What We Have Here Is Failure To Communicate
Occasionally, I have a friend/relative/acquaintance/total stranger who finds out what I do for a living, and they realize “Hey! Captive audience!” The gears start turning about a particular photo/project/scrapbook something-or-other they’ve tried to work on at home with no luck, so they want my “expert” advice on how to fix it.
Generally, I hate these questions. Especially when they start out with, “Hey, do you use Adobe?”
“Adobe what?”
“You know, Adobe… I have Adobe on my computer and I want to (insert graphic request here). I can use Adobe for that, right?”
And that’s when I take a deep breath because everyone is not a graphic designer with 12 years of experience, and they just don’t understand that the question they’re asking is funny. I used to go DIVA on these people, like, duh…. but as I age I realize there are a lot of things I don’t know anything about and I’m sure I’ve asked some silly questions myself that made a seasoned professional laugh at me.
But there is a point where I realize that I don’t know how to, say, fix my car… at that point I let a professional handle it. I do not go to a mechanics shop, grab a wrench, and proceed to ask him how to fix my car in his shop, correcting him at his own trade when I think I might have a “better” suggestion.
The bad thing about my profession is the fact that PC’s are so accessible, and the general public thinks that Microsoft Word is a perfectly capable graphics program. They don’t understand the dynamics of PostScript, the temperament of a RIP, and the complex process of imaging out process color to plates. They don’t understand that just because something looks good on the Internet, that doesn’t mean it will make a great brochure. They don’t get the concept of resolution. They think because they have a paint program on their computer, that they can do what I do….
And that drives me crazy.
Yesterday, I came home to find an old client on my doorstep. I actually stopped working for her because she was a “nudger.” (Nudgers are people who will nudge design elements around the screen for HOURS, only to return the item to the original position. Ack.. I just had an aneurysm thinking about it.) She wasted so much of my time that eventually I told her that I just didn’t need her money. Because let’s face it, there is no dollar amount worth your sanity. So at that point, she decided to buy the software and do it herself.
Well, now she wants me to teach her how to use it.
She is an incredibly bright individual, and I don’t doubt that I can teach her how to use these programs in due time, but she has a project due to press in three days. This is like shoving a person out of a 747 and telling them, “okay, FLY!”
And right now, that seems like a perfectly feasible solution to her request.
May 14th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Tell her as long as she has MS Publisher and MS Paint she should be in the clear. I mean, that is what all the professionals use…
May 14th, 2008 at 8:01 am
If this didn’t hit so close to home I wouldn’t have said something. My pet peeve is, “Oh I use Microsoft, do you use Microsoft?” My first response is, “Microsoft what?” Because, ya know, if you can’t pick one product out of about 500, you deserve to hear that.
And on the education part, I usually just say, “Oh, I usually buy the ‘Dummies’ books and learn from there.” Which is true.
~Jef
May 15th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Okay, so first of all, this is why I don’t like doing freelance work. Give someone one miracle and the next thing you know, they think you’ve got miracles to spare. First it’s that water to wine thing and then they expect you to do the loaves and fishes trick.
What’s worse, though, is when they ask you something far, far outside your expertise. My deal is servers and networking, but I’m forever getting these questions about why Word works the way it does. Or, even worse, someone will ask me why the Internet is slow.
I usually just mutter something about sunspots, then point over their shoulder and yell “Hey, look! It’s Wayne Newton!” When they turn to look, I run.