The joys of simple work.

So creatively speaking the past few weeks have been fairly boring, but I’ve been busy. It’s been mostly mindless Photoshop work; silhouetting, touching up photos, cropping, color corrections, the whole bit.

As lackluster as it may be to some, I actually enjoy it for a simple reason: this kind of work doesn’t have the creative pressures that some jobs do. I know that might sound to be the opposite of what a creative developer should be saying, but this kind of work gives my mind a chance to relax, which is nice. I think on occasion, we all need to take a step back and breathe; but with that being said, I’d probably go nuts if I had to do this kind of work 100% of the time— there is nothing like the joy of creation.

Another added benefit to these low level stress gigs is that it’s really fun to interact with the client at this level because it’s a little more causal. I feel that with this setting I get to know the clients more as people, rather than just clients, which is nice. People fascinate me and always will; the more people I get to know, the better I understand myself and the world.

For instance last week I was working with a print designer out of NYC. She had fallen a little behind on her schedule and needed to find someone to silhouette a bunch of images that were going to be placed inside of a magazine. She ended up hiring me.

Right away I could tell she was a little stressed and rightfully so; she had a looming deadline, and ton of work ahead of her. At that point, I realized that although my “job” was just to silhouette images, the more important thing was my responsibility to alleviate some of that stress.

Rather than worrying about terms, payment, and workload, I put all my focus on getting the job done for her as quickly as possible. I realize that this approach runs the risk of being taken advantage of; but over time (and a few bad burns) I’ve developed a nose for sniffing out who’s going to stick me and who’s not. This route of placing trust in people can be risky business, but in the end, after it all works out, even if you’ve been burnt a thousand times, the benefits make it worth it; for in trust, there lies endless potential to opportunity unknown.