dream/day/job

August 7, 2006 10:24 AM

Case of the Mondays Filter: if you're stuck in a corporate job, but aspire to a creative job, how do you make your time in the cubicle count?

I know people who put in time at their day job, then spend all other hours working on their website, garage band, novel, etc. But how about maximizing efficiency and letting "the Man" work for you too? (works best when the day job and the dream job have at least some overlap)

The job: I work in a large investment firm's communications department. We're like an in-house publishing group, creating presentation materials for our sales and marketing team. Mostly print stuff, pitchbooks, with a few PowerPoints... we're a little behind the times (other companies doing Keynote presentations, podcasts, webcasts). I basically do a lot of routine desktopping, updating financial charts in DeltaGraph, Excel, Illustrator and InDesign. I want to put my English major to work one day in a more creative industry (web publishing? instructional design?), but for now this job provides financial stability.

The challenge: finding opportunities for creativity (and transferable skills!) in a boring financial job. I took over our Corporate Style Guide to get proofreading/editing experience. I reorganized our intranet site to get more web content experience. These are good diversions, but I feel like there are untapped resources a large corporation could provide... if I only had a strategy!

Have you strategized a way to milk the desk job for all its worth? Have you used technology and mad web 2.0 skillz to jumpstart a boring job? Chime in! I'll bet a lot of us are in the same boat...

posted by milkdropcoronet to work & money (4 comments total)

The strategy is this

And its fairly easy. Talk to your bosses and see what they say. IF you do have good ideas that add value, demonstrate your skills and initially are part of work outside your main responsibilities. You'd be surprised.

Take initiative. If you feel as though the job is a dead end, you are still stupid for not being agressive and trying to get the most out of it whilst slowly and progressively finding the RIGHT job....
posted by Funmonkey1 at 10:31 AM on August 7, 2006

I was in a similar situation at an engineering firm. I was trying to bring a social networking model to internal communications but was eventually fired. That was not the direction my boss wanted to go. The upper-level management was afraid of giving up their supposed control of communication channels.

So now I'm writing screenplays while collecting unemployment and looking for a communications gig that fits my interests.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 11:08 AM on August 7, 2006

I don't feel the job is a dead end at all, so I hope that nullifies the accusation of stupidity and non-aggression.
posted by milkdropcoronet at 11:10 AM on August 7, 2006

Personal Experience: I am a theatre carpenter, but I spent three years working as a general office schmoe for a small architectural firm just a few years ago. The reasons for this choice are best left undisturbed, but the point is taht I found myself in a simlar situation. I was bored by the day-to-day work that I was presented with, but I felt that there was a sort of wave of creativity just out there that I could tap into if I tried. (that's a kind of flakey way to put it, but I think you get the idea...)

What I did was start poking into things that I thought were interesting and/or possibly relevalnt for myself later. I had to type the contracts, but knowing that I might need to write my own someday made me pay a lot more attention to them than I might have otherwise. I also took every chance I could get to look through the drawings and models that were out; I looked through the magaziens we had out; I chatted up the more interesting folks at work; in short, everything I could think of!

Honestly, it sounds to me like you are already doing all the things that I would suggest. I would only add that you should make your interests clear to your supervisors. A decent supervisors will recognize the value of what you are trying to do and will be happy to help ou. If you don't get this reaction, then you may be in bigger trouble...
posted by schwap23 at 4:40 PM on August 7, 2006