The last straw today...

[Abyssinian1]

Today has not been one of my best days. Sorry I haven't been around - life imploded and I had to go deal with it. :( Plus my computer crashed. Again.

Let me explain... no, there is too much. Let me sum up...

Problem number 1:
If anyone is looking for a home in the Denver Metro Area of Colorado, email me privately - I have an FHA loan assumption on a nice little place. The buyers just walked and left me holding the bag so I'm out the attorney and the paperwork fees. When they say housing crash, they do not mean 'crash back to earth'. They mean 'has crashed through the crust and is heading through the mantle towards the core of the earth'. It's a long story and right now I'm thinking apple brandy is the way to solve it, at least for tonight. :mad:

Problem number 2:
I deal with salespeople who want spec ads all day (I'm paid for these, so it isn't 'spec' in the traditional sense. It's spec as in 'hasn't sold yet'). These salespeople think nothing of ripping off the customer's info and graphics (or the competition's info and graphics) from a potential customer's website and then tacking it to the spec sheet (a printout of a 72dpi graphic no less - real quality there) and telling me to use it to create potential advertising. They have been told not to do this by their managers and these utter morons persist in ripping art from websites ("Well, we have to make our numbers!" is the excuse they most often give, followed by 'Well, we can't go in and initiate contact with the customer unless we have somehting to show them!"). Nimrods. Brainless, untrainable halfwits. If they had a frontal lobe between them all I'd be shocked. Worse, neither I nor the other artists at my firm can do anything about what they give us - we are required by the job to create this spec to the same quality as a piece of 'sold' advertising. When we protest we are told to 'do the best you can' or 'make something that looks similar'. I liken this to trying to bake a cake using sawdust instead of cake flour, sand instead of sugar and congealed motor oil instead of butter. When I have tried to explain why we can't do what they want and have a product that we can show the customers, I have been sworn at, told I am a 'bad designer' and warned by my boss that 'we have to work with sales'. I'd quit, but I can't unload the house (see problem 1) because Colorado has more foreclosures than actual buyers right now and I need the health insurance.

Is it wrong to feel tired, utterly frustrated and dispirited at this point?

Abyssinian

[budafist]

Well, since you're going to be there for a while, you're doing what you can. Keep reminding them at every turn what is illegal and copyrighted. After that, is there anything else you can do?

[Abyssinian1]

Oh yes, I remind them and make notes electronically on each bad spec I get. Today was worse than usual I guess. Everything I pulled today had art ripped from the websites of the potential customers, OR was scanned in from preprinted material (out of other publications). They have been warned about the legal consequences of taking things and using them as art sources, but they continue doing it. Then the boss pulls my numbers and asks why I have so few completions for the day. *bangs head on table*

About the only thing I can do is start making Xerox copies of the requests and forwarding them to the legal department. Problem is, the guy that runs the legal department has let things slide for years. For example, one outfit wanted to use the picture of 'Rosie the Riveter' (the WWII poster) for their cleaning ad. The salesperson didn't see a problem with it (of course). I countered with saying that the Department of Defense or the State Department might have a problem with it, since I wasn't sure who held to copyright on the image. Legal told me to go ahead and use it, over my protests. I told them we could get into serious trouble.

They asked if I liked my job. Rock and a hard place. All I can do is keep documenting and looking for other work.

Love the bunny by the way. :-)

[budafist]

Yup, looking for work in an environment that you agree with is a swell idea. Move on to brighter and better things! Good luck with that and hopefully those that rip off other people's artwork will get what they deserve.

[Sonic_Nerdish]

Yes, they will get what they deserve eventually. Definitely keep documenting everything to cover your own butt.

[WannaBrie]

Sonic is right, Abyssinian, make sure you CYA. There's really not a whole lot you can do to fight the unethical behavior of these jerks, other than continuing to tell them that they are using unethical business practices. I've been there before and some people just will not get it. Right now if you need this job, try not to let it consume you. And in the meantime, look for another job that will put you in a more comfortable situation.

As far as the housing situation goes, I totally feel you there. I bought a house over 5 years ago and it was a great deal and so far things have been ok, But what with the crazy weather here, insurance companies are pulling out and the only place I can find Homeowners insurance is so expensive I don't know how I'm going to pull off my payments every month.

I know this sounds trite, but hang in there, it will get better.

[Gromit801]

Fortunately, I'm in a position to tell customers who bring in artwork of other companies, and we're restricted from touching it by copyright laws. That's that.

[budafist]

I have people come in with logo samples who want me to copy a logo but with their own company name. I tell them they will be breaching copyright if I copy it, but that I can do something in a similar style. That works.

[Annie Social]

We have a client who is constantly bringing in material they don't have the rights to use and asking us to "change it 10% so it's legal". I always make something completely new, but then they complain how long it takes and how much it costs. I just remind them how much less it costs than defending themselves in court.

[morea]

^ ugh, that's ridiculous. Some people, huh?

[Gromit801]

We have a client who is constantly bringing in material they don't have the rights to use and asking us to "change it 10% so it's legal". I always make something completely new, but then they complain how long it takes and how much it costs. I just remind them how much less it costs than defending themselves in court.

You'd also be defending yourself in court too!

[Abyssinian1]

Thanks guys. The first part of the problem is that salespeople, no matter how nice they are as people, are focused on making the sales rather than acting as customer relations management and gathering the things necessary to create the ad. Now, admittedly, some of the salespeople are better at getting quality art where possible, but often, the salespeople point the finger at the customer saying "Well, they told me that we could get their art from their website! Can't you just do the best you can?"

The root problem, I guess, is that the artists have so little power within the organization to stop what has become a real problem. Our managers have little say as well. Because sales is considered an 'income producing' segment of the business they tend to get their way much of the time. I agree with Annie - one of the ways of getting around things is to modify the artwork. the problem is that it violates copyright law. No one but the artists actually get this concept, it seems and when you have to crank out roughly 16-24 ads per day on average, you're kind of numb anyway. I simply wish our company did a better job or educating its salesforce about what they can and cannot put on a copysheet and what they can and cannot submit as 'original' art.

For starters, how about this: A fax from a customer does not count as an 'original photo'. I've had salespeple try this. "Can't you just clean it up?'

Do I look like David Copperfiled to you? No? Then the answer is no.

*sighs*

I'd train them myself, but the artists aren't allowed to train sales. I think the sales managers are frightened that we'll hurt them in some fashion, what with the whips and the flaming hoops and all.