Chucked by Cara Sanders Robb
Note: This mugshot of Jane Fonda will serve as a placeholder until Cara sends me a real photo.
Throughout design school, I believed the entire schpill: if you were successful at PC (read, had critiques where certain panelists praised you and were given awards at each quarter) you would get a high paying job in a high profile, happening city and you would love your life and owe it all to your education. Really. And if you were REALLY successful at PC (that is, made your critique panel cry instead of vice versa and were given best in show at least one quarter) you would get a high paying job in a high profile, happening city at one of the firms that EVERYBODY knew and EVERYBODY loved and EVERYBODY would talk about YOU at the next aiga conference. Total success, huh?
Four years out, my version of success has changed drastically. Success is knowing what I believe in and what I stand for and acting in a way that promotes that. Success is seeing my husband in one piece (not always a given as he is in the military) and snuggling with my dog in front of a good Bravo TV show. Success is only related to my job in as much as that it is a means to an end, a life I can enjoy and a platform from which to grow and help others grow. Success at the office means having a happy client whose life you touched because you did something they could not and did it kindly and with a heart of service and joy. I look at design as I look at other professions: an opportunity to touch and enrich others with the added bonus that I can pass on a certain appreciation for small, often unnoticed details. It’s not always the most beautiful end result, but the emotion and response is beautiful. And that, in itself, should be enough.
Cara Sanders Robb, Designer and Yellow Lab Owner and Wife of a Navy Officer in Iraq, Greenville, South Carolina
If you would like to submit your own personal experience to Chucked, email it over to: sarah@minus-five.com
