Job Description?

I had a bit of a realisation whilst driving home from work today. It was about my new job.

I imagined a conversation in which somebody asked me what I did for a living, it went something like this...

So Nathan, what do you do for a living?...

I'm a product designer...

Cool, So what do you design?...

I basically abuse the planet, designing 'stuff' that gets made on the other side of the world, the 'stuff' then gets used and then buried underground to cover up my crime.

Oh...

Another one for the wall of fame!

Dear Nathan,

Thank you for your interest in Astro Studios. We have reviewed your submission, and while we did find it interesting, unfortunately your skill set does not match our current needs.

Thanks again for your interest in Astro, and we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

ASTRO

Rejection.....Numero 2

Dear Nathan,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your application for this position within Dyson.

After careful consideration of your application, unfortunately we will not be taking your application any further on this occasion, but please do continue to look for new positions within Dyson at www.careers.dyson.com

Thank you once again for your interest in Dyson and very best wishes for your future career.

Yours sincerely
Steven Morris
Human Resources

Rejection.....

Hi Nathan,

I am sorry about the delay in getting back to you, it has been a very busy few weeks for us with 100s of applications, our managing director away on business for 2 weeks coinciding with our creative director becoming a father for the 2^nd time last week, really put a strain on the whole process and I apologise or not getting back to you sooner

We didn’t expect the volume or quality of applications,

Unfortunately I regret to inform you that we will not be considering you further as a potential applicant for this job, competition was simply too strong for the junior position and a lot of senior designers are willing to take this role

Thanks for your interest with design partners

Learning from your mistakes....

There has to come a point for all designers when you make the switch the being sustainable. You have to, otherwise as a species we aren't gonna make it.

Me and a friend pooled what change we had over the weekend to get a couple of happy meals, complete with plastic toy. Looking back, it was a really irresponsible thing to do. Firstly theres the unneccasy packaging, whos working life last all of the 20 metres to the rubbish bin.

The toy? i should have thrown it back at them and told them to stop making these worthless pieces of shit, how many millions of these things have been made over the years and are now lying at the bottom of a land fill site?

Theres also the corporation itself, i dont know if the carbon footprint of macdonalds has been calculated, but it has to be immense and sadly my £1.95 has just contributed a few more grams of CO2 to it.

McStupid

Open source design........the future?

About 2 weeks ago i was invited to take part in an open sourced design experiement with around 80 designers around the world. Although slow to start it was amazing to see people who have never met working together and achieving a good result at the end. I was able to work from home, for as long as i wanted with just the use of a laptop and internet connection and get paid for my contribution.

At a point in time when there's so much talk about pollution and climate change, taking my car off the road for a few days and eliminating the need for an office for me to work in seems to make a lot of sense. How this would translate into other vocations outside of design though i'm not sure, but its surely worth a shot.

A new project is due to begin soon, watch this space!

P.S. Thank you Napkin Labs for the opportunity!!

At what cost?

I took this picture whilst in a record shop over the weekend. See the small caption underneath the screen.......'This is Living'. I found it really sad that this could be true for some people. There's a lot more to life than video games, get outside, go for a walk, have a decent conversation with somebody. Don't become a slave to a little black box.