Sometimes, throughout the course of life, we encounter people that are a little weird. They behave or believe differently than you do, and that’s fine because we’re all different and it’s those differences that makes interaction with others more interesting. But, then you have the people that are just downright crazy.
The word “crazy,” gets tossed around a lot. Almost as much as the word “amazing,” but that’s another story. You’ll hear people say things like “Dude, the last level on that video game was so freakin’ crazy!” or, “Traffic was backed up for miles – it was just crazy.” I don’t really think these people know what crazy means. Check this out:
crazy |ˈkrāzē| informal
adjective ( -zier , -ziest )
1 mentally deranged, esp. as manifested in a wild or aggressive way : Stella went crazy and assaulted a visitor | a crazy grin.
• extremely annoyed or angry : the noise they made was driving me crazy.
• foolish : it was crazy to hope that good might come out of this mess.
2 extremely enthusiastic : I’m crazy about Cindy | a football-crazy bunch of boys.
3 (of an angle) appearing absurdly out of place or in an unlikely position : the monument leaned at a crazy angle.
So, what I’m focusing on, here, is the deranged, foolish, and absurd form of crazy. I mean, like, bat-scat, off your rocker, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest crazy. But, who specifically am I referring to, you ask? Not any one person. There are times when both parties in a business relationship can act in an idiotic and senseless manner.
On one hand, the designer can be a brainless nincompoop if he/she offers the client all three objectives of the Project Trifecta (time, money, quality). If a designer ever tells you that they can do a job for super cheap, super fast, with super high quality, they’re either being really nice, really dishonest, or really stupid. And, in some cases, all three.
On the other hand, the client can be a real dumb-ass if they expect the designer to wave his/her hand over the computer and use “The Force” to instantly manipulate the cellular structure of the pixels on the screen. Kinda like this:
Client: “We have this great idea to do an animation for a children educational television show for kids with autism so that kids and parents know how to properly deal with the behavior. We need you to do the pitch animation for us to show PBS. Once we get the green light, we want you to start working on six 25 minute episodes. You think you can get some of your friends to help out and do one episode per week?”
Me: “An episode per week?! That’s impossible. I done research how long an animated TV show takes and one episode of Family Guy or The Simpsons takes about 4-6 months.”
Client: “What? No. That’s not right. If it takes them that long to do one episode, they wouldn’t be on air.”
Me: “Well, I’m telling you as an animator, one week is impossible.”
Client: “Well once we get the money, anything is possible.”
Me: “…”
Or, how about this?
These and other ridiculous stories found at:
Me: ”I will create a login box on your website. Once someone registers and logs in, the website will recognize who the user is and provide relevant content.”
Client: ”That sounds great. However, instead of a login box I’d like to use biometrics to identify the user.”
Me: ”Not sure what you mean.”
Client: ”When someone visits the website, I want them to be able to put their hand on the monitor. The monitor will then scan their hand to confirm who they are. I think that would be a lot more engaging. How much extra would that functionality cost?”
Me: ”Several hundred million dollars.”
Client: Why are you being a wiseass? Can you do it or not?
Me: ”No. Sorry. That’s a little too advanced.”
Client: ”Fine. I’ll try another web designer.”
Cypress Hill: Insane in the brain.
So, why do I insinuate these people are insane? Because they clearly don’t understand the physical limitations of time and space. They must believe they’re living in a Wonderland where nothing is impossible. Well, that’s all fine and dandy if you’re one of those extremely positive, over-achieving go-getters that’s gone plumb loco from hanging out with the hooka-smoking caterpillar.
See, there’s this place called reality. The majority of us live there. This is a land where we know what’s possible and what’s not. A land that fully grasps the laws of nature and the ultimate truth that lies therein. As designers, there’s only so much we can do. We can only push ourselves so hard and our computers can only perform a limited series of actions. Kinda like this:
It was a friday afternoon, ten minutes before quitting time, when the account team raced into the studio of a major ad agency—they ran right to my desk and dropped a handful of paintings and photos in front of me. “We need your help—but we promise it’ll only take an hour.” I understand about advertising deadlines and I was the “go to” guy when jobs were on the line. “Sure,” I said, “whatcha got?”
They showed me a completed illustration: a painting of a man in a rowboat on a lake, with the wake of the boat spelling out the name of their product. The also showed me some photos torn from magazines which were probably reference pix for the painting. Lakes, man in boats, that sort of thing.
“We commissioned this illustration,” they explained, “and we decided we want to give the client another choice, but we have to ship the ad to the printer and we have no more time. We want you to reconstruct the illustration from these magazine pictures, but it has to be ready to release, so you have to make it really polished—and make it sharper and hi-rez.”
“You realize, if I can do this, it’ll take about 12 hours, and no guarrantee I can make it look like a real photo,” I advised them.
“Yes, you can. You have Photoshop!” The art director screamed. Meanwhile, one of the account guys brought my boss over, who corroborated everything I said.
“Listen,” I said, “you have a finished illo, but if you really want me to do this I will, but I can’t have it done before tomorrow, and that’s if I stay all night. your illustration will still look better.”
The art director blew his stack “LOOK—THIS WON’T TAKE MORE THAN TWO HOURS!!” And then he added “I’D DO IT MYSELF IF I KNEW HOW TO USE PHOTOSHOP!!”
The confrontation happens when one person believes the ultimate truth of the situation is one thing and the other person believes it’s something else. Sort of like the majority of the world knowing and understanding the earth is round and rotates around the sun, whereas others believe that we’re all living on the shell of a giant turtle. See? Crazy.
So, what do we do about it? How do the rational, sane people and the stark raving mad come together to accomplish the task at hand? What do both parties need to do in order to maintain a healthy, continual working relationship with one another?
Trust.
The designer needs to trust the client to communicate exactly what they want effectively, fulfill their obligations and responsibilities, keep the relationship strictly business and be held accountable to these things via the contract they should have signed at the very beginning.
The client needs to trust the designer to know what they’re talking about and communicate the limitations of their job without being rude or offensive. The client also needs to trust that the designer is coming through with their end of the deal – charging the correct amount, meeting the deadline and completing excellent work with superior craftsmanship.
I think trust and truth go hand in hand. When people are honest, sincere, reliable, ethical, upstanding and reputable, they communicate, interact, and perform their duties the same way. They’re people that are trustworthy, sensible, faithful and virtuous. When both parties reflect these ideals, it makes for a very pleasurable transaction and everybody walks away happy.
Conducting business any other way is just plain crazy.
