Where you at?
Out of context: Reply #75
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- d0mino9
34, Melbourne, Australia
Grew up in Brisbane. Studied design to work in Advertising.
After graduating started working for a real pack of dickheads designing Annual Reports. These reports are all due on the same day, so we had horrendous crunch times. Worked minimum wage without a day off (that's weekends, too) for months on end. They ended up firing me after a year, which was a great blessing.
The day I was fired was also the day that applications for an advertising program (AWARD school) closed. I had been toying with the idea, but thought I would tough out another year doing annual reports before jumping ship. Think I didn't have the time or energy to put an application on the day it closed. GF at the time really pushed me to do it, gave them a call and got an extension of 2 days. Applied, got in, and that set me on my path to work in Advertising. If GF wasn't there to push me my life would be very different.
Got a job at a great agency doing finished art. Really inspiring creative leadership. Worked my ass off doing FA with the hope of rising through the ranks. Got a job offer from a competing agency as junior AD with a writer I did AWARD school with, told my employer I was going to walk. They really wanted to keep me, so put me up to junior AD and I worked directly with the CD (writer) for about a year until they put on a junior writer to team up with me.
Worked there for 6 years. Learned so much. Did great work with great people. The CD and MD ended up selling the business to a big global group about 4 years in. The culture really changed in those last two years.
In those 6 years I married that GF, we bought an apartment. Life was good, but didn't really have a sense of the world. Was pretty sheltered in the creative dept there.
During that time wife got really caught up in a design niche and got lucky with timing. We moved to Melbourne to start a business together, bigger creative industry to work with.
It's been almost 6 years and the time has FLOWN by. We were living in the studio for the first 2 years. We have a 2 year old boy now, and we bought a house in the burbs. We have 4 staff, not including ourselves.
Late last year I bought into another business, doing digital development servicing creative industries (design studios). It's been a learning experience but great so far. A QBN hookup was a godsend. For this I am super thankful. You know who you are. Biggest change is business partners not being my wife.
Went into business for myself for flexibility – saw my CD going home at 6pm for half an hour to read his kids a story before bedtime and then head back to the studio with us to see the night through. Didn't bother me working late in my early 20's, it was fun. Good work, good crew but if I were to have a family I wanted to spend time with my kids. Fast forward to now, currently working 4 day weeks, spending one day with my boy. We go to the zoo almost every Friday together, just me and him and the spider monkeys. It's great. Squeeze in extra work during naps, and evenings, but it's on my schedule. Not sure how sustainable this is though.
The pressures of running 2x business is real. We're renovating our house. Wife is keen to have another baby. Am I happy? Things are super, super tight at the moment. I think that is feeling the risk of new business and the slowing in growth of the old.
Watching the bottom line, chasing monthly sales targets is exhausting.
I have a lot of responsibilities to a lot of people.
- I knew a bunch of dicks that did Annual Reports...in Melbourne. Richmond to be specific! :)BusterBoy
- these dicks were Brisbane based. After I left they folded a year later because one of the dicks was cooking the books.d0mino
- The pressure is high. I had 7 staff at one point all relying on me to bring in the work.breadlegz