I’ve worked in the Web Design/Development industry since 1997. In this decade, I have had the opportunity to work with some wonderful organizations on a vast array of projects from the very small, to the very large. I’ve had the opportunity to design some of Australia’s most visited websites - from the sporting field to the music industry. Also over the past few years, I had the chance to work for my own design and development company which unfortunately closed throughout the middle of last year. I can’t even begin to put into words just how much I miss that ‘being-your-own-boss’ experience I can assure you.
In this past decade I have also had the opportunity to collaborate with some of the most amazing talents in this field and also the occasional clown who would be better off managing a car-park. It’s the nature of the industry but when you do happen to encounter these losers, it can turn your world upside down. Having said that, I have just quit a company who I was working for over the course of the last month. The entire experience was as close to ‘Web Design Hell’ as one could get. It was awful. I tried and tried to give it my absolute best but all I managed to receive in return is deception and incompetence.
The warning bells sounded off in my initial interview with these guys, but I foolishly didn’t listen to my gut intinct and in turn all I could hear was the lure of the promised salary package. (as you do!) So after a series of interviews, I decided to sign on the dotted line.
First day at the job I was immediately provided with a ‘brief’ to tidy up the previous designer’s banner ads. These were riddled with typos and as per my instructions, I tidied up what needed to be. By the end of that day, the ‘brief’ had changed shape and I had now produced close to 60 banner ads. I was instructed to ‘try this font, change this pic, go back to that font’. Two days later, I found myself repeating stuff over and over and the simplest of tasks had now become a major operation. There wasn’t much lip left to bite as I had bitten mine raw. I could not believe that after my first day at work - I was miserable. I don’t mind hard work, in fact, I adore it - but when you are repeating stuff over and over to the whim of a ‘project manager’ and a company director that have no idea… one gets a little frustrated.
My next project was to begin work on a full-blown website. I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into this as I thoroughly enjoy the site creation process. It’s what I love to do. I received my brief and began work. I worked my fingers to the bone. In the space of 3 days, I had produced close to 15 Photoshop mockups for them to chew over. 15! Adhering to the original *approved* brief, I felt I had captured exactly what they were after. And then the goal posts got shifted. Again and again and again. I found myself in a viscous circle of ‘adding this, removing that’ and pedantic changes that made absolutely no sense. But again, I swallowed my pride and did all that was asked of me.
And then things got ridiculous. As the site was nearing its deadline date, I had produced templates for the various aspects of the site with enough dummy content to give the programmer enough fuel to complete the project. The site was to be a large database driven site with a ton of dynamic content et al. Even with solid content and direction for the dev team - the company director wanted more. With only two days before launch, he wanted HTML mockups of the entire site. The entire site! It would take days to do this and was/is a completely redundant time wasting process. Nonetheless… I did it. 100’s of HTML static versions of the site were produced. I worked my ass off.
It was at this point the dev team told me I shouldn’t have done all that work. That it was unnecessary. No shit!
But there’s more to this merry tale of mismanagement and mirth! In between the impending deadline, I was instructed by the ‘project manager’ to “drop everything and work on this flash based intro” for one of their clients. Basically the job entailed adding some new scenery to an existing Flash movie. Easy work. Even for me whose Flash skills are minimal. So I asked for the original source FLA files to work with. With that on board, I could finish this job within the hour. Well… there was no original FLA. No where. This meant the entire movie would have to be recreated. An easy job had become a major ordeal. There was no way I could do this and complete my responsibilities on the site I was working on. Impossible. I had to out-source the Flash work and pay for it out of my own pocket. Explain that to me.
And this wasn’t the final straw. That came a couple of days later. I was asked at the daily 8.30am wankfest how many more days I would require for completion of my work on the site. I said I would need at least 2 to 3 days. A puzzled, concerned response came from the company director. He asked me what I had been working on that caused these delays. I annoyingly mentioned the Flash movie and the entire day I lost collating source materials from their piss poorly organized servers to outsource the job whilst I worked on the site. (The site require a blog and forum which I told the dev team I would handle so I could lessen their workload). The blog and forum required PHP and MySql to be installed on the Dev server. I requested that these be put into place weeks ago. They hadn’t. Add to this that the building was without net access for 2 days, I lost valuable time in getting the appropriate software and configuring it all.
And on and on it went. Daily. Shitful days each and every day that left me wallowing in a sea of misery at the end of everyday. Exhaustion. Bitterness. Depression. These were my daily companions. Groundhog Day everyday with mismanagement and absurdities repeating themselves constantly. The simplest of tasks became a major ordeal and as attractive and needed the salary was… I had to leave this organization before losing my mind.
