My career as a graphic designer has had it's ups and downs. I'm not going to lie, I was the biggest egotistical bastard in my last years of college and I pretty much had free roam of the GD department. I swung the biggest cock and had the prettiest smelling shit in town.

When I graduated, I decided that I was going to be the best designer in the free world. I landed an internship at one of the hottest firms in the free world much to my surprise and tried to soak up every bit of advice and skill I could learn all the while working for free and pulling 16 hour days by choice.

After I burnt out, I landed a job with the number one ad agency in the world. I was taught by one of the best teachers/bosses I have ever had to this day. To be honest, he was the best and taught me the most. I probably think about him once a month as a matter of fact. We had a falling out (to this day I don't know why) but that's another post in the blog all together.

Those were the dotcom days where people crapped money and pissed IPO's. Life was good. And then it turned bad. Four rounds of layoffs finally caught up with me and I was given the boot.

I think I can pretty much mark the downfall of my career at that point. When sweet, cocky and innocent Jason was turned into a jaded, bitter and sub par designer. My faith in my own abilities slowly turned to the wayside of slacking and mediocre work.

I got a job temping at the Discovery Channel which turned into a year of work and then finally I was let go yet again due to 1) not getting along with my boss 2) not being gay and 3) Discovery eats it's designers up and spits them out and 4) please read previous paragraph.

After Discovery I went to a small boutique an hour commute away from home. I took a pay cut for that job, worked more than I had ever worked before and probably created some of my best stuff towards the end of that job in my life in terms of fine art graphic design. (Please note, my studies focused on chaos design through school so this was all new to me.)

And then I broke. My girlfriend at the time left me, I was deep in a horrible depression, thought of suicide a few times and was drinking myself into an early grave. I was burnt out, creatively dead inside and just wanted to give up. I quit my job and just floundered around until I was asked to take a risk on a small startup working out of the basement of one of the owners homes.

It was a risk to say the least. This was the job that I took for the following reasons:

1) the commute was 15 minutes as opposed to the hour+ I had previously driven
2) the pay was commensurate to what I was making at the Discovery Channel
3) the work was the most mind-numbingly boring work I had ever done before in my life and I was fine with that. I wasn't looking to be challenged.

The funny thing was, I bragged about those reasons every time I talked about the job. The owners were three friends who decided to one day make a go at business ownership so on paper, it seemed pretty cool to test out. Sadly, I wasn't challenged and butted heads every step of the way because, in my opinion, a micromanaging, fear-mongering employer doesn't really foster creativity.

After about a year or so, the job started to go south. As much as I really LOVED one of the three bosses to death as well as every one of the underlings there, there was one of the owners who was just a bad manager and read far too many books written by human resource managers... You know what? It's not even worth it. Lesson learned for talking shit about your bosses.

That's rule number one (and take notes here): What goes around, comes around. This industry is so small that when/if you talk shit about your co-workers or bosses, it will ultimately come back to bite you in the ass. That being said, kharma's a blood sucking whore and things get paid back in weird little ways. While one person is finally on track with their life again, making beautifully designed work, another person could be stuck in a dead end and failing business.

Bygones.

After that, it was on to Ogilvy, another great ad agency in DC. But man, was this place odd. It was pretty much the EXACT OPPOSITE to what any firm I had been with before. There was absolutely NO creative coming out of it. The higher ups ran the show and the actual designers cowered and talked shit about the bosses while hiding under their desks.

It was a shame too because I was totally out of my element until I decided to stop playing PC (like that's never been a problem for me in the past *winks) and just started being myself. I took risks, I made comments and pretty much got my cockyness back. I tried to bring fun to that place and to lighten the mood but the higher ups were just too controlling of it's employees. It just didn't take and I parted ways. It was also a shame because there were several employees who were just outright talented and gifted there. Sadly, those people's talent are probably still going unrewarded to this day.

And then I got my dream job. I finally got to work for VW and do what I loved. I was surrounded by some of the best people I have ever worked with in my life. I go to lunch with the same group everyday and we are a fucking team through and through. I do love it here but depressingly so, the work is starting to dry up. I'm doing what I can to get new work but as VW is phased out from the companies list of clients, I am left (along with most of my team) looking for shit to keep busy with. Only time will tell but I'm trying to stay optimistic.

With that being said, I just want to tell my loyal readers that life really is a rollercoaster. It's about the journey and all sorts of other trite sayings about life.

Since graduation, I've had:

• the ad agency job
• the small boutique job
• the tv channel (money is no object) job
• the small startup job
• the highly corporate job
• the fun dot-com-esque job

I've had my work published in national newspapers, international magazines and have had work shown on major primetime television. I've worked with some of the most brilliant people in the industry. I've gotten to experience some of the best perks because of said jobs and have been to places and seen things I would never be able to see on my own.

But ya know what? ALL of that stuff is overshadowed by finally finding out that none of it matters if you don't learn from the experience. Did it take me longer than others? Sure. Is there another lifetime of skills and lessons to be learned? You betcha.

Do I feel I have learned enough to at least get on a good track in life as well as career? I dunno, I'll tell ya in another ten years.