I Am Job?

Today, the part of the unemployed graphic designer will be played by me.

I've been skimming a slew of job-postings and RSS feeds from Workopolis looking for gainful employment. Aside from banner-ads and Spam-canner there aren't many open positions listed. However, I did find this wonderful posting on Craigslist Toronto:

"We're looking for a web designer to create our corporate website and create some logos. You must be able to create websites at the same quality as Fortune 100 companies. If you don't understand this concept, then don't bother writing us."

I'm not sure if it's the conviction of the writing that impresses me or it's the fact that the author needs to clarify that a designer should be aware of "logos" and "websites". I wonder if the author is also a copywriter.

"Our shampoo will leave your hair feeling silky and smooth. If you don't understand the concept of a more luxurious sheen to your hair, don't bother buying our stuff!" It's gold, baby! Fried Gold!

I think there's a loosely ironic twist in the fact that the person who wrote this clearly doesn't get the concept behind Fortune 100 companies or even business for that matter. Very few companies reach the peaks of the financial landscape on logo and website alone. Well, none that survived the DotCom Bust, that is. The logo and website are merely extensions of the core brand. Anyone who's even waited outside of a marketing class-room knows that.

Success is one part product, one part branding, and one part screwing the customer out of every dollar they have. If you want to get technical you'd also shift around your accounting, find an off-shore bank, and hire foreigners and children to make your crap. The rest of the gaps in this equation you just need to fill with marketing managers, project managers, and people who have mental disease called an MBA.

A logo is just a firm handshake that make people feel all warm about the general idea your advertising represents. A logo has never sold food, shoes, or life insurance. A logo is a breath-mint in the conversation of transactions. Use liberally if you think something smells like shit.

In the end, I'm not applying to this job. I don't want to work somewhere that makes a want-ad sound angry and intimidating. Also, I'd probably get an ulcer repressing the rage and contempt I'd feel for my boss. Well, more than I normally should feel, that is.

Backup Against the Wall

I just spent the better part of this afternoon backing up data. Lately this has become more routine than ritual for me as I can hear the ominous clicking of platters from an antique hard drive deep in the belly of my oldest Mac.

I use the same backup method as I did back in my Windows 3.11 days: drag file to disk, copy file, eject disk, repeat until your mind screams for death. Despite quantum leaps in storage capacity I find myself still sitting at the keyboard, copying to and ejecting media as though I were feeding a WWII gun turret. This is where today's aggravation lies.

Let's clear the air here. I knew what I was getting into when I joined the Apple party. I know there's no easy warez for me. I know that third party development on a Mac typically revolves around new icons and iTunes hacks. I also know not to fall prey to the occasional bit of shareware that floats down the channel. The shareware agreement is a prison-bitch handshake. Once you agree they never let you go. As much as I know there is an easy download third-party bundle that will do exactly what I need, I equally don't want to be pounded in the ass each week by a kindly reminder to donate to the guy who hacked the Cocoa Code.

That's why I know out there, somewhere, is a program that will perfectly backup any of my crucial data with one-button ease. It will likely also save my data across a neatly timed array of disks I won't need to babysit all afternoon. But, I also know that same program will archive the precious data into a format proprietary to not only that software, but that very specific version number. If I update: FILES LOST! If I don't donate: CORRUPT DATA!

That's why I'm here copying a regular number of files across 7 (yes, seven!) DVDs. I'm sure one of the disks is nothing but a BMP and several hundred megs of those miscellaneous _DS files Macs love to create. Sure the DVD is rated for 4.7GB. But only 2 of those are usable data.

I keep my passport in a drawer next to old mix-tapes. The deed to my house is somewhere in behind my snow-boots in a closet. My insurance papers sit underneath the cable modem.
But I keep my data backed up onto DVDS, locked deep inside an iron safe in my basement.

And each one is lovingly watched and copied by hand, just like I did back in 1995.
That's progress!