Technical Difficulties

Q: Did you try rebooting it?
A: Um… no.

I'm not sure sometimes whether people just don't get it, or just don't care. Specifically, I'm talking about professional ignorance - or stupidity - depending on your mood and disposition. Some days I feel like I'm drowning in it. It's spectacular, the amount of times that I'm caught off guard by a stupid question.

Lemme rephrase a little: There is no such thing as a stupid question. The stupid comes in when you don't ask, or you just go about your day with out deductive reasoning. Today I explore the latter.

As a graphic artist, my job isn't inherently "technical." We're not reconfiguring servers or debugging raw code or anything. My company employs around thirty graphic artist and designers, most of us in a production-based environment. We take client-supplied mockups and loose digital elements, or press-ready digital files, and turn them into a final printed piece. A certain amount of eduction and experience is required, granted, but it really isn't that hard.

Most of the graphic artists I work with have some level of schooling in the field. Many are currently students, taking classes on design, or recent grads looking to get their feet wet in the industry. I'm in the minority in this aspect, having no formal training whatsoever, just a lot of on-the-job experience. I hunkered down and found mentors, listening diligently to everything they'd be willing to teach me.

Maybe that's the difference between us, the thing that urks me day in and day out. Is there a day that you consciously decide that your education's over? Get yourself a BA and that's that? I've learned everything I need to know, so I'm done?

I've become the resident expert in my department, the guy that the manager asks if he can't figure something out. In the past couple of years I outgrew my job, and a new job description was literally invented to encompass all the things that I do. I'm an unofficial lead, and with that comes the answering of questions and the dispensing of advice. It's a great thing, especially when you consider that the company that I work for is really something special (something I'll talk about in future installments), and every day in my little cubicle is different and invigorating.

We're not drowning in monkeys, let me be clear. There's just a handful, most of which just mindless work through the day on auto-pilot. Every job's got that, I'd imagine. The rest of the staff is great, engaged and full of great ideas.

I gave a class a couple weeks ago, brushing up the staff on some fundamentals. Two or three artists at a time, about an hour each session, all told about a full week's worth of non-stop training. I got questions two days later on things I've covered extensively in the classes.

And then there's today. I was honestly stunned by a question I got. How could you work here and NOT know that?

Tomorrow will be better.