Former Finnegan No. 3: Graphic design by the seat of my pants

After leaving the job at the blood center (with a boot print on my backside), I decided to look upon my temporary unemployment as an opportunity rather than a calamity (that was a little easier to do, once my former employer lost his bid to deny my unemployment benefits). I decided to pursue all leads that presented themselves, without ruling anything out until I had looked into it. Since I still didn't know "what I wanted to be when I grew up," for all I knew my "true calling" could turn out to be just about anything. I tried not to think about the fact that I was in my late twenties and now not only a (grad school) dropout, but I'd also been fired from a job that a trained monkey could have done (if he'd known how to type). 

Since I had no savings and no real ideas about what to do next, I procured a signature loan from my Dad's credit union and signed up with a couple of employment agencies that would help me find a job for a hefty percentage of my first year's salary. I interviewed for anything and everything that the agencies could line up, and turned down offers from all sorts of businesses. I just couldn't see myself managing a tire store or running the night desk of a motel; I might have accepted the job with the newspaper, if it hadn't paid as badly as the job I'd just lost, and required me to work the graveyard shift the first three years. (This also when I interviewed with the Johnson O'Connor Research foundation, as recounted in my previous "What I learned between Finnegans" post.)

On the strength of my experience designing promo pieces at the blood center and using a dedicated word processor that I had bought hoping it would encourage me to do some writing (this, at a time when "personal computers" were still rarities), I hired into the art department of a large professional association at the moment that it was beginning to shift from traditional layout to computer-based layout programs; my job was, for the most part, to execute on the computer what the designers came up with on their drawing tables.

Wow, I learned a lot in that job -- about graphic design, emerging computer systems, and just how much truth there is in Dilbert cartoons (which were very big at the time; see daily cartoon in this blog's sidebar). The art department had just been split off from the communications department as the result of the latest skirmish in a bloody turf war; as a result, the new art department needed a clerical assistant (that was me). The designers hated the fact that we were going over to "desktop publishing," so they both quit by the end of my first year there, and the art director soon followed them out the door. Not long after that, the art department was quietly folded back into the larger communications department, and the art "director" was just the art "manager" -- turf war concluded. Fortunately, I had kept a low profile and let the bullets fly over my head, so I was one of the few who emerged unscathed.

In fact, by staying out of the fray, I also managed to come out of it all on higher ground. I had been learning everything I could about page layout programs, publication design, typography, you name it; as a result, my job title, job description, and salary were upgraded annually to keep up with what I was actually doing. Before long, I was officially tasked with staying up to date on the various kinds of software we needed for publication design & layout. The second art manager who signed on, having at that time no actual artists to manage and too few freelance designers to do the work that needed to be done, found herself in a tight spot one day and asked me if I'd like to do a little design myself -- I was more than ready for her. Soon I was designing and doing layout for about half of the jobs we put out, and I even won an award from the local chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators for a newsletter that I redesigned. Eventually my job title was upgraded to "graphic designer" (although I was required to take one community college course in design so that I would have a "credential" to go with my experience and self-taught skills).

I was having fun, even if I did have to subdue my "inner editor" every time I cast my eyes on the dreary verbiage that passed for "business communications." (I learned to see words as just shapes on a page -- hard to do when you grew up read dictionaries as if they were pulp fiction.) As a kid I had for a time dreamt of becoming a book designer or a commercial artist, and finally the right side of my brain was getting some exercise. I was happy for a few years, but I knew it couldn't last; I realized that a "real" designer in my situation would be looking for a new job with new challenges, and I also realized that I didn't want to stay in design forever. There was too much of me that was beginning to feel stifled.

As long as I was learning new things I was happy, but the intellectual part of me was starting to  go stir crazy; the teacher in me, which had been awakened back in grad school, was starting to irritate my friends (I not only gave them books to read, but want to discuss the books after they'd read them!); and the student in me (never dormant for long) was itching for something new to learn. The tinder was dry and just waiting for a spark, which was struck one day when my boss was enthusing over a community college advertising course she was teaching. She loved her students! She loved being respected for her hard-won knowledge of her field! She loved the challenge of creating and implementing a curriculum, and a little extra income never went amiss. As I listened to her, I began to think that maybe a little part time teaching was just what I needed to keep from getting bored.

Well, I was right and I was wrong, as you'll learn in Former Finnegan No. 4. Meanwhile, if you're reading this and you would like to throw in a comment, feel free!

Former Finnegan No. 1: The Ace Student

Before I start describing the transition I'm currently going through, I thought I would begin with a little recap of my life up until I lost my teaching job at a Midwestern university a few years back. If you haven't already read "Dumped off the merry-go-round," you should do that first. I say there that I'm currently reinventing myself for about the fifth time; here are my former identities:
 

The Phi Beta Kappa Kid

I started off as an ace student -- National Merit Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, double major, etc. Liberal arts the way. Very impressive to everyone but myself. I seemed to be the only one who realized I worked hard at being a good student because I had no idea how to do anything else. The problem is, the people who might have helped me find a direction in life either didn't bother (because I seemed to have it all together) or didn't know anything but academics themselves (faculty mentors), so they just encouraged me to go on to graduate school straight after college. (I fantasized about joining the Peace Corps, but I was afraid that might turn out to be too much "real life" experience.)

So I trusted my faculty advisers, took their advice, and three months after graduating from my tiny liberal arts college I was enrolled as a Ph. D. student in a comparative literature program at a humongous state university. As a Teaching Fellow I was instructing students just a little younger than myself but who completely lacked my zeal for learning, and I was taking courses in literary theory that managed to suck all the joy out of literature. I found grad school cold and competitive in an every-man-for-himself kind of way, so even though I was at a big university, I felt very lonely. I knew that I was there only because I didn't know what else to do. Pretty soon, I found that I was miserable, and this time I had no faculty mentors to turn to. After a couple of years, I simply fled back to my home state, looking to do anything except being an academic.

What did I learn from this experience? That you shouldn't keep at something just because you're good at it, if it's eroding your life in other ways. Unless you have faith in yourself, the praise of others will be cold comfort.