can you feel the opening notes of a symphonic destruction? how do you react when you bang your fucking head against a wall for four-and-a-half years and you finally break through?
the wall shatters. the wood breaks away, weakened...
your head is sore, my god is it sore... sometimes, it was like you couldn't go on any longer. but every time you wanted to quit and instead spit on the wall and hit it just a little bit harder, you got stronger...
and finally, the fucker gave in.
and now, its wide open and clear. i can see all of the angles. i can see all of the obstacles. i have the aptitude to allude them. like a man who has mastered the principles of aikido, i slide between the challenges, i blend with my opposition and turn them against themselves, i do not waste energy...
i am alive. i am one with the world. i can move in harmony.
so many long days and sleepless, aching, heart-wrenched, gut-wired, angsty nights behind me, staring three or four inches ahead at the wall...
and now its gone. i can see clearly. and...
it is almost frightening. my heart races a little just thinking about it...
i have worked in the sign industry since june 2000, roughly 4.5 years. i have worked in 4 separate shops in two states. i have done freelance sign work for two different companies.
i dropped out of art school at the end of my freshman year. unlike many of the other kids who quit, i finished with high honors and left behind a line of teachers who were crushed to see me leave. the college system made me sick. knowing the people i went to school with were gonna be able to call themselves "artists" when they graduated made me sick.
so i left.
a few months later, i got my first sign shop job. my cousin ron was a bartender where todd, the owner of SIGNWERKS (and my future boss) would go for a beer at the end of the night. they got to talking and i ended up with a job.
i started with an x-acto knife at a production table weeding vinyl (which is to say, i pulled the excess vinyl film from the sheets of cut lettering). i did this for a few months, moving up to actually making the signs, running the vinyl cutters and designing. by the end of my first year, i would run the shop in todd's absence. he brought in a second employee, mark. mark and i took the company to a peak that it has never since attained.
i hit the place like a typhoon. a work ethic like he had never seen before. i learned the company by doing, i learned the industry by reading three years of trade magazines over the course of six months during my lunch break.
in april of 2002, after three months of me warning him that business was going downhill and we needed to start aggressively marketing ourselves, todd layed mark and i off. he replaced us with a tech school student. a fifteen year old with no design talent that he could pay three dollars less.
one of todd's favorite moves was to run and hide in the supply room when a difficult customer came in to complain about an overdue order. every now and then, he'd just yell "i'm not here!" and then run and hide.
i had lunch with todd this year. he told me that he was never able to replace me. he offered to hire me again if i wanted to move back to pennsylvania (ha).
one month after the layoff, i got my first freelance design job. i saw the layoff coming, so i started hitting the design agencies with resumes and one bit. i designed a signage campaign for a public park. nothing came of it, but i brought the job in on time and got paid.
two weeks later, i got hired by a dickhead named jack at a SIGNS BY TOMORROW franchise. he payed me 1.50 more/hour than todd did. he hired me as a shop manager, but neglected to tell me he already had a shop manager (keep in mind, jack had two employees, me and the other guy, if we are BOTH shop managers, then who the hell do we manage?).
he wanted to see some kind of darwinian competition. i didn't give him one. jack played golf all afternoon and yelled all evening and all morning of the following day. one day, he tried to yell at me. i had been listening to him call the shop manager an idiot and a retard all week... well, jack came up to yell at me and i just stood up straight and looked him in the eyes and he closed his mouth and went into his office, never said a word. i stopped coming in. i got fired.
two months later, i moved to beverly, massachusetts. i opened the yellow pages and talked my way into an interview at CAPE ANN SIGN AND SCREEN in less than a half-hour. i nailed the interview and got two dollars an hour more than i made at SIGNS BY TOMORROW.
i did not need to be trained. i started the next day and it was like i had been working there for years. i intuited the new equipment based on past experience and basically winged-it until i was fully adjusted. my vinyl alignment skills had improved to the point where i rarely needed to take measurements.
all in all, it was too frustrating. i moved faster than he could keep up with. he'd cut a couple sheets of vinyl for the day and i'd finish the whole pile in an hour or two. that was where i first learned that i had to teach myself how to move slower so my managers could keep up with me.
i quit this job. the itch to do my own work was too intense. i borrowed some money from a girl i was kissing and started a graphic design business.
i ended up doing the sign work for the scooter store that summer, burning out on my own design business again that fall and winter (2003) and then, in february of 2004, through a chance meeting with a volunteer small business counselor who had happened to advise drew (owner of INSTANT SIGN and my future boss) i ended up getting my current job.
