Employers: why your designers are leaving you

If more than 2 freshly-hired designers have quit the same job in less than half a year in the same company, you know what to do – run! Who cannot relate to extremely bad working experiences?

Okay designers, its one thing where the world does not understand your job, but it’s another where the boss refuse to understand your job at all. Hear that, employers?

While employers who are creative directors are much more able to understand the designer in a rightfully relevant manner, the issue here are with bosses who have no background in design or understanding of design. What makes you think that design is an easy job? If it is, I would not have needed to spend a few grand at a design school for bloody 4 years! Microsoft Word should have been my instant magic wand to easy money, right? Actually, Microsoft Word is blasphemy in the design community. Not even in-house studios of famous MNCs use that for their newsletters!

Pardon me, but allow me to rant my 2 awful working experiences with inexperienced non-design-savvy bosses here.

The first experience was while I was working in London as an in-house magazine designer. It was for a dual-language luxury magazine. By the time I was granted a job there, as many as 10 people had already left the company, being hired and replaced by another. This was going on for some time, but as a fresh graduate with a naive desire of getting my first full-time job, I did not know any better. My taste buds were not yet seasoned to understand the mechanics of office politics. The moment I was hired, the graphic designer who was to be my senior, left immediately and with a smile, for she had planned it some time ago to leave right after the new recruit came in. Instantly, I became the sole designer (and 3rd replacement) of the fledgling company, and in less than 2 weeks, was sabotaged by the unrealistic demands and exploitation of the 2 owners of the company.

I discovered that I was not the only unhappy one. The rest of the colleagues were regularly complaining about their jobs and the 2 bosses. We were underpaid and overworked. The 2 bosses argued in front of us, and displayed childish behavior of throwing tantrums and cursing at each other, not to mention their ill manners towards their employees.

Without brand guidelines, every magazine issue became a playground for them. Their prototype was also their finished product. The first issue received a bad review on the internet regarding their inconsistent layout and content. It was not the previous designer’s error, obviously. Yet, they refused to repent. Their logo, though designed 6 months ago, needed change again…the 3rd time, I heard. Using 3 fonts or less were frowned upon. Their preferences changed like a flickering switch, initially loving very much the new layout, before demanding for multiple changes each time after their repeated sightings of a new layout bore them. Their constant referrals to their competitors meant ripping of layouts rather than creating their own identity, and their differing cultural and racial backgrounds meant their design preferences were worlds apart with little hope of reconciliation, leading to a disastrous design fusion that resembled Tatler bathed in cheap Chinese tea egg soup broth. This resulted in insurmountable delays of the publication. All mistakes were the employees’, never theirs. Our professional advice which could have saved them tonnes of shame and money were frequently pushed aside.

Some of their most memorable quotes included:

“I read somewhere that in all magazine covers, the face of the model turns towards the left. Go back and read your design textbook!”

“(Laughs)…consistency? Maria, don’t be in a box, be creative.”

“This looks simple…I also can do!” (then why hire a designer?)

“£200 per day?!! That’s means I must be underpaying Maria (£200 per week)! Ha! Let’s get this interviewee in just to take a p***!”

Needless to say, within 2 months, I quit the job. Non of the colleagues remained as well. The next designer hired right after me went through the same fate before leaving the job in less than a month.

My next stint was not any better, though much more tolerable. Again in-house, this time as a web designer and product photographer in Singapore for a new luxury online store. The good thing was I was paid reasonable wages. The store had enormous help and investment from a big national company here.

My few months with them was pretty enjoyable, and the colleagues seemed sociable and friendly despite the 2 cliques that were forming – the boss and the management team vs the studio team (developers and designers). As the workload got heavy, I requested for additional help, which the boss eventually did. Due to her young entrepreneurial leadership skills and lack of understanding on design, the boss was keen on hiring part-time a schooling 16-year-old to help out (despite my horror) as “he is good with Photoshop and video”. The young lad’s lack of attention to detail and experience, and little time for the job meant me staying up late nights re-doing his digital imaging (D.I) works. On the insistence of my request for a full-time professional, the boss finally hired a fresh graduate on board. The junior designer was a great help along side, for both photography and graphic design, even though photography was not our fields of expertise, yet we managed to meet every deadline and did a fairly good job in coming up with the work. Since she had little working experience, I had to guide her and spend more time double-checking her work before sending them off for publishing. One of the developers, whose years in web exceeded ours, helped out in the design too.

