This isn't an old man rant about the damn Computer Age - I'm all for it. It allows me to work from home, write this blog anonymously and maintain the charade that I still live in LA. What's not to love?
It is an old man rant about the obliteration of the concept of the "work day". The idea that there may in fact be "non working hours" is apparently a relic of a bygone era. As my income has steadily fallen over the past couple of years, the hours I'm expected to be available now rival that of an on-call trauma surgeon.
I check my e-mail when I get up around 5:30 am and there will be notes and revisions sent at 10 the previous night, with angry follow-up e-mails around 11 wondering why they haven't seen anything yet. Changes get sent late at night on Saturday with a thoughtful note telling me to "take my time and show me something on Sunday". I get calls on my cell wondering why I haven't responded to an e-mail and when I explain that I'm at dinner or, I don't know, SLEEPING, it's met with a silence that implies "So...?"
I do have one conscientious client. He always sends me his notes and revisions at the start of the business day and doesn't ask to see anything until the end of his day.
He's in Sydney.
The start of his business day is 4pm my time. So he doesn't need to see anything until 2am.
And the texting... oy. One client sends all her comments through text, and I usually respond with e-mail. Why? Because I'm sitting at a computer using a full sized, human scaled keyboard the way God intended, and not some scaled down, munchkin sized "virtual" keyboard on my iPhone. If I had to stop what I was doing, whip out the phone and try and text her back with my limited texting skills every time she had a crisis, I'd never get anything done.
"Really, you need to respond with text. I'm never in my office and retrieving e-mail is a hassle for me."
Well, I never leave my office because I'm here WORKING. On your shit.
She's usually getting her hair done, or a mani/pedi.
Bitch.
It must be wonderful for the clients, being so mobile. I get notes from Disneyland, revisions from a boat off of Malibu, a "change of direction" between the appetizer and the main course. And it affords them the ultimate "Get Out Jail" card when things go awry...
"Well, it didn't look like that on my phone!"
Imagine that! The 16 page medical brochure for the Indian doctors, full of unpronounceable names and paragraphs of dense medical jargon, the one you approved on your 2 inch Blackberry screen, has typos!
Add in the fact that most of my clients are under the impression I now have a drive-thru window.
"Hey, I need an ad created from the six photos I've attached, a collage that's stylish and sophisticated. I don't have any copy so you'll have to write something. It's for a 10am meeting..."
It was 9:20.
At any rate, I just had to vent. I've been sitting near a computer for two days, waiting for a client to send me photography for a project that's due tomorrow. She's a very busy lady, what with the softball games, dinner with friends and packing for her vacation which starts tomorrow. She swears I'll get it. Probably around 11pm.
I can sympathize. I remember how hectic it was before I took my last vacation.
In 2005.
