What I miss about being an inhouse designer
May 30, 2009
For the most part, being a freelancer agrees with me. I enjoy doing what I want when I want to do it. I occassionally take naps if I’m tired. I start working at 6:00 AM if that suits me. I took 10 days and went to France, with every intention of doing work while I was there (fortunately, I didn’t have to.) But there are also drawbacks.
On a personal level, I enjoyed the interaction with co-workers, talking about news, politics, design. I miss having lunch with people in the lunchroom. I miss the ability to easily make plans to see movies, play poker, and stuff like that. I still get on IM and talk to people, but I can’t just wander into someones office and start a discussion.
On a professional level I think that not being able to talk to co-workers face-to-face about projects is a problem. As I’ve said, interaction with others is the best way to get a project done. You can email, twitter, use a service like basecamp, etc. and come close, but nothing beats being able to clarify your thoughts verbally and ask questions. Even when I’m pretty sure that I understand what someone else is thinking, I still want to make sure that I’m right before I start working. Measure twice, cut once is a great rule.
August 22, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Adam I have a solution the to office stuff. Take a look at co-working http://coworking.pbworks.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coworking they have locations in IC and CR. Here is the IC one http://cowrk.com/ Here is the CR one http://www.corridorcoworks.com/ it looks like the IC one is a bit more authentic to the co-working experience.
August 22, 2009 at 6:55 pm
This is great! Thanks, Matt. I looked up jelly’s the other day and didn’t see much for Iowa, but these look like something to get into.