my previous shops were one or two man operations. INSTANT SIGN had twenty employees in three departments. i interviewed for a position in every department and told them i could do anything they wanted me to do. i was hired right after my interview, and given three dollars an hour more than i got at CAPE ANN SIGN AND SCREEN.
for one year, i worked at INSTANT SIGN. it was good, it was bad, it was easy, frustrating, horribly difficult to adjust to the tediousness. all year, i worked on the scooter store in my downtime and i came very close to burning myself out again. i tried to get fired, they wouldn't fire me. i'd come in one, two three hours late and they'd just keep commending how well i did my job when i WAS there...
a few months ago, i figured i should stop being a pussy. either be a man and quit or be a man and earn your fucking paycheck. so, i started earning my money.
my boss gave me a x-mas bonus this year. nothing huge, just a couple of hundred bucks.... but, i'm a PART-TIMER. he didn't have to give me one. but he did. cuz he likes my work.
and thats when i realized, after one year of working with drew, i earned his respect. i bust my ass for him and he has my back.
after three years with the scooter shop guy, i was still in a situation where he'd pat my back with one hand and try to slit my throat with the other.
a window opened up, i made my move. my boss sold out the company to two investors, and INSTANT SIGN was now going to be run by a partnership of three men and plans were undertaken to open a second location, with a forty-employee capacity. i took two weeks and wrote a proposal asking for a promotion and a raise.
yesterday, i got it.
as of monday, i will be making more than twice what i made when i got my first sign shop. i'm a college drop out. i taught myself how to be a graphic designer, writer, illustrator and businessman. and right now i make SIGNIFIGANTLY more than my roommate, who has a nice fancy design degree and works in a print shop.
i'm not bragging. i'm just making a point. sooner or later, you bang your head against the wall long enough and don't quit, you're gonna find a soft spot (in the wall) and then you have a chance and then you take it. but, you'll never get a chance if you don't know your shit.
all of the partners agreed completely with my three page proposal. as of yesterday, i went from being a standard sign shop designer, to being the one person in charge of refining and documenting all of the operating systems and procedures of what will be a 60+ employee company in two separate locations, as well as writing, designing and illustrating training manuals, training new employees, meeting with vendors, consulting on equipment purchases, designing the company identity and reenvisioning our graphics department to focus more prominently on doing small business identity work.
i am almost terrified of what i have gotten myself into...
but, y'know, i have never been more excited at any point in the 4.5 years i've been in this business.
this is what i was built for. this is what i have been fighting for (not the promotion, that's not such a big deal, the money is nice, yeah, but what i really dig, is i am finally working for a select group of people who recognize my ability and my commitment to continued improvement AND THEY ARE LETTING ME FLEX MY HEAD!!!).
yesterday, i sat in on my first vendor meeting. my boss described me as an "apprentice" to the vendor and then, when talking about how my previous three sign shops treated me, he described the owners (my employers) as being guys who had a ferrari on their hands but wouldn't put any gas in it.
so, i guess i'm so happy, because for once, one of my employer's realized what they had on their hands, and they gave me the money, the respect, the trust and the encouragement to push with all of my will into becoming a better businessman, a better artist and a better designer.
i am where i am today, because i don't let up. i don't give a shit about the television that other people watch. i don't give a shit about the drugs they take. i don't give a shit about the alcohol they consume. i don't give a shit about the people they don't even like that they fuck. i don't care about how so many people kill themselves slowly every day and then criticize me because i don't have time for them or because i focus too much on my work...
the fifteen minutes i had with drew in his truck yesterday on the way to the bank, was worth every stupid inaninity i've ever had to listen to as it spilled out of a stupid girlfriend's mouth.
do you know why i take everything seriously? why i sometimes can't unwind? why do i work myself to exhaustion sometimes? why do i push myself so hard that i make myself sick?
because i know that my life is my responsibility. my happiness is my responsibility. not yours. not some drug's.
besides...
for the first time since i published my magazine, i am going to have enough money coming in on thirty hours of work each week that i can drop the scooter store and quit client-based graphic design for a few years until i establish myself as a comics artist and publisher.
and if that wasn't enough to put me in a good mood, i found out last night at dinner, that not only does my beautiful girlfriend have an incredibly cute bum, but she is an AMAZING cook.
