Part-time designer, full-time work horse
Exhaustion persists. If I disappear overnight, it will be because I have been pushed too far, leapt in my car and headed off to the continent to reflect on things – an action contemplated on the hour during past few days...
Meanwhile, usual round of excitement persists. Disciplinary hearing today – never a pleasant prospect – plus sales coaching, production planning and a fairly large chunk of time spent on next year’s designs, over half of which are due in the photography studio in under two weeks and are very much a work-in-progress still.
While missing my Second-in-Charge, I have been lucky enough to get hold of a student who worked for me once before to assist in mammoth task of new brochure. Design side is fairly minor in comparison to the enormous bulk of paperwork, recording the designs themselves, doing the text for the brochure, recording new and obscure components and feeding all the information into our pricing programme ready for the autumn.
Design side can still be the most hugely satisfying part of my job. If, in the future, I still own this company and am working part time, this is the part I most want to hang on to. Am enormously gratified when woodworkers tell me that designs have improved in every brochure we have done since he has been with the company.
Like all the multifarious jobs I do for the company, I am totally without formal training and used to approach a new brochure with some trepidation. But guess I have gained knowledge and confidence over the years and am now given to being a bit more outlandish. Have to be careful which cabinet makers I work with as a result – some of them are of the “can’t’ brigade, which can be stultifying to the creative process.