Design Hell
Do you have this strong interest for design and graphics?
Do you find yourself tinkering with Photoshop and editing photos till late at night?
Have anyone told you that you are good in art/drawing/mixing colors/making sculptures with plasticine and suggested that you should be a designer?
STOP RIGHT THERE!
So you think you are good in art and everybody right down to your Art teacher suggested that you should sell your soul to Temasek Poly, NAFA, La Salle or whatever art school that is growing like toadstools in Singapore. Nobody told me about the truth of the design industry and if they did, perhaps, I would have taken a different career path. Since I don’t want you to be trapped like I am, I thought I‘d share with you my experience and shed some light to this realm of creative darkness. And hopefully, you will not make the same mistake like I did and save tons of your parent’s money that you are going to spend on countless mounting boards, Copic markers, PCs etc.
Yeah right.
So lets see.. just right after you finish toiling endless hours, doing project after project and learning all that graphic software, you finally got a piece of paper they call a Diploma.. Ahh… the farce of education. There’s so many topics to elaborate but I’ll stick to the point.
The 1st thing I notice once I got a design job is that, they don’t work the regular 8 hours. Nope not 8 to 5pm.. not even 8 to 6pm.. When crunch time comes its more like 8 to 11pm. What do I mean when I say crunch time? Crunch time is when the whole office starts to go on a frenzy because dateline is near and the we have to die-die print 10,000 pink panties brochure by Monday. (Depend on the product lah.. sometimes the brochure is about a promotion on epok-epok, sometimes its about the latest designer moth balls and now it’s a sale buy 1 get 5 free pink panties.)
Crunch time, ie working late pass 6, can go on for days to weeks and even months! Its true.. imagine coming back home late pass 9pm every single freaking day. I have the experience working for a company that I have to SLEEP in the office to get the job done on time.. Do you have any idea how it feels to SLEEP in the office? Its like the office suddenly becomes a chalet.. a chalet with work in it. And mind you, I was not alone.. I saw my co-worker sleep on his desk with his hand still holding the freaking pencil. And it was 4am. And just when I thought I am the only one working for a devil, I comprain to another designer friend that she too have to sleep in the office.. I stayed for 3 days.. she stayed for a week.
Then some ignorant guy might say..
Before I elaborate on this, I suggest you sit down. I am telling all of you design enthusiast, that there is NO OT PAY. Gasp! Is it true?! Yes it is. So technically speaking, after 6 pm, when everybody rush to get in the MRT like sardines to go home, the designer is still in front of the computer, trying to make a 1 inch by 2 inch newspaper ad look nice. And he/she have is not being paid for this time. There is a word that describes a person who is forced to work with no pay.. the dictionary call it a SLAVE.
Modern Day Slave
And when you do tell your boss about it, the best answer that he can come up with, which I have heard so far is 2.
Excuse 1: “You have no OT pay because you are an executive. And we don’t have to give OT pay to executives. I don’t know which gahmen rule says this and if it does exist I hope that whoever came up with this would rot in hell.)Excuse 2: “Please don’t be too calculative EB.. just give and take..” But he refuse to accept the fact that I have been “giving” for 3 straight days in row and he goes home every night.
Actually, to be honest, I have to tell you right now, that design.. whatever it is, is a time guzzling industry. It takes time to make an ad, an animation, a movie. If you cannot afford to pay your workers because you need him/her to stay, you can easily appease the workforce by having this thing call TIME OFF.. BUT even that they take away from you! Yup I hope you are lying down by now.. because after the designer work nights without pay, they are deprive of having quality time with their family and friends.
Aiyah… but surely your Diploma salary is high what?
Another MYTH. A pay for a designer starts at 1.3k to 1,7k. It is high compared to say, a PSLE holder who is taking home $800 a month. But if you really calculate the OT hours, the designer makes just about the same with the PSLE holder and at times worst cause at least the PSLE holder can sleep on a bed. You sleep on the company’s sofa.
I have more points to make but this post is getting too long.. I’ll write the other stuff soon.
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