Trust me on this, I am only skimming the surface of how bad this experience all was. I could go on but I will leave it at that and learn from the outset, to trust and listen to my gut-instinct from hereon!
Wow! Congratulations on getting out of there. I hope something better is next.
Just a question, I know it’s slightly off-topic…are you at all worried they’ll come here and see what you wrote? I guess since you don’t work there anymore, they can’t fire you. Just curious if you are (or should be) concerned. I wonder the same when I write about an employer.
This sounds truly terrible man! I went though similar experiences before I left my job last year but not quite on the same level. And I sensed things were bad about 4 months into the job but stayed another 8(!) so I could at least chalk up a year industry experience on my resume.
Piss poor management is usually the cause of web site failures and poor worker job satisfaction. You can tell pretty much from the get go whether a project manager knows what they’re doing.
As I said before, glad to hear you left when you did and moved onto greener pastures.
For one, they don’t know about this blog and if they do… I hope they DO read what I just wrote! They cultivated one of the most uninspiring and creative-devoid office environments I’ve ever set foot in. I’d have had more fun at a morgue. Whilst the ‘greener pastures’ aren’t here yet - I’m gonna do my best to get to them!
I have seen my fair share or program/project managers and marketing geeks in my career. For the most part they couldn’t find their asshole with both hands and a team of hunting dogs, but somewhere they read that they had to be proactive. WTF, proactive, being proactive is the patron saint of all fuck ups and boy don’t these losers develop selective amnesia when it comes time for them to own up to the confusion they have caused.
Good on ya for hitting the road. It is very easy to fall into the, they own you because they control your cash flow, but I bet the stress involved in working there was an order of magnitude less then trying to figure out what your next move is going to be.
D
Oh gawd the stories I could tell from only being there a month(!!!) I squirm just thinking about it all. The fact I wasted so many days re-creating null & void HTML mockups just so the director could see how the site would work… ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!! Unfucknbelievable!
I even had to resort to using *MY OWN* gear as they were too slack to get me a Mac to work on.
But, the look on their faces as I quietly packed up my stuff and left them with a ‘Later guys!’ as I walked out on that Friday… was priceless!
Wow that really sucks. But hey, screw those guys, I’m sure bigger and better things are ahead.
It’s companies with people like that that eviscerate the profession of web developer or designer of its honor. And when any self-respecting creative individual allows him/herself to get sucked into one … only for some bucks … well hell, I’ve been there and felt like such a cheap whore. No money is worth it. Think of all the artists, you know, the Hendrixes, the Pollocks, fill in your own inspirations… those guys could have ended up selling themselves off in some crotchless, antisceptic corporate wasteland, and man, I’m thankful they didn’t. ANYONE can take orders from a schmuck and keep a desk warm. Doesn’t have to be you.
Fuck em dude, go it on your own. It’s a symptom of a disease that you can be the cure for.
nice blog–
I work in IT and I can tell you, the CC field on e-mails is your best friend. If someone changes my priorities, I tell everyone affected via e-mail or in person, both what’s happening and who demanded the changes. You should have had a project manager or supervisor overseeing all of your work. That’s who should make these decisions.
You did your best…no doubt those cunts will take a dive sooner or later.
Rod, there *was* a project manager involved. That’s what makes it all the more scarier. I *always* CC everyone and anyone involved in a given project, but when the company director constantly gets involved in the creative process when he has *NFI* about it all - it gets a little irritating. When I had to try and explain the concept of CSS and Web Standards, I’d get a puzzled look back at me. And when he makes (yet another) change and the next day he forgets about ever asking you for that change and wants things reverted back… you just gotta draw the line.
Jaysus wept, that is shocking JR. I don’t know how anyone there tolerates this monster. There’s always another better job out there, it’s just not available now sadly.
You fought the good fight, dude. Many moons ago, Decibel’s parent company dabbled in web design and we found it to be a constant struggle, attempting to save the majority of these clients from themselevs. Sadly, they know what they want - even it’s fucking shortsighted and stupid. Seems like the same holds true for some of the actual design firms as well. You’ll find the right people to work with soon - your stuff it just too good.
yes well thats what i call the TOO MANY COOKS syndrome. Thats why when i shoot I keep things down to a dull roar. I even have a no boyfriends rule. To obad u had to put up with such nonsense bro!