It’s great when you find the perfect match between your challenge and solution. The right ratchet for your nut or the perfect swing for a hole-in-one.
As a web designer this often means choosing the right technology to support your end goal. Should the site be static, or CMS-based? Or will it be completely custom, like a web app or something built upon a 3D framework? Then each one of those paths carry a big set of choices of their own. It can be daunting, but good web designers don’t shy away from making the hard decisions carefully. After all, it’s a choice between long-term usefulness and prosperity versus wasted effort.
I ponder these things and am thinking that we need to be equally careful about choosing our people.
For example, a few years ago I took a job at an interactive agency which was looking for a designer with some Flash skills. The job began with a mix of both interactive work and design, but after a couple years I was only doing the technical work with no creative at all.
I began to have an internal struggle over this because I enjoyed programming and loved the company, but I was trained as a designer and was not prepared to abandon that other love of mine. In the end, my heart for being a designer won out over my heart for the company and job, and I eventually left to start my own business.
Although the changes in heart and job resulted in my leaving, I did work there happily and effectively for four years and we parted on very good terms. I would call that a successful employment.
In filling that job I believe my employer did well, because my heart matched well with their own corporate philosophy. Skills and versatility were important, but more important was that I agreed with their philosophy of caring for their people, having fun, being responsible and working hard.
The heart is most important. This might seem like a no-brainer, but if your organisation serves Liberals you don’t fill your positions with Conservatives. If your company exists to promote Christianity you don’t hire atheists. You don’t hire known anarchists for government jobs and you don’t outsource national security projects to overseas organisations if you can help it.
Any of these examples is like using a hammer to drive in a screw. It might sort of work, but in the end you will probably regret it.