I Am So Sick Of Being Broke

Hauling ass out of poverty is hard.

I am truly fed up with it. I trained as a graphic designer. For seven years. Two of those years I majored in Product Design. Two schools. Graduated with honors in both. Drove to NYC not knowing a soul. Worked for giant firms and tiny concerns. Many have this story.

I have been madly ambitiously furiously driven and hard working since I was sixteen. It’s brilliant right here, right now, to be on the planet. History will italicize this time. So why can I not find employment?

I live in New York. In the Bronx. Where rents are cheap. Which I am still unable to pay.I have danced my way past eviction proceedings during the course of two years and I do not do this dance lightly. Eviction means nowhere to go, no one to go to, no tools to go with. It’s one damn frightening prospect that focuses the mind, and closes one’s perimeter. It’s vital to keep the perimeter open. That’s where the doors are. One has to ignore the punch to the gut.

We eat clean and lean and costs are cut to the bone. Sold everything that had a chance of selling.Took a four bedroom house and shoehorned it into a one-bedroom apartment and it’s a whole lot cozier with less stuff. We’ve had days with no food until dinner. We’ve had nights of rice. Just brown rice. The government pays utilities.I feel profound shame being on food stamps. I shield the card in the supermarket. The idea of charity gives me the creeps, and I have taken it. OK.

No. This is not OK. This month I can’t pay Adobe, Evernote, or a month of hosting, and forget the haircut. I want work. I’m not waiting to be picked. I’m choosing as fast as I can. I’ll work anywhere, anytime.

I’d love to work with a pack of eight or six or ten people because I’ve done the solo gig for decades and it is so over. I have much to offer, I have proven it so. I send out a half dozen emails on a good day. Why not more? Each recipient is researched, blogs and tweets read, the writing is careful and personal. And short. Seldom do I get a message in return. No need I guess.

I have walked the streets of Manhattan and dropped into stores and businesses to talk to managers and, if lucky, owners. Some of this wasn’t about graphic design. It was about getting a job. Crate&Barrel, Container Store, Williams-Sonoma, odd weird stores with strange furniture. I can walk around all day in New York.

I persuaded security at 601 West 26th St to let me in. An immense and amazing building filled with some of culture’s sharpest companies. Young people in colored sneakers getting candy and soda from the hallway machines. Keeping it real. It’s just a job. The workforce is young. They don’t know it’s the best time of their lives. For that matter I could say the same about my life now. This may be what I look back on as a great period. Perspective. What will I do now that I will look back on? That’s what pushes me. My potential.

I call design shops, ad agencies,design agencies, studios, art directors. founders, and cofounders, developers and collaborative work spaces. It’s like calling Random House to sell a book. Voicemail. Or type in the first four letters of the last name of the party you are trying to reach. We’re sorry, your entry was not understood. Please try your call again. This is customer-facing service. This is UX.

I message and email Linkedin contacts I’ve never heard of, Facebook friends I’ve never followed (we all have them). It’s easy to retreat in social media. What are people looking for, staring constantly at their screens? Other people? The next big secret? Or just the next screen?

Two months ago a startup needed a logo. All was good. But I had to call their technical guy in Boston. Once, in 2001, he worked for Apple. He interrogated me about my UX experience, for nearly an hour—where might he find UX samples in my portfolio. To do a logo. This is common in the profession. I need to say no. Even when I have nothing.

Last week a client I’d been pursuing could not decide about starting work on a new logo. I made up his mind for him. I made the logo and emailed it. With no agreement, nothing verbal, let alone in writing. I know the rules. We never had a price discussion. We didn’t even have the logo discussion. His mailbox was full. He was never in. He didn’t call in response to the logo. I tried this, eyes wide open. I‘m blaming no one. I felt like an idiot. I was an idiot.

A week went by. A junior assistant wrote me an apology—his boss—so busy— would be in touch—in a day or two. Truth is, says assistant, they didn’t absolutely 100 percent love the logo. So what? Fine with me. I was trying to keep the job rolling, not looking for a bear-hug. He attached a jumble of unrelated, incoherent “reference” logos I should look at.

But that’s not all he attached.

Below those tiny jpegs was a three-day thread of internal and external emails I was never meant to see. Which told me the true story. They were after a logo for under $500—graffiti and skateboard style. For their high-end men’s fashion ecommerce site. They were floundering about, arguing internally instead of speaking to me. My notes that accompanied my artwork were a professional rationale for my design. These notes were referred to as “too much bullshit.” I’m a big boy, I can suck it up. I wrote them immediately, two lines, and said I am walking away. I wish you the best.

Huge (pun intended) Design Studios want three or four years UI or UX for a graphic design position. That’s bullshit. Particularly when the UX on the websites they create sucks, and the graphics are awful. A good graphic designer has been trained in UX, whether she may realize it or not. It’s a discipline embedded in design. Being a “designer” is very cool today. Art school not required. Everybody is a designer. Same as everybody is a photographer.

I am a graphic designer, a visual designer. I learn new software. I read books on physics and economics because I understand neither. I read about fashion and architecture because I kind of get it. PandoDaily, Business Insider, biotech, nanotech. SpaceX, X Prize, out-of-this-world engineering, conferences, lectures, debates on YouTube, and the newsletters with advice on how to get it right—till my eyes are purple and shot at midnight—all that shit.

Why? Because I never understood designers who did not read, and I never understood designers who only read about design. Or comics. Or whatever the hell their one thing is. Design is about being a wide and deep human. Period.

I’m broke. I hustle for work all week and all weekend too. I don’t live in a world that pauses for two days on Friday afternoon.

During the summer of 2013, having lost my beautiful boxer dogs five weeks apart, I stood on Broadway with a drawing board, paper, charcoal and Sharpies and did portraits of anyone who would stop for seven minutes. So I could shop for dinner. My best day — $25. Almost no-one wants to be drawn.

Or part with five bucks. Dinner was great though. I felt like an idiot once more, but I was practicing life-drawing skills. I was drawing life-learning skills.

I’m whining you’re thinking. Maybe. I’m pissed. I’m also persistent. Maybe I’m missing something obvious. I know about process. Perhaps this is my journey. Work will come my way, better yet I’m about to just make new stuff that I’ve wanted to do for some time. So make it already! Alright already.

First though, I need to keep the Marshall away from my door.

I do stop and think: Product/Market/Fit. Start there and you will dry up any drop of inspiration you woke up with. It’s VC talk. VC’s didn’t invent Twitter, or Airbnb. Play invented those. Play invented Facebook, Instagram, et al.

I no longer believe any job application site will ever drive work my way. Cancel this crap.Work is in referral. Next week I’m in court again with a landlord that has waited long enough. And I have run out of smart delays, tactics, excuses and paperwork and hype. So an eviction notice will give us five days to get out. I wrote six emails today and nothing will come back. I need to change my game. I hit the streets tomorrow in mentally generated relaxed confidence, talking and listening to anyone who will listen and talk. Keeping my eyes open. And taking pictures because that is what I am. Tom Peters calls it managing by walking around. I’ve been walking awhile.

I was never going to write this. This was never to be made public. I wanted to write something clever and slick. But last night @garyrogers got under my skin, and practically dared me to my face. So this one’s for you Gary.