You know in the movies when someone gets a letter in their mailbox from their dream college, then runs into the house into their room, jumps onto their bed and anxiously rips it open? That's me when my Communication Arts comes in. Okay maybe not quite that dramatic, but close. Anyways, this month i was happy to receive the Advertising Annual packed full of articles written just for me.
An article by Ernie Scheneck wistfully called The Six Inches in Front of Your Face caught my eye first.
"This is a killer time to be in this business. And I don't mean that in a good way. A lot of really talented people are on the streets. In the coffee shops. In bookstores and libraries. Networking. Making calls. Scraping by. Cashing in their 401(k)s. Laying awake at night. Wondering when the nightmare is going to end.
"Maybe you're one of those people. Maybe it's with mixed emotions that you're looking through the pages of this year's Advertising Annual. All that great work. All that heaviness in your heart."
Now I can't relate exactly, because I'm not a lifer in the Ad industry that's been layed off and has to fight to get my life back. But i can understand.
Another one reads:
"During the recent economic downturn, designers fresh out of school, as well as experienced designers without jobs, have had to look for avenues outside of design to support themselves. The overall economy is improving, but it has not generated jobs Even jobs for hosts and servers in restaurants are difficult to find."
Now that one hits close to home.
Being out of work is scary. I try to stay lighthearted about it, knowing i don't really have it ALL that bad, and that my parents would rather send me some money to get by then see me be evicted, but it's still scary. I'm pretty sure I had more money in the bank before I was born than I do now, and at times when not even Coffee Bean is hiring It's tough to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
It's surprising to me how fast the days go, being unemployed. The last few days have especially flown because I've finally been making progress on my website. I don't know exactly how my 'breakthrough' came about but I'm beyond happy it came when it did.
When i first got out to California in November I was determined to finally make a website. I thought being away from the distractions of my comfortable home and friends would give me what I needed to get myself in gear. In my head I envisioned a fancy flash site complete with fade-ins and fade-outs and words that flip upside down when you click on them. Armed with my my huge Adobe Flash CS3 Linda Tutorial book and trusty YouTube "how to make a flash site" videos in my bookmarks, I boldly set out to build my website. I must have designed and organized and built and reorganized and redesigned and began and deleted and began again a thousand times, as days turned into weeks and frustration turned into stress which turned into me contemplating a field where you don't need a website to apply for a job.
All the while, mind you, my savings account is continuing to dwindle. Finally, one day I stumbled upon carbonmade, a host portfolio sight that saved my sanity. I could upload my work to this site, then as I applied to jobs I would just explain that my real site was in the works, and you can view my work here for now. That would buy me some time, and I could keep applying for jobs. So that worked out for me, for a while, but flash wasn't coming any easier. Friends and family were still asking me, "soo, have you found a job yet?". My answer was still "well, not exactly..".
A couple small freelance gigs here and there, but not enough to pay rent. (Or shop anywhere besides the 99 Cent store, for that matter.)
At some point I had the "epiphany" that I'll need to get creative. That, due to the economy, I'd have to take some time off the hunt for the perfect graphic design job and head back into the restaurant industry. With the unconditional support of my all-too-forgiving parents I went back to "school" to earn a Bartending degree, to no avail (yet). When i saw serving jobs were suddenly not easy to get, college degree or not, I went back to "school" again, online, to learn how to build a website. I thought, if only I could get a website up, then i could make business cards with my URL, THEN i could start networking and getting my name out because I would actually have a website. THEN i could actually start applying for jobs, instead of hunting online day in and day out and sheepishly sending my host portfolio website because I couldn't build one on my own. I thought, if i have a website up I can start walking into doors of ad agencies and design firms and dropping off a resume in person, beaming because it had MY url on it - www.MYNAME.com - and surely if i could create a website, i'm deserving of a position.
So maybe it's not that easy. But i will say, with the help of my online course and the discovery of a more advanced hosting website that allows custom HTML and CSS, I'm definately making progress, and I haven't been this excited in a long time.
Now at this point you may be thinking: "You majored in Graphic Design and it took you this long to build a website?". But let me have my moment. Years, even months from now, I'm going to look back and laugh at myself, and probably at the website that currently lies at my domain name, but right now I'm beyond proud of my little accomplishment. It's a mere step towards what I want to accomplish, but it's a step I took and figured out all on my own (and with a little help of online forums). And to quote back to Scheneck's article, "Inches, friends, Inches."
So with that said, check me out at www.kaititucker.com. And if you hear of any openings for a bartending position, let me know.
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