I found this on one of my client’s sites—to my delight it didn’t take half the day to fill out like most of these things do.
I AM: hungry. Dieting sucks!
I WANT: a puppy.
I WISH: I was not allergic to puppies.
I HATE: shredded coconut, ew.
I MISS: my college friends.
I FEAR: illness.
I HEAR: the never-ending constuction noises from across the street. Two years later people, move in already, it’s lovely.
I WONDER: why our government is so fucked up.
I REGRET: nothing. really.
I AM NOT: uptight.
I DANCE: !
I SING: when I am alone. Everyone agrees it’s better that way.
I CRY: when I am truly inspired by the human spirit. Or when I think about the darkest side of humanity, too. I cry a lot.
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: very little, unless typing counts.
I WRITE: about stupid things.
I CONFUSE: huh?
I NEED: a vacation.
I SHOULD: be working right now.
I START: reading books and if they don’t grab me in the first few pages, I don’t waste any more time.
I FINISH: my work day at really odd times. Sometimes 6:00, sometimes 10:00. One never knows.
I’M GLAD: I’m here.
Tag, you’re it. 
Now don’t go getting the impression I talk smack about my clients. I’m a professional, and even when things go wrong, hey it happens, I am always classy. Just like San Diego. So just remember that as you read this story.
Brian just called and told me that this woman is working at his hotel now. It (that’s not a mistake in pronoun choice) was a client of mine a couple of years ago and that did not turn out so well. I was manipulated into doing a lot of work, into bending my policies (contractual stuff), and in the end I lost a ton of money and time. I could be here all day telling the unpleasant details but just trust me, she’s the type of person (and I use that term loosely) you want to avoid.
I found out later that I was not alone—she had strung along designers, photographers, printers and other vendors all over town to the tune of half a million dollars.
Now we designer types, very few of us can, how can I say this—brag that we make a really good living providing this service. It’s a lot of work in relation to the monetary compensation involved. The majority of people in this profession make a decent living if they are lucky. I fall into the lucky category. Decent, that is, if skum-sucking slimeballs bother to pay their bills. When they don’t, I eat Top Ramen and let’s not talk about the courage it takes to stay positive and not lose your mentals.
Don’t take my word for it, just read what a colleague of mine had to say to the media after he took his turn, who had the cajones to not just lie down and take it up the ass like some people we know:
“She has a lot of subcontractors that she’s used their services and then kind of disappeared and never pay them. And then taking the publications and gone to printers, printed and never paid them. So she owes a lot of people a lot of money,” ...
“It’s just been kind of a rolling nightmare that doesn’t seem to end and all the people keep popping out of the woodwork that say, ‘Wow, you know [It] too? What happened to you? How did she burn you?’” ...
There was $504,000 in claims in the end. I never filed against her, and I bet there must be others like me that just wanted the experience to be over with and so did nothing. After all of this, I needed to put it out of my mind and fight to stay positive, and bring in paying gigs right-quick-like to save my business and my sanity. I chatted with my attorney and he basically told me I most likely wouldn’t get any money anyway, that “some people are just assholes”. He was right, because I watched this year as other designers fought really hard to get what was due to them only to be ultimately disappointed. Anyway, I can only imagine what the actual total of damage—emotional and financial—she’s caused.
But see, she’s always the victim and she’ll tell you so and you’d probably believe her. Of course, the judge awarded her the bancrupcy. *sigh* I wasn’t there, but I heard he said “She deserves a second chance.” Yeah, even though this is her second bancrupcy.
What are the people she scammed entitled to, exactly? And in my mind that’s what it is—a con, a scam, fraud. Isn’t fraud a, you know, crime?
So anyway I guess It is working in the health club at the hotel, where I was planning on joining once I shed a few pounds (by the way, I’m down 10 pounds and still sticking to weight watchers yay me!). Actually I probably should still join. Why should I let her ruin my life any further? I did file my story with the Better Business Bureau so I KNOW she received a copy of that and how I perceived the situation, so I know she knows I think she’s satan’s spawn—but it was probably the least of her concerns at the time considering a half a million dollars in claims, two kids to take care of, and nothing but a bad reputation and lint in her pocket. But still, it would be a little awkward.