***
2005: the year of jordan.
luck is bullshit.
god's plan is bullshit.
fate and destiny are bullshit.
wake up every day, stand up and fight.
if you don't quit during the hard times, you deserve to enjoy the good times.
peace-out.
the wall shatters. the wood breaks away, weakened...
your head is sore, my god is it sore... sometimes, it was like you couldn't go on any longer. but every time you wanted to quit and instead spit on the wall and hit it just a little bit harder, you got stronger...
and finally, the fucker gave in.
and now, its wide open and clear. i can see all of the angles. i can see all of the obstacles. i have the aptitude to allude them. like a man who has mastered the principles of aikido, i slide between the challenges, i blend with my opposition and turn them against themselves, i do not waste energy...
i am alive. i am one with the world. i can move in harmony.
so many long days and sleepless, aching, heart-wrenched, gut-wired, angsty nights behind me, staring three or four inches ahead at the wall...
and now its gone. i can see clearly. and...
it is almost frightening. my heart races a little just thinking about it...
i have worked in the sign industry since june 2000, roughly 4.5 years. i have worked in 4 separate shops in two states. i have done freelance sign work for two different companies.
i dropped out of art school at the end of my freshman year. unlike many of the other kids who quit, i finished with high honors and left behind a line of teachers who were crushed to see me leave. the college system made me sick. knowing the people i went to school with were gonna be able to call themselves "artists" when they graduated made me sick.
so i left.
a few months later, i got my first sign shop job. my cousin ron was a bartender where todd, the owner of SIGNWERKS (and my future boss) would go for a beer at the end of the night. they got to talking and i ended up with a job.
i started with an x-acto knife at a production table weeding vinyl (which is to say, i pulled the excess vinyl film from the sheets of cut lettering). i did this for a few months, moving up to actually making the signs, running the vinyl cutters and designing. by the end of my first year, i would run the shop in todd's absence. he brought in a second employee, mark. mark and i took the company to a peak that it has never since attained.
i hit the place like a typhoon. a work ethic like he had never seen before. i learned the company by doing, i learned the industry by reading three years of trade magazines over the course of six months during my lunch break.
in april of 2002, after three months of me warning him that business was going downhill and we needed to start aggressively marketing ourselves, todd layed mark and i off. he replaced us with a tech school student. a fifteen year old with no design talent that he could pay three dollars less.
one of todd's favorite moves was to run and hide in the supply room when a difficult customer came in to complain about an overdue order. every now and then, he'd just yell "i'm not here!" and then run and hide.
i had lunch with todd this year. he told me that he was never able to replace me. he offered to hire me again if i wanted to move back to pennsylvania (ha).
one month after the layoff, i got my first freelance design job. i saw the layoff coming, so i started hitting the design agencies with resumes and one bit. i designed a signage campaign for a public park. nothing came of it, but i brought the job in on time and got paid.
two weeks later, i got hired by a dickhead named jack at a SIGNS BY TOMORROW franchise. he payed me 1.50 more/hour than todd did. he hired me as a shop manager, but neglected to tell me he already had a shop manager (keep in mind, jack had two employees, me and the other guy, if we are BOTH shop managers, then who the hell do we manage?).
he wanted to see some kind of darwinian competition. i didn't give him one. jack played golf all afternoon and yelled all evening and all morning of the following day. one day, he tried to yell at me. i had been listening to him call the shop manager an idiot and a retard all week... well, jack came up to yell at me and i just stood up straight and looked him in the eyes and he closed his mouth and went into his office, never said a word. i stopped coming in. i got fired.
two months later, i moved to beverly, massachusetts. i opened the yellow pages and talked my way into an interview at CAPE ANN SIGN AND SCREEN in less than a half-hour. i nailed the interview and got two dollars an hour more than i made at SIGNS BY TOMORROW.
i did not need to be trained. i started the next day and it was like i had been working there for years. i intuited the new equipment based on past experience and basically winged-it until i was fully adjusted. my vinyl alignment skills had improved to the point where i rarely needed to take measurements.
all in all, it was too frustrating. i moved faster than he could keep up with. he'd cut a couple sheets of vinyl for the day and i'd finish the whole pile in an hour or two. that was where i first learned that i had to teach myself how to move slower so my managers could keep up with me.
i quit this job. the itch to do my own work was too intense. i borrowed some money from a girl i was kissing and started a graphic design business.
i ended up doing the sign work for the scooter store that summer, burning out on my own design business again that fall and winter (2003) and then, in february of 2004, through a chance meeting with a volunteer small business counselor who had happened to advise drew (owner of INSTANT SIGN and my future boss) i ended up getting my current job.
