2 weeks ago at work, we had to send files of graphics we had created to another church. It took almost 2 days to pull everything they wanted and then condense it to a sendable format. I was also a little frustrated by the whole concept. It's common practice that anything you design for the company you work for is considered their property. So if you design a logo for a business, you charge a higher rate because hopefully that logo will be in use for years and years to come. If you simply design a letterhead, it doesn't cost quite so much because that gets updated periodically. Anything you know that will get multiple uses has a higher fee. Then you have my situation, which is an hourly rate, and because it is a church, is substandard pay for the industry. Again, a common practice. Yet it frustrated me a little bit that something I had spent weeks creating was being given away for free. I agree with the principle. Ministries should share resources. And I totally agree with that. But when I stop and think about all the churches who are using my designs, and my pay is already lower than average to begin with, it makes me feel as if my work is cheap or worthless. And yes, I do hear Mom's voice whispering, "Kingdom work has heavenly pay" but that doesn't comfort a whole lot when I spend hours on something that I know will be given away without any compensation in any form or fashion. So we sent all the files. Turns out this church has its own graphics department, AND the Adobe software we use, so they wanted the original files to modify (and for a design firm to turn over original, modifiable files, that would cost an arm and a leg). I typed a nice sweet e-mail, and grudgingly sent them. Last week I got the above flowers delivered to my office with a very nice thank you. As stupid as this sounds, those two days I spent giving away my work to another church suddenly didn't seem so outrageous. It's nice to be appreciated, and it was nice knowing that someone recognized what was "above and beyond" my job description without me ever saying a word. Now if I could only get a raise.
2 comments:
I appreciate you Monica, I really appreciate all that work you did on something I will never see:) I also appreciate your new blog picture- fruit! I also really liked the top you were wearing Sunday and meant to tell you that red looks great on you!
I think you should start one of those websites where you tell people about your miserable existence and then beg for monetary donations to your paypal account. Or something. Then you wouldn't feel so bad when people from all over the world help to give you that raise you deserve.
Now, did I have a point in here somewhere? I doubt it. Just trying to be my usual, non-sarcastic self as I travel the web and make people feel better about themselves. Or something.
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