I'm married to my work and that's the only union I'll ever be coerced into joining. The sites I create are like children...I care for them but they're time-consuming and a huge nuisance. Then another designer was brought in and brought with him his ugly ways and now the children have become ugly step-children that nobody likes or wants.
I love analogies. One of my bosses described our company in a nutshell by saying, "Our CEO is driving the bus with all of us in it and the tire pops. While we're scrambling to fix it, the CEO is still driving and telling us "c'mon! let's go". I may have butchered it but when my boss said it, it made all the sense in the world.
For several months now I've been thinking about my future and my future with the company I work for. There are definite pros and cons, where some days the cons outweigh the pros and vice versa. I've made a lot of friends and they're not just people I work with as a team, but other coworkers outside of our bubble. I'd like to say I have no enemies, but that kinda changed when the new designer came. When he interviewed I thought to myself, I could really get along with this person. I've never been so wrong in my life. There's a lot of stress and pressure at work but I can handle that. I cannot, however, deal with him. At first I wondered if I felt threatened, and I realize it was the other way around. Where do I even begin?
On his second week here, he already took 2 days off to go to Coachella. What's wrong with that you say? Well, for starters, it's the FIRST two weeks, and let it be known, on my 2nd week here, the designer before me was fired and I had to take up all responsibilities. You don't take days off when you start work unless it's a dire emergency, and that was not an emergency. But to his detriment, the one huge ongoing project he was hired for was given to me because he was out enjoying music in the desert. And now, he's never been given the project again and I know he is upset, but probably blames me for stealing it when in fact he screwed himself over. Also, that was his one chance to prove to the higher ups if he was all that and a bag of chips (I know, cheesy but it is 5 AM after all), but he missed the opportunity.
He's a rude sonuvabitch. Unprofessional, stubborn, hot-headed, dense, not funny, annoying as hell, and the funniest thing someone told me in years was that when he got a haircut, he looked like a lesbian. I'm sorry, but he did. Anyway, he acts like he's going to change the world at work, but he doesn't know that he has really no power to do anything. You have to earn it by working hard and improving yourself, and not by just complaining and doing shitty design. I gave him a piece of his own medicine by treating him the way he treats others and he didn't like it one bit. He didn't talk to me for the longest time and only communicated through IM. I should be more rude coz then he'd stop invading my personal space by coming over unannounced all the time.
He also aggressively pursued a coworker. I understand he's probably looking for friends since he's new in town, but you don't pursue a coworker especially when you're new and you have idea that there are company rules against it. Or at least don't be so damn obvious about it. I'm just going to leave that subject because it's not my business.
So, back to the issue of him being threatened by me. The unfortunate thing is, he was hired to "manage" the design team. And the more unfortunate thing is he has no communication skills or leadership skills. There's a lot of drama and stress in leading and I don't particularly like dealing with it, but when I did it on my own, it brought me closer to other departments. I just didn't like how I couldn't really concentrate on my work while having to make sure everything and everyone was getting their stuff done. Also, his job is to delegate projects equally, but he was basically taking all of the big ones (and small ones when he had time) so that I was pretty much left with nothing. I could understand that he wanted to try everything and get the hang of things but when people were giving projects and specifically requesting for me and then he would just take them was just not right. At first I was ok with it because I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but there was just one incident where he just backhandedly just took something away and gave me something shitty instead. Luckily, his 3 month review was right around the corner so I let them know what I thought. I also took a vacation so I left with a sort of peace of mind.
I came back and he was creating some mockups for some banner but I could tell by looking at them that my boss just wouldn't like it, and my boss didn't. So he asked me if I could try a version, probably thinking that they would just reject mine too, but turns out my boss ended up choosing mine. Later I heard he got really upset over it and didn't talk to anyone for over an hour. Not my fault, he asked me to try it and I did, so it's not my fault they chose mine.
So I started to work separately from him (because I was now given the task of that first project he totally screwed himself over) and I stopped doing the work I normally did which was maintain the current graphics on the site. Then people started to ask me "Did you do this?" and I'd look at what they were referring to and say no. They'd tell me "good, because it's horrendous." For someone who calls himself the "lead" designer (yes that's on his web site. I've worked there for almost 2 years and also was the sole designer for 1.5 years and never called myself anything other than a designer) he sure can't design. I understand it takes awhile to get used to a place and how they work, but he went from impressing us to just WTF work. He needs to take every 101 design class there is. I'm not saying I was the greatest and when I first started, I'm sure I was pretty horrible too, but that's also because I was asked to create hundreds of graphics in three days plus revisions coming in constantly. And I know they were horrible, I admit them. But he has no excuse. He has a 1/3 of what I used to get so he should take more time, but he doesn't. He's very fond of this "gray horizon" line he slaps on everything. That essentially is all he does for everything. He should trademark it.
His design work is getting so bad that a lot of people are noticing. I just got an email from my boss to make to sure keep fonts consistent, and I checked out the example she gave and there was nothing in there that I did. And today, I heard that he had been super frustrated at my boss from not hearing back on some redesign mockups and the reason was that it was so bad my boss just didn't know what to say and was trying to avoid him. But I guess he hounded my boss so much that he just told him he didn't like it and he had no other comments. That totally made my day. I'm sorry, I'm normally not like that. I don't enjoy seeing someone's self-esteem being crushed but given all the other things about him, he deserves it. He was walking all high and mighty around here thinking he could be an asshole to everyone when things didn't go his way so I'm all for people getting their comeuppance. Basically everyone has told me to let him embarrass himself. I used to worry that he would reflect badly on our team, but I've been assured that he and I are nothing alike. I've taken their advice and stayed cool and kept my distance and it's surely showing. By comparison, it's actually elevated what people think of me because he's so awful. People continue to request for projects through me even though they are supposed to go to him first, and while they know that, they still ask me first.
And I know that makes his blood boil.
The only improvement I had in my review was to make our team grow stronger. The more I thought about it, the less promising it seemed. They want to create a "design cave" and I absolutely would go batshit if I had to sit next to him. His constant chatter, laughing at stupid things and forcing me to think it's funny, always looking at my screen for no reason, always invading my space, and smoker breath. So there's an opportunity to join marketing, which would mean I wouldn't have to work with him. Marketing wants me too so it makes things a little easier. The difficult part is the current department I work with would not be happy. But, it's either me getting so fed up and leaving the company or just being moved. I really can't see myself working there for long if I have to continue to work with him.
So there will be a big conversation with the boss man tomorrow. I'm a little nervous, a little excited. I'm known to be pretty passive...I'm the type that says "ok" to everything but they said I needed to be assertive if I wanted to get what I wanted or needed. I've noticed that since I have been more assertive, there has been definite improvement.
If this works, it's a I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE moment.