my previous shops were one or two man operations. INSTANT SIGN had twenty employees in three departments. i interviewed for a position in every department and told them i could do anything they wanted me to do. i was hired right after my interview, and given three dollars an hour more than i got at CAPE ANN SIGN AND SCREEN.
for one year, i worked at INSTANT SIGN. it was good, it was bad, it was easy, frustrating, horribly difficult to adjust to the tediousness. all year, i worked on the scooter store in my downtime and i came very close to burning myself out again. i tried to get fired, they wouldn't fire me. i'd come in one, two three hours late and they'd just keep commending how well i did my job when i WAS there...
a few months ago, i figured i should stop being a pussy. either be a man and quit or be a man and earn your fucking paycheck. so, i started earning my money.
my boss gave me a x-mas bonus this year. nothing huge, just a couple of hundred bucks.... but, i'm a PART-TIMER. he didn't have to give me one. but he did. cuz he likes my work.
and thats when i realized, after one year of working with drew, i earned his respect. i bust my ass for him and he has my back.
after three years with the scooter shop guy, i was still in a situation where he'd pat my back with one hand and try to slit my throat with the other.
a window opened up, i made my move. my boss sold out the company to two investors, and INSTANT SIGN was now going to be run by a partnership of three men and plans were undertaken to open a second location, with a forty-employee capacity. i took two weeks and wrote a proposal asking for a promotion and a raise.
yesterday, i got it.
as of monday, i will be making more than twice what i made when i got my first sign shop. i'm a college drop out. i taught myself how to be a graphic designer, writer, illustrator and businessman. and right now i make SIGNIFIGANTLY more than my roommate, who has a nice fancy design degree and works in a print shop.
i'm not bragging. i'm just making a point. sooner or later, you bang your head against the wall long enough and don't quit, you're gonna find a soft spot (in the wall) and then you have a chance and then you take it. but, you'll never get a chance if you don't know your shit.
all of the partners agreed completely with my three page proposal. as of yesterday, i went from being a standard sign shop designer, to being the one person in charge of refining and documenting all of the operating systems and procedures of what will be a 60+ employee company in two separate locations, as well as writing, designing and illustrating training manuals, training new employees, meeting with vendors, consulting on equipment purchases, designing the company identity and reenvisioning our graphics department to focus more prominently on doing small business identity work.
i am almost terrified of what i have gotten myself into...
but, y'know, i have never been more excited at any point in the 4.5 years i've been in this business.
this is what i was built for. this is what i have been fighting for (not the promotion, that's not such a big deal, the money is nice, yeah, but what i really dig, is i am finally working for a select group of people who recognize my ability and my commitment to continued improvement AND THEY ARE LETTING ME FLEX MY HEAD!!!).
yesterday, i sat in on my first vendor meeting. my boss described me as an "apprentice" to the vendor and then, when talking about how my previous three sign shops treated me, he described the owners (my employers) as being guys who had a ferrari on their hands but wouldn't put any gas in it.
so, i guess i'm so happy, because for once, one of my employer's realized what they had on their hands, and they gave me the money, the respect, the trust and the encouragement to push with all of my will into becoming a better businessman, a better artist and a better designer.
i am where i am today, because i don't let up. i don't give a shit about the television that other people watch. i don't give a shit about the drugs they take. i don't give a shit about the alcohol they consume. i don't give a shit about the people they don't even like that they fuck. i don't care about how so many people kill themselves slowly every day and then criticize me because i don't have time for them or because i focus too much on my work...
the fifteen minutes i had with drew in his truck yesterday on the way to the bank, was worth every stupid inaninity i've ever had to listen to as it spilled out of a stupid girlfriend's mouth.
do you know why i take everything seriously? why i sometimes can't unwind? why do i work myself to exhaustion sometimes? why do i push myself so hard that i make myself sick?
because i know that my life is my responsibility. my happiness is my responsibility. not yours. not some drug's.
besides...
for the first time since i published my magazine, i am going to have enough money coming in on thirty hours of work each week that i can drop the scooter store and quit client-based graphic design for a few years until i establish myself as a comics artist and publisher.
and if that wasn't enough to put me in a good mood, i found out last night at dinner, that not only does my beautiful girlfriend have an incredibly cute bum, but she is an AMAZING cook.
***
2005: the year of jordan.
luck is bullshit.
god's plan is bullshit.
fate and destiny are bullshit.
wake up every day, stand up and fight.
if you don't quit during the hard times, you deserve to enjoy the good times.
peace-out.
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
BTW- I just finished watching "May". All I have to say is