand. I call him Jimmy the Bear because that's what he looked like: A big, bearded gentle giant type, who moved and even blinked ponderously and deliberately. "How are you doing, Family Man," he said, encasing my hand in his huge mitt. "So what's your skillset?"
Batcopter Boss excused himself while I ran down my list of credentials. Jimmy motioned for me to follow him back out through the door and into yet another office.
In this room two guys were sitting in front of some monitors. They looked pretty young, I had at least ten years on both of them. On a large table against one wall were some drawings for the coffeemaker I'd seen the other guy working on in the model shop. Jimmy started describing where they were in the project and what more needed to be done, quizzing me on various parts of the drawings; I offered input and pointed out something on one of the drawings that I thought would be a problem to mold.
Underneath the messy stack of drawings was something that didn't match, and I pulled it up to ask about it. They were drawings for a toy design, another ID area I had experience with. Soon Jimmy and I were talking about that project too. Now here's the thing: At that point I didn't have a lot of money, I didn't have a lot of what I considered professional respect or renown, but I definitely had a shitload of experience. And in that 15 minutes, Jimmy saw it—because next thing I knew, he was asking me how I'd like to head those two projects up. A half an hour ago, he didn't even know my name.
(more...)