And? It’s just weird knowing that she’s working with my boyfriend. She’s not the sort of woman you want working with your boyfriend if you know what I mean. Not that I don’t trust Brian, I do, and he can’t stand her. But this woman is a s-n-a-k-e snake. I don’t trust the air in the room she’s walked in. And that’s more than just her designer imposter perfume at issue there. She manages to go on and on and on and on like a cockroach, finding new ways to lie and manipulate, and new suckers that will buy into it ... so she can carry on her delusions of being a magazine publisher. Hahahha, sorry I had to take a moment to laugh there for a second. But that is truly funny. Things were getting heavy anyway.
UPDATE: As I was writing this, I got a call that she was terminated. On her first day, too. How sad, huh? Somebody prepared a DVD of all her shenanigans and dropped it off at the front desk. Then Brian told the HR director (somebody I’ve shared wine and good times with) my story and that couldn’t have helped. Kharma—it’s a real bitch, bitch.
UPDATE PT2: I found out who dropped off that DVD. We had a nice long chat, and we’re going to meet up, along with some of the other designer-victims of this horrid woman, for frosty grande margaritas. Margaritas with new friends ... I think I’ll take that as a silver lining.
Yeah I know my only post this week was about Amerian Idol. I’m aware that I’m extra lame.
I’ve been working on understanding some programming and scripting thingeebobs so I can do some cool stuff for work. It’s not that I don’t have the aptitude to do computer programming, it’s just that I’m trying to skip about a thousand steps. I took programming in college, but it was very basic (actually, it was literally BASIC), but that was long ago as you know. And I even though I loved the shit out of that class, I didn’t take it any further. I had engineers and computer-electrical-rocket-science types all around me—it was not an art school, but an engineering school, where those types of classes got real tough real quick past the entry level courses. Trust me, I stopped begging to get into classes that required calculus prerequisites that I didn’t have very early on.
I’ve never been one for patience, but if you want to learn something, you do have to start from square one. Here I am again, trying to “catch up” and “skip steps”—same old delusions of grandeur.
So yeah 18 year olds (i.e. me) don’t know jack shit about what to study in school for the most part, and those that did, those are the 24 years olds out there right now kicking my ass. I’m devouring everything they write and listening closely. In the world of web design, there are a special few that hold the keys to the future. They are curious, they are tireless, and they are excited. Me? I’m just trying to keep up the best I can.
Who knew that 13 years out of college I would wish that I spent my time in school studying other things. Things that would be so useful to me right now. I used to laugh at the art students carrying around their tackle boxes and markers. Like, get a real major why don’t you. Now, here I am, a designer going on half a dozen years now and I have to go back and take classes or self-teach to pick up all that junk I missed. I have my drawing portfolio and “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” tucked underneath my coffee table in the living room. I have books upon books spralled out all over my office and bedroom. Sometimes I have ten books going at the same time.
I studied stuff in school that is very related (communications/advertising) but I’m still for the most part self-taught. And dammit if it isn’t the tougher road. Kids, don’t try this at home. Being a self-taught designer is very different than buying a copy of Dreamweaver one day and the next, printing web designer on your business card. My version of self-taught is just as challenging as any formal education I’ve ever had, if not moreso.
Designers should always be learning. But for me, I have to keep pace AND go back and study the fundamentals if I ever want to be as good as I want to be. Which will be never if I’m lucky because complacency is not what I’m after either but I digress.
So, I’ve been busy. My work site is in the planning stages for a major revamp. “v2” if you will. So, I’ll probably be talking a lot about things like American Idol and many other ridiculous things ... because it’s that or DOM Scripting and Ajax, yo. Unless you want to talk about that stuff. Yeah, didn’t think so.