The downside was not only were we overloaded as the boss refused to dispense additional budget on the right people (choosing multi-taskers rather than specialists), there were no brand guidelines to establish the road path for the studio. We were told to come up with web banners and photography styles that “look good”. The atrocious use of more than 3 fonts, the differing photography style for each web banner, the unnecessary glowing edges around the fonts, and the eye-sore adoption of different button structures plus low-quality images led me to protest (in a gentle manner, of course), to the surprise of the “design is easy, everybody can do” management team. I was free to offer 4 years of professional design advice to the team, or so I thought.

The tables turned on me in less than 6 months, when the boss summoned me to her office. A surprising wave of revelations spewed from her mouth regarding my “performance and behavior”, information shared to her from her management clique, who never once mentioned any dissatisfaction to me first-hand. The nice, angelic-faced boss whom I thought I knew revealed an unprofessional and childish demeanor; she’d rather believe her clique than my innocence. She vented her frustration as to why I had to re-shoot the products (which is apparently common according to insiders of this industry) and spend so much time in D.I rather taking one perfect shot that required little or no D.I, accusing me of being “unproductive” as a result despite my explanations that each of the studio team member was taking double the load.

“The freelance photographer at _______ can deliver the finished 100 images in 2 days. Why can’t you?”, she added, unaware of her unreasonable comparison of a graphic designer who only started intense product photography in 4 months to a professional photographer with years of experience and expertise, who since being able to work from home, can work fast and freely without any interference of additional projects.

She then went on to compare how the developer could deliver web banners with the look she wanted (yucks!), oblivious to the fact that the developer was told detail by detail on what to do by another amateur in her clique, while no communication regarding changes were fed to me at that time. I, the “lead designer” – as she puts it, had no say whatsoever while her hand-picked batch had every right to interfere with their “holier than thou” advice because “our friends like this and that” and “I have seen how the photographer did it”. Our once-a-week meetings became non-existent, leading to a massive communication breakdown. Even the director from a branding company they outsourced was having a tough time coaxing them to remain consistent in their identity. Their “yes” to him became a “no” once he left, and I can’t recall how many dozens of times they have changed the defining design elements due to their refusal to heed our advice.

She exclaimed: “I thought you were a team player, but I am shocked!”…. excuse me? Further on, she explained her initial, exploitative intention not to employ anyone else except me to do everything (photography, web and print design), expressing her disappointment that I was “not fast as she would have liked”. Without experience in such an industry, she did not realise how common it was to hire many designers and photographers for the workload she was assigning.

Despite me having met every deadline imaginable, and spending awful amounts of O.T without pay, her only gratitude was emailing me and a management team member of the big investor company regarding my “unreasonable attitude and dismal performance”. It took me some time to digest before I replied a long email detailing the miscommunication and correcting her understanding of our studio’s job scopes and the work overload – much to her surprise. Knowing that my reply was CC-ed to the upper management team member, she replied curtly and shortly that she stands by her conclusion and that of her clique’s “observations”, without concrete back-up, of course. Apart from accusing me of talking condescendingly to my other member (which he admits I never did) and stating that I have been over-domineering towards everyone (she claimed people tried to tell me but were too afraid, which the former never did happen), the boss’ asserted: “I call the shots here!”.

Yeah..whatever..

Her growing favouritism of her own clique and their gossips were getting too unbearable, despite her little pets becoming more over-domineering, interrogative and unreasonable (she dismissed their attitudes as exuding “family atmosphere”) in their demands towards the studio. The junior designer was also getting uncomfortable about the whole thing. I could no longer tolerate the disrespectful ordering of us to commit design fornication. I deserved better than that. Within a week, I handed in my resignation with a wider grin than usual over my face on my last day.

Oh, happy days!

The boss decided to hasten my resignation, much to my delight. She ended with a comment: “I can tell you have never worked with clients before.”

???!!

Lady, you have NOT read my CV clearly, and to you, any Tom, Dick or Harry who states “photography”, “design”, “Microsoft Word”, whatever in their CV regardless of level is a “pro” to you, but I decided not to waste time debating with you. Want to pay cheap? Expect cheap!

Soon after I left, the junior designer left too, and rumours abound that the new recruit was having a hard time. The last time I checked, they changed their outlook again, resembling very much like their competitor whom they regularly refer like a main textbook. O well, I could not care less to associate myself with them anymore.

To conclude, both my experiences had recounting similarities which eventually made me wiser when it came to job-hunting. I made sure from now on, I won’t blindly pick any job for the sake of $$. I’d rather pursue happiness than to lose my sanity in such bewildering settings.

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