We Work for the People

What are you working on today? Are you a designer and you’ve got to deliver the fifth layout change for a client? Or are you a programmer that has to solve a problem that a client signaled (one that maybe no one else but him sees). Or maybe you’re a salesman and your superior is making you sell the products that the supplies guy ordered too much of and they’re going to rot in the storage unless you do it. Or maybe you’re neither one of the above and you don’t care for this article. It doesn’t matter if you’re a designer, copy, marketer, branding guy, salesman, librarian etc., what matters is that you should never forget this while working: you’re working for ordinary people.

You have to realize you’re not making a great design just to satisfy your artistic need or to cash some money from a client. In the end your client’s the one that has to like your work. I know you agree with me and if we’d live in a perfect world the professional would be given complete freedom by the client and things would be different. But look, we live in a world full of filth and we have to clean it up.

I sometimes loose myself on Facebook trying to get rid of motivational crap, YouTube, coffee mugs or those kind of “shocking news”. How do these things get on my News Feed? It’s simple. I have ordinary people as my friends. They’re not all designers, marketers, social media experts, etc. They’re not all professionals that will agree with (or like) a smart status, image, link, etc. They’re ordinary people who like ordinary things. 1+1=2

So what about our work, then? Aren’t we supposed to make things look good, solve complicated problems, “clean this world of its filth”? Of course we do. Don’t get me wrong. If what you’re doing, you’re doing right, keep at it.

But always remember that the work you’re doing will eventually reach the final man.

Think like an ordinary